Why is everyone talking about Oli? What did i miss???
You have probably figured it out by now. But I'm assuming it's from this quote in the Euphoria Magazine interview:
"After taking on a journey through various sonics, Tomlinson closes Faith In The Future with the melodic and most tender song, “That’s The Way Love Goes.” After playing around with the tracklisting, Tomlinson claims that he “couldn’t get away from that idea,” adding that “you’ve got two options to end the album: you either end with a slap round the face or a little ballad moment.” Detailing a non-sexual love between two best friends, Tomlinson is confident that this is a song fans are going to adore. “I think it’s an interesting story, an interesting visual going through the song. With the way the album is structured, it kind of fits nicely to finish on that message. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on the first album because there weren’t enough peak moments of energy,” he says."
"After taking on a journey through various sonics, Tomlinson closes Faith In The Future with the melodic and most tender song, “That’s The Way Love Goes.” After playing around with the tracklisting, Tomlinson claims that he “couldn’t get away from that idea,” adding that “you’ve got two options to end the album: you either end with a slap round the face or a little ballad moment.” Detailing a non-sexual love between two best friends, Tomlinson is confident that this is a song fans are going to adore. “I think it’s an interesting story, an interesting visual going through the song. With the way the album is structured, it kind of fits nicely to finish on that message. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on the first album because there weren’t enough peak moments of energy,” he says."
(...) Love’s a funny thing. What about the friendships that I’m forming makes them so expendable? Maybe it’s just what I grew up with. There are some who argue that friendship in our society is vastly undervalued. We set out to find “true” (sexual) love and fortune, and friends are the flowers on the side of the road. Deeply enjoyable, an important part of the journey but by no means the destination. I grew up where “just” friendship was always considered relatively expendable. Of course people will stay in touch, but it’s more or less expected that friends will be left for school, jobs, lovers, wives, husbands, kids and all of the other things that count themselves among the nonnegotiable quota of a life well lived. No wonder I’m cheap. Like the classics of my condition I spread my eggs among many baskets because I know I’ll be abandoned. I know that regardless of how close and committed I become to my (almost all sexual) friends they’ll keep up their all-but-obligatory search for the Right One. After hearing friend after friend drone on about their personal life without including me in it it becomes easy to get discouraged. And the discouraged are often predisposed to wander. (...) continue the read
- Tomorrow we'll publish the part 2. -
We want to say thank you to Ithaca for telling us about this interesting article! :)
The relationship hierarchy, or an excuse for extended metaphors about bookcases
So I tend to read a fair amount about the various kinds of non-traditional relationships that people (usually in the ace community, but sometimes not) get into, and how they navigate and conceive of these relationships. Recently I've been reading a lot about queerplatonic relationships because A. they're interesting, B. I have a few friends in them, and C. (let's be honest) Johnlock. And with all my platonic relationship reading, I keep running into the concept of the "relationship hierarchy."
Now, I won't deny that some people believe in the relationship hierarchy. However, I find it really hurtful when people assume that anyone who is in a romantic relationship is buying into the romantic hierarchy, and that no romantic relationship will ever be as awesome/fulfilling/lovely/full of sparkles as their platonic relationship(s).
Wait, is this reminding you of anything? How about, "Wait, how can you be dating if you're not having sex?" How about, "Aren't you lonely with only friends?" This is the same idea, but flipping it upside down.
The real problem with the relationship hierarchy isn't the idea that romantic relationships are better than platonic relationships but the fact that they have to be compared at all.
Let me use a terrible metaphor:
Imagine, for a moment, that you have a bookcase. But it's not a normal bookcase--it's crazily shaped, so for each spot in the bookcase, there's only one possible book that will ever fit there. Now, let's assume that each spot in the bookcase represents a relationship in your life. If you're aromantic, maybe you just don't have a shelf for romantic relationships. If you're demiromantic, maybe your romantic relationship shelf is hidden behind one of those crazy pressure-sensitive hidden panels, so you don't even find out it's there until you're already pushing another book into a spot. (Unrelated: I really want this hypothetical bookcase.) If you're polyamorous, maybe you have more than one spot you can fill on your romantic relationship shelf.
Okay, have you got your bookcase all imagined?
So, here's the crazy thing: a book in one spot won't stop me from having a book in any other spot.
And in the same way, no relationship I have will ever prevent me from having any other relationship.
I have a romantic partner (in crime!), but he isn't the center of my life. Unlike certain anti-romantic-hierarchy people argue, he doesn't give me everything I need or want. We don't share all the same interests. He has his friends who he goes on crazy (and potentially dangerous) adventures up mountains with, and I have my friends who I fangirl and obsess and deduce with. (This is not to say that I don't go on crazy mountain adventures with my partner, because I totally do. And sometimes I fangirl at him and he tries not to be confused by my ALL-CONSUMING OBSESSION.) We have some shared friends who we cook with and watch nerdy movies with and build balloon-powered truffle mobiles with. I can't say that he provides me with everything I need emotionally, because he doesn't. He provides me with a lot, but if we just had each other and no friends whatsoever, I think we would be much unhappier people.
On the other hand, I have my friend, who I'll call E. We've known each other for...gosh, more than 10 years now. We don't talk as much as we should, since we live pretty insanely far from each other, but when we do have time to talk, she's always a delight. We fangirl. We come up with crack theories. We deduce. We talk about relationships. We talk about life. Sometimes we go on crazy adventures and get lost. One time she put a piece of cake in her hat on a dare (and then put her hat on her head), which is unrelated to anything but still a terribly odd story.
Do I get the same things from her, emotionally, as I get from my partner? No, of course not. She fits into a completely different spot on my bookshelf. If we ever tried to live together, I think we would drive each other completely around the bend, but that doesn't mean that I love her any less. I would be much more likely to go to my partner for emotional support during a stressful period in my life, but that has more to do with the sort of relationship we have than any sort of devaluation of my relationship with E.
Here's another example: I have another two friends who basically got me through the horrible homesickness that was the first few months of study abroad. My partner is lovely and was completely willing to listen to my ranting and raving and collapsing on various pieces of furniture, but my friends had actually been through the experience and thus were the ones I turned to when things got bad. Without them, I honestly think I might have given up and gone home, but they were understanding and sent me silly pictures to cheer me up and helped me talk through the problems I was facing. They have their own spots on my relationship bookcase, and they can't be replaced.
Now, I'm not saying that everyone needs a romantic partner. I'm not saying that everyone needs a life partner, whether romantic or not. I'm not saying that the relationship hierarchy doesn't exist as a social norm, because it certainly does. But I am saying that I don't appreciate the assumption that just because I happen to have a romantic partner, I'm somehow placing him over my friendships. Because there have definitely been times that I've said to him, "Hold on, I have to go help [my friend] with [something]," and there have definitely been times that he's said that to me, and it's not as though we go around keeping tallies of who each of us has done nice things for and making sure that they don't exceed the friendship quota, because that would be dumb and counterproductive. We care about each other (quite a lot, actually), but we also care about other people (and/or cats). And if someone were to ask me, "But who do you care about more, your partner or E?" I wouldn't have an answer, because it's not some sort of contest in which there always has to be a winner. There are some days when E has some crazy Reichenbach crack theory and I think, "Wow, she is amazing(ly crazy)," or she's written some brilliant short story and I just want to bask in her glory. And then there are some days when my partner and I go randomly exploring sea caves, and I think, "Why can't this be always?" or he manages to blow my mind with some crazy sci-fi speculation and I just want to bask in his brilliance and argue with him quietly about the social effects of gene manipulation.
In summary, throwing away the relationship hierarchy doesn't mean throwing away all non-platonic relationships. What it does mean is examining our relationship bookcases and determining how we can best arrange our books. If you only have platonic relationship books, that's cool! If you have a romantic relationship book, that's cool too! If you have a bunch of romantic relationship books, good for you! If you have a queerplatonic book or books, equally good for you! If you have a sexual relationship book, great! If you have multiple shelves of sexual relationship books, that's fine too! Just make sure to put dust jackets on them. Fill up your bookshelves with whatever makes you happy, and don't let anyone else tell you that you should have more/less of any sort of book or that one book is more valuable/sparkly/special/desirable than another.
