So love v. in love is strictly sexual?

"Am I rating love? No. I do feel more in love with some people than others. I feel as it is shades of gray than a system of measurement."

Okay, there's an order (love-for-one-person is-greater-than love-for-another-person) that can identified by "shades of gray". That's basically a number line, a scale, or a rating, isn't it? I mean, if you're sorting out people by an amount you declare love for them, you're still sorting them.

"If you are associated with a person, you have a relationship with them."

Right. I have a relationship with the cashier at the Stop-n-Rob. But honestly, when you responded to Noel with "But why wouldn't it make it a relationship?" were you REALLY trying to underscore the idea that there was no difference between such a relationship and the romantic sort of relationship that most people tend to think of as "love"? Did you think Noel was talking about that, too, or is it really necessary to specify that this SHOULD have all been about relationships-of-the-romantic-sort?

Although to be completely fair, she did say "Rather than a romantic relationship, sure. "

"At the heart of the thread, I believe we are talking about romantic or emotional relationships. I do have a relationship with my friends, it's called, "friendship." "

Okay, yes, then I'll not pay attention to the hair-splitting above about how realtionships can cover "everything".

So, yes, romantic or emotional relationships. Yes, precisely.

And relationships with friends, yep, called friendship.

Usually, the bright line has to do with sex or sexuality.

"We've been using terms that are similar and are sometimes used interchangeably. It's all about context. "

Thus my questions.

Think of "relationships" like a pancake. This particular pancake only uses one cup of batter.

So, if you pour it into a small space, the pancake's going to be thick and tasty. If you spread it out to cover the area of your entire living room, it's going to be very thin and the bites are gonna be pretty airy. If you spread it out to cover a cricket field, then you might as well not bother calling it a pancake anymore, as you can pretty much poke a finger between the pancake molecules.

Using the word "relationship" is a lot like that.

If you spread it out to include everybody you ever encounter in life ("Hey, my keys just had a relationship with his car's paint job!"), then it pretty much loses its meaning, because you have to keep that spread alive when you refer to it. You can't say "Me and this chick had a relationship" and have it be anything more meaningful, because the word's been spread out to define all kinds of wacky shit.

So.

What most of do, is that we restrict that particular definition of relationship (the emotional/romantic one) to some SUBSET of the big spread-out one. Maybe we capitalize it, or make finger-quotes. In the thread above, unless you offer a compelling argument otherwise, I think it's pretty obvious we're talking about a pancake we can actually taste, that has some sort of thickness, that DOESN'T include "my foot had a relationship with the soda machine."

thus my question: what is, by your take, the difference between a friend and a relationship.

I don't think this is particularly a tricky question, and I've already answered it for myself, but I think it would be massively useful if you could, as that would probably clear up a lot of any future confusion.