I've been sitting with a question that most people never think to ask: What exactly is a relationship? It's one of those words we toss around so casually—"I have a great relationship with my sister," "My relationship with my boss is complicated," "I'm building relationships online"—that we rarely pause to consider what we actually mean. But lately, I can't shake the feeling that we've stretched this word so thin it's lost its shape, or perhaps we've never quite known what shape it should take at all.
This isn't just semantic curiosity. It's the beginning of a deeper exploration I'm starting, one that examines the terrain between the people in our lives and the words we use to map those connections. Because the more I think about it, the more I wonder: Are we overusing the concept of relationship, or have we simply never stopped to define what makes something worthy of that name?
The word "relationship" seems to have biological roots—the kind of connection that comes with shared blood, family trees, and DNA. But if that's the foundation, we've clearly built far beyond it. We call our marriages relationships. We describe friendships that way. We even speak of our relationship with colleagues, with church communities, with people we've never met in person but know through screens and pixels. At what point did a connection become something more? At what point did it earn the title of relationship?
Maybe the real question is whether that distinction even matters. When I say I have a relationship with someone, what am I really trying to convey? Am I signaling closeness? Commitment? Frequency of interaction? Or is it something more elusive—a sense that this person occupies a particular space in my inner world, that they've moved from the periphery of my awareness to somewhere nearer the center?
I think about the people I interact with regularly but wouldn't call relationships. The barista who knows my order. The neighbor I wave to. The online acquaintances I exchange pleasantries with but never go deeper. Are these connections? Certainly. But relationships? Something in me hesitates. There's a threshold somewhere, invisible but real, that separates casual interaction from something that feels weightier, more substantial.
Perhaps it's the quality of the exchange that matters. In a true relationship, there's a bidirectional flow—not just information traded back and forth, but something of ourselves offered and received. There's vulnerability, even if it's small. There's the willingness to be known and to know in return. There's a sense that what happens between us matters, that we're not just passing ships but vessels traveling together, even if only for a season.
As someone who follows Christ, I find myself thinking about how He spoke of relationships. He didn't just interact with people; He saw them. He moved past surface pleasantries into the terrain of the heart. And perhaps that's the marker I've been searching for—not the frequency of contact or even the depth of shared history, but the willingness to truly see and be seen.
This wondering isn't just an intellectual exercise for me. It's born from the recognition that the words we use shape how we understand our lives. If I call every connection a relationship, do I dilute the meaning of the word? Or am I simply acknowledging that humans are relational creatures, and every genuine connection—no matter how small—carries its own sacred weight?
I don't have tidy answers yet. That's why this is just the beginning of a series of reflections I'm pursuing. But I'm learning to sit with the questions themselves, to let them stretch my understanding rather than rush toward conclusions. Because maybe the pondering is the point. Maybe in asking what makes a relationship, I'm really asking what it means to be human, to be connected, to matter to someone and have them matter to me.
And that, I'm discovering, is a question worth living with.
