Queerplatonic relationships consistently are seen as a type of friendship even when they’re accepted, and when thinking over how I can explain my desire for non-romantic partnership I’ve realized I cannot comtinue to use the same framework that our amatonormative society uses to do this. Instead, I created something called the Dynamic-Affinity model (great name, i know). I’ve broken them up into two sectors:
Dynamics essentially answer the question “what role do you and the other person(s) want to play in each other’s lives?” The only ones I have defined right now really are stranger, acquaintance, friend and partner. Family is still of an unknown for me personally. Strangers are people who you don’t know, acquaintances are people you don’t feel like play an intimate role in your life, friends are people who help you in life, and partners are people who you share a life with. Because these are divorced from feelings, this allows for something like a platonic partnership or a romantic friendship (in the modern sense). I also see the possibility of sexual friendships and partnerships thriving here too.
Affinity is basicially the answer to the question of “what do you feel towards them?” This is where words like queerplatonic, platonic, sexual, etc. come into play. I’ve always though the word “queerplatonic” was an adjective in the same way that “romantic” was, as it described the type of feeling you had for someone.
I want to leave room for uncertainty and fluidity, as a personal annoyance i have with the SAM model is how strict it can be. If you aren’t sure what dynamic you want, you can just generalize it to being a relationship. If you aren’t sure what you feel, you can either just define it by the dynamic you want since itl be easier to figure out what you want that way, or put adjectives like “intimate” or “casual” instead.
If this seems like a good idea for you, you may use it aa I kinda intended it to be used lol. It’s not THE model nor the superior model, although i find it personally better for me it’s just not that inherently, so don’t feel forced to fit into this nor force others into it, please. If you have any ways you’d modify it whether for yourself or as a whole, feel free to share.
