Ingredients of an ideal romantic relationship.

I've been thinking about what exactly makes a romantic relationship what it is, and there are three components essential to making a relationship complete. A physical, intellectual and an emotional connection. A physical connection is when you find your partner sexy and attractive. Lust, essentially. An intellectual connection is when you two are on the same wavelength when it comes to worldviews, and can have complementary mindsets. An emotional connection is... when you feel pain/joy/anger when your partner does. This is not my definition, though. I am the last person to ask about an emotional connection.

I made a Venn diagram to illustrate what I'm talking about.


Physical + emotional = pet, or in other words some kind of primitive/juvenile form of connection. Physical + intellectual = fuck buddy, because I say so and I know so. I was tempted to use friends with benefits, but then that implies some kind of emotional connection so I didn't. Intellectual + emotional is easy; that's just your run-of-the-mill friend that you care for and want the best for.

Out of all three relationships, I'd have to say the ones involving physical connection but lacking something are the most annoying, because convention has dictated that being physically intimate necessitates some kind of emotional/intellectual compatibility as well, but when either doesn't happen it makes one feel vaguely unsettled. I think trying to cultivate a physical connection is notably easier than the other two - work out, dress up, walk and talk sexily, whatever. But if two people have different mindsets, it's not going to work out. If you're not on the same mental wavelength as someone, you're just not. Trust your gut feel on this one. As for emotional connection, or what I call a "feeling", it's the kind of thing that you can't quite force, and typically happens when some kind of emotional trauma occurs, or with a LOT of time.

Hello life!