What are QPRs like?

[Guest]

I'm hoping this is the right place to put this. If not tell me and I'll move it.

So recently after discovering and reading about QPRs I thought that some characters I ship romantically could also suit being in a QPR. I enjoy reading fanfiction so I looked online to see if I could find any fics where they are in a QPR and lo and behold nothing! So now I want to write it myself since I'm desperate for this. I've never been in a QPR before so I'm asking people who have been in one:

1. What do you do in a QPR? Any particular activities?

2. How did you come to be in a QPR?

3. How do you personally describe a QPR?

Also! if you have any other information you think could be useful feel free to share!

[nonmerci]

I have never been in a QPR myself and I don't mind it, but once I wrote something I view now as a QPR without knowing it, so maybe it can be useful for you.

It was before I knew what aromanticism was. I wanted to create a very strong friendship, with two characters being very close without being in a romantic relationship. Because I wanted to show that friendship is important too, and that a boy and a girl can be committed to each other even if they are not lovers or members of the same family. In the end, instead of friendship, I start to see them as a "family" but not by blood, only by heart. And when I heard about QPR, it was clear to me that it was what I created, because :

-the way they feel for each other is beyond what they feel about their other friends (not that they have many other lol but still)

-they have a perfect understanding of each other, they don't need to talk, they know what the other think, how they react, what they feel; of course I guess it is possible in a friendship too, but it's hard to find such friends; I'd say that it was possible for these characters because they lived similar experiences

-they can talk for hours, have private jokes only them can understand… again, not Something that you can't have in friendship, but my two characters see this as something unique that only them can understand, and that they can't have with their other friends

-they are very touchy (is that a word?) (one of my character can turn into a wolf and love when  my other character stroke her in her wolf form; which is somehow an equivalence for people fondling another person hair, which is seen as romantic); touches like this is seen as more romantic than friendly usually

-all my other characters think they are in love lol, because their link is deeper than what they expect for friends, and because a boy and a girl could not be this close without being in love with each other (spoiler alert : yes they can); I also had a comment by a reader who was seing their behaviour as romantic (because of the touchy thing).

 

I don't know if it helps you. I personally find it very hard to differenciate QPR from a closed friendship, in particular as I never been in one. For me it is mostly the feeling that have to differ (the way the QPPs see themselves), but I always have difficulty to give a definition, because I always have the feeling that in term of activity it does not necessarily differ from what we could do with our friends.

 

Good luck!

[BlueKumul]

@nonmerci Isn't that just romance in denial?

[nonmerci]

3 hours ago, Blazkovitz said:

@nonmerci Isn't that just romance in denial?

Not at all. What made you think that?

The only thing I view as romantic in what I say is the physical part. And still, physical intimacy is not always romantic (it is very present in familly context too). And in my novel,  it is présent more as a dog thing lol (one of my character is half wolf and enjoy touching on her Wolf form the same way a dog enjoy being petted).

Also there is a lack of a lot of romance things :

-butterflies or whatever people say to describe what the presence of a love interest do in it's body

-thinking all day about the other

-fantacize

-speaking oddly (for some reason people speak oddly to their crushes)

-feeling of romantic love.

 

one of my character has a love interest and really, I wrote this completely differently.

[BlueKumul]

3 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Not at all. What made you think that?

 

AFAIK QPR is only for two people, it's exclusive and thus I see it as a kind of pair bonding. Stuff like "thinking all day about the other" or "butterflies" is not present in people who have been married for 20 years, but you wouldn't deny their relationship is romantic. Speaking oddly to one's boyfriend or girlfriend? I don't think it's common at all!

 

We have to separate the essential concept of pair bonding (which traditionally leads to marriage) from pop-culture cruft surrounding it.

[nonmerci]

I personally think that after a few years the feeling of being in love  disappears to become tenderness. Or at least that the first passion dis appears to become something else. That's why there is no butterflies or thinking about the lover all day any more.  I think there are studies that say romantic love disappear after 3 years (or maybe that's just an expression?). Well, I think it is more moving from passion to something softer, though there are still romantic feelings involved they are different.

I also believe that long term marriage don't work without platonic content, but that's another subject.

 

However, pair-bonded relationship haven't have to be romantic (and romantic relationships don't have to be pair-bonded, aka polyamory). I do agree that there are some amatonormative qtuff in QPR (the concept of platonic soulmate, the definition itself "more than a friendship but less than romance"). But I don't think it has to be that way.

[BlueKumul]

Would Maeve and Sinbad in the Canadian adventure series count as a QPR couple?

 

Also, for non-asexuals, is there sexual desire involved?

[lonelyace]

11 hours ago, Blazkovitz said:

Also, for non-asexuals, is there sexual desire involved?

Some queerplatonic relationships do involve sexual attraction and some don't. That's what makes qpr's simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. They're such a new concept that there really aren't defined rules and expectations for them. A qpr can be two friends who want to be friends forever. It can be two people who feel like their connection goes beyond friendship but still isn't romantic. It can be a committed friends with benefits type situation. There's really no end to the ways that qpr's can look.

[Maximus]

The last QPR I was in was like a deep friendship. We did some romo coded things (like holding hands and calling each other "love"), but for the most part it was just like having a best friend. But like a best friend that focused on you and you focused on them. 

We watching a lot of movies and sat close to each other (but not touching cause I'm very touch adverse). We played video games. We hung out with each other's families and were friends with each other's siblings. We told each other everything. I'm not ace , but she was and I'd talk about people I was attracted to sometimes and she was cool with it (yes I'm touch adverse, but not ace. It's weird for me too). We ate food together a lot. Um one time, we went to a dance and dressed up fancy mostly cause we both love fancy clothes. We did Theatre together so we hung out during breaks. It was nice to not have to pick a random person when someone asked who my crush was. I could just say my girlfriend, even though I hate that word with a fiery passion. I mostly called her my partner (sometimes partner in crime).

We were both closeted about being aromantic so we told our families we were dating. My mom always said we were an "odd" relationship and I think that's cause we were not in a relationship as she sees them. Her mom said we "didn't have to pretend not to love each other" around her. Which I also think was because of us being in a QPR. We definitely treated each other very differently then our friends treated their romantic partners.

We came to be in a QPR by trying to be in a romantic relationship. It was very clear it was not working. I came out to her as aromantic and explained it to her. She was really interested. She had known she was ace for a while, but didn't know there was a romantic equivalent.  We broke up and were friends again. She came up to me like a few weeks later and said she thought she was aromantic too and I was super happy. I had never met an aro person in real life. A little while later (like a few days), I asked if she wanted to be in a QPR and she said yes. We were together for almost a year until I had to move away so we broke up. We're still friends though.

 

There's another close friend of mine that we are kind of getting into a QPR. She seems to be interested in it and I am. I haven't asked her yet, but I'll probably bring it up before too long. We met in my first semester of college in a Calc class and have just hung out constantly since. I used to spend like 9-10+ hours a week with her. Not really doing anything special just watching movies in her dorm, eating food, or talking about the our fandoms (only one of which overlaps). Well and we talked about LGBT stuff since she is ace (I really have a type nerdy aces). This semester I haven't got to spend as much time with her cause our schedules are not very compatible, but we still spend 3-4 hours a week together and we talk on the phone. We just kinda clicked. There wasn't anything to it other than that.

[eatingcroutons]

On 12/4/2019 at 11:44 AM, lonelyace said:

They're such a new concept that there really aren't defined rules and expectations for them

I don't think this is a function of QPRs being a "new concept". I think it's a fundamental, and fundamentally important, aspect of a QPR that it doesn't have "defined rules and expectations". The entire point of a QPR is that it's whatever the people involved in it want it to be. 

 

A QPR may look more or less like a friendship, or more or less like a romantic relationship, depending on the expectations and boundaries of the QPR and how well those match with society's expectations of boundaries in friendships and romantic relationships. 

 

But there's no singular set of necessary or sufficient conditions for a relationship to be a QPR. A QPR is any relationship that is sufficiently different to the typical social categories of "friendship" and "romance" that the people involved in the relationship prefer to call it a QPR instead. 

[lonelyace]

12 hours ago, eatingcroutons said:

I don't think this is a function of QPRs being a "new concept". I think it's a fundamental, and fundamentally important, aspect of a QPR that it doesn't have "defined rules and expectations". The entire point of a QPR is that it's whatever the people involved in it want it to be. 

 

A QPR may look more or less like a friendship, or more or less like a romantic relationship, depending on the expectations and boundaries of the QPR and how well those match with society's expectations of boundaries in friendships and romantic relationships. 

 

But there's no singular set of necessary or sufficient conditions for a relationship to be a QPR. A QPR is any relationship that is sufficiently different to the typical social categories of "friendship" and "romance" that the people involved in the relationship prefer to call it a QPR instead. 

I fully agree that flexibility is an inherent and important part of qpr's. I think what I meant is that it's new enough that there are no stereotypes or set societal ideas about what a qpr looks like. Because realistically we can also define friendships, best friendships, romantic relationships etc in any way as well. You could platonically kiss your best friend. I personally, as an adult college student engaged in a romantic relationship with an alloromantic person who knew that I was aromantic, but because we defined our romantic relationship as holding hands and hanging out a lot, it worked for both of us. The thing is, people don't often think about breaking out of normative ideas of what one type of relationship involves because these relationship types have set ideals ingrained in society. Those don't exist for qpr's, which aids the ability for qpr's to be whatever the people involved want it to be.

[androidingly]

As others have stated, a QPR is basically whatever you want it to be tbqh. But that's not super helpful so I'll describe the QPR I'm in and have been in for some time

 

Basically I had been dating my partner for a while romantically before I realized I was aro and came out to him. He is one of the most important and intimate relationships of my life so we decided to stay together, just shift out of a romantic version of things.

We talk everyday, go on dates, are there for each other emotionally, are tactile as in hugs and cuddling (tho not kissing since I dont like it lol), we have sex because we're both sexual people as well.

But there's no expectation that I have to be "romantic" with him. We don't do valentines day, and don't plan to move in together or get married or anything like that.

Often it feels like we're just making the rules up as we go along and that's the whole appeal for me!