Queerplatonic
A committed relationship that isn't romantic, and isn't just friendship either.
A queerplatonic relationship is a committed partnership that is not romantic. Not a friendship that fell short of something else: a relationship of the depth and permanence usually reserved for romance, without the romance.
The word comes from asexual and aromantic communities, where it became clear that the available vocabulary had a gap. There was friend, there was partner, and nothing in between for two people who had built a life together without being in love in the usual sense.
What it looks like is decided by the people in it. Some share a home, finances, or children. Some are physically affectionate, some are sexual, some are neither. There is no template, which is the point: the relationship gets defined by its participants instead of arriving with instructions.
The partner in one of these is often called a queerplatonic partner, or a zucchini, a joke term from early aromantic forums that stuck because nothing better appeared. Both are in use, and which one someone picks tends to say how long they have been around the vocabulary.
It is not a lesser tier. The assumption that romance is the top of a ladder, with friendship below it, is exactly what the term rejects. A queerplatonic partner can be the most important person in someone's life, named in their will and present at every hospital appointment.
Anyone can have one. It came from aromantic and asexual communities and is used well beyond them, including by people in romantic relationships elsewhere at the same time.
Queerplatonic is not a friendship with a fancy name
The instinct is to hear it as close friends being dramatic. What separates it is commitment: an explicit agreement about a shared future, of the kind people usually only make when they are in love. Most friendships, however deep, do not carry that, and the ones that do are often queerplatonic without having found the word.
The other reading treats it as romance that has not admitted itself yet. Sometimes people do work out that they were in love. Usually not, and asking when they will stop pretending suggests a relationship only counts once it has become the familiar kind.
Saying it well
Say this
- We are queerplatonic partners.
- Committed, not romantic, and not a smaller thing for it.
- This is my QPP.
- We are buying a house together. No, we are not dating.
Not this
- So you are just really good friends
- You will end up together eventually
- Which one of you has feelings?
- Treating a queerplatonic partner as less than a romantic one
Questions people actually ask
What is a queerplatonic relationship?
A committed partnership that is not romantic, with the depth and permanence usually associated with romance and without the romantic element.
Is queerplatonic the same as a close friendship?
No. The difference is explicit commitment, an agreement about a shared future of the kind people usually only make in romantic relationships.
Can queerplatonic partners have sex?
Some do and some do not. The word describes the nature of the commitment, not what happens physically, and each pair decides for themselves.
What is a zucchini?
A term for a queerplatonic partner, coined half-jokingly on early aromantic forums because no better word existed. It stayed, and it is still used alongside QPP.
Do you have to be aromantic or asexual?
No. The word came from those communities but is used widely, including by people who also have romantic relationships elsewhere.