A vari-relationship or variship for short is a relationship where the people involved don’t feel the same type of attraction(s) toward each other. I coined it with having in mind :
– aromantic people in relationship with alloromantic people (not aromantic),
– asexual people in relationship with allosexual people (not asexual),
– aroace people in relationship with allo people (not aromantic nor asexual),
– varioriented people in relationship with perioriented people (varioriented means your romantic and sexual orientation don’t match, while perioriented means they do match).
– relationship anarchists and polyamorous people that may have unconventional relationships,
– any other relationship where all the partners are ok to have a relationship while not sharing the same type of attraction(s) toward each other.
Examples of variships :
– X is aromantic bisexual and Y is biromantic bisexual (alloromantic). X feels platonic and sexual attractions for Y, while Y feels romantic and sexual attraction for X.
– X is asexual homoromantic and Y is gay (allosexual). X feels aesthetic and romantic attraction for Y, while Y feels sexual and romantic attraction for X.
– X is a biromantic heterosexual girl (varioriented) and Y is a lesbian (perioriented). X feels romantic attraction for Y, while Y feels romantic and sexual attraction for X.
– X and Y are both relationship anarchists. X feels romantic attraction for Y and Y feels queerplatonic attraction for Y. They don’t feel the need to make their relationship more “conventional” or try to fit it into a box, and it’s cool for them.
The key idea behind variships is that the partners are cool with having a relationship somewhat unconventional, out of the amatonormative romantico-sexual traditionnal relationship that society expects.
A variship can include any relationship elements or not : romantic stuff, sexual intimacy, queerplatonic-like stuff, etc. It’s all up to the people involved ! For instance, an asexual person with an allosexual person are in a variship, but they may or may not have sex.
The prefix “vari” is derived from the word “varioriented” since it means having mismatched attractions, I just figured I would take an already known prefix in order not to have too many complicated and confusing prefixes out there, plus variships are coined with varioriented and a-spec people in mind, so I thought it fits perfectly!
Variship is a word that can be useful for people who struggle to fit their relationship into labels like “romantic” and “queerplatonic” (etc.) because there’s a mismatch between partners.
Also, people that are in a variship may or may not be in a wavership too, these are not incompatible. It’s when the nature of your relationship is fluid : sometimes it’s romantic, sometimes it’s not, etc. It might be because one or both partners have a fluid orientation, or because one partner has a fluctuating romance-repulsion or sex-repulsion, etc. For more info : @wavership