Degrees of Friendship

For my lesbian timeline series I have been mapping out a rough timeline. As part of the process I have a list of all the girls along the way. I sort of have them categorized by degrees of friendship in my mind. Here is my personal friendship scale.

The scale starts at completely platonic friendship. This includes reasonable time spent together, normal friend activities, no sexual tension, and no sexual or romantic contact.

The next step is a middle ground that I call a 'homance'. You might have heard the term 'bromance' before. Well this is the female equalivent. The defining characteristic is the ammount of time spent together (every waking moment) and the type of activities enjoyed (dinner and a movie). This relationship is not romantic or sexual but takes as much time and energy as a relationship.

The third type of friendship, the passionate friendship, I had never really heard of until I read the book Same Sex in the City. According to the book, a passionate friendship is a "friendship that doesn't allow itself (due to inhibition/lack of recognition/lack of language/social sanction) to develop a 'proper' relationship." I was glad to have words to describe this mess of a friendship. Key indicators include sexual tension, a serious crush held by one or both parties, flirtation and inuendo without acknowledgement, and a near relationship type friendship (without the sex). These often happen when straight girls are involved and often end in heartache, yearning, and drama.

The end if this scale is of course an actual romantic relationship that includes sex.

I know that there are lots of other types of friendships and I am by no means trying to make any iron clad definitions, but I just thought I'd give you a little background of my classifications so that when I say "I had a total homance with D," it makes sense.

<3