Unorthodox relationships

[Ganbare!]

Ever experienced original forms of bonding such as platonic love or bromance for example?

Competition and mockery fuel my relationship with a few of my friends, some sort of manly friendship with a twist of rivalry. We're always up for challenge, competing in silly no sleep contests or academic achievements, the battle is always fierce because we are all too proud to give in.

Even if none of us will ever admit it, we admire one another's personalities but far from lowering our combative spirit, it amplifies our will to triumph. Needless to say, I have more fun with these type of individuals than I have with the rest of my more unconditional social circle.

[Ganbare!]

I'll grant you that it's not that common but I'm surprised no guys here have such a rivalry type of frienship. Maybe it's my ambitious personality that draws other competitive people.

[tbw]

I don't see what an unorthodox relationship is really and I would have thought the relationship you have described would be normal on many levels!

Different people respond to different stimuli. I have some friends where competition for anything drives us in a fun way, but when there is nothing to compete about we can chill and do other stuff. Other friends are the very formal type where insults and swearing are far from the norm and so we act differently toward them so as not to offend them (too much!)

[Ganbare!]

^It really varies on people's norms. I agree about having various interactions depending on the individual but in my case we bring it beyond frat boys games, it's more rivalry than regular male friendship. What I wish to discuss here is alternative types of bonding (thus not limited to friendship) but sometimes these forms overlap with traditional relationships, so differences can be quite subtle.

[conorsoccr23]

/\ ur not gay u jus hav empathy 4 what girls feel lik

[ahliang]

the thread title was intriguing and i was going to respond to something in the politics forum but i ve fried a few brain cells over the course of the summer and i m literally sick of politics...urrr...what was i saying?

unorthodox...there s one that i have with my professor. it s a special relationship i guess. he s a retired professor and teaches part time; i was in 2 of his classes and after class we would talk about our travels and childhood. he s originally from Indonesia, his children are eurasians too btw, in fact i met his beautiful daughter yesterday. after class we would sip tea and talk some more. i see him every week despite no longer being his student, he s very caring and i look up to him a lot. we re both tigers (that should say a lot about his age)...thanks to him i m now a hospice volunteer, and i would say i also have an unorthodox relationship with the professor with alzheimer whom i visit every other tuesdays...that professor (the latter one who s "sick") gets treated somewhat like a baby but i feel like his mind is still there and i see myself in his actions...so i really wish people didn t treat him this way...not that it s bad because he s surrounded by people who love him and care for him but i know that his mind is still there. it s like when someone has a bad case of hypoglycaemia...his mind is not there in the moment but it still is there yet...you do things you don t realise you re doing but you hear yourself deep down trying to act normal...i recall him trying to act normal by flipping through the phone book and pretending to read and act interested. i knew he couldn t read but was doing this because he was aware of his condition and didn t want to show it (his condition being that he was regressing...just like how for some people when they d get hypoglycaemia instead of being conscious enough of their condition to ingest glucose they ll slowly start to regress, act utterly weird just being aware that something is wrong but not knowing what). that s when you REALLY don t need someone to tell you that what you re doing is weird or point out that your book is upside down because deeeeeeep down you re still conscious (conscious enough to know you re not well and conscious enough to be mortified). so what you re doing is to hide that you re not well and blend in so that people don t notice you even though without realising it, it makes you look even weirder. so when he does that i just try to ignore and show him that i m not paying attention to him or what he s doing. so only in his more lucid moment will i try to talk to him and act interested.
i feel that he s picked up on that because last time i saw him he winked at me before i left. i had ignored his weird act as he was trying to act normal while someone else had pointed it out. i just wish his family knew that even in his moments of blank outs he s still conscious enough to hear and realise he s not being himself...but because a spoonfull of sugar or a pill won t bring him back to his more "normal" state, we just need to wait and ignore his actions during these times...
i lost track a bit but yes, i d say we have an unorthodox relationship because i feel like i can somewhat understand him and i have a feeling that he knows that i can.

added: maybe i m completely disillusioned and maybe he doesn t think that at all but no matter what i wouldn t trade the relationship i have with him for any more conventional one... (though i do think every relationship you have with people worthy of calling your relation to them "a relationship" is unorthodox to the extent that it s special and different for every one).

[Papa Alpha]

It's not that my parents didn't raise me at all, but being three of us, they thought it was important that my brothers and I raised each other and left us mostly to our own devices. There's an unshakable respect between us three, it's raised eyebrows a couple of times and I've heard the statement, "Wow, you guys really look after each other," quite a few times. Also, because of our parents decision, I grew extremely close with our dog, a white akita whom gave birth to five puppies when I was about 2 or 3. I loved those dogs and used to draw pictures of myself as a dog in stories about that particular pack. Most of the canine comments I make are meant to be comical, but really, I feel closer to dogs than I do to most people. Hell, when I raise dogs, it's always by the pack and I'll spend more time with them than probably is healthy, including sleeping on the floor with them. I don't however, think I'm a dog.

[quiapo]

It seems to me that each relationship is unique, and therefore unorthodox. Stereotypes can be so limiting . . .it seems in every relationship, there are 2 realities trying to merge, and the outcome is unique for every relationship.