Formal, personal, intimate relationships, what’s the difference?

Of the urgent need to understand formal, personal, intimate relationships, you say, at least what you call me, but do not push me into the oven. People have such a chronic disease: to call things and phenomena not by their proper names? We all know that whatever you call it, it will.

In particular, what relationships, for yourself, you will consider, calling them casually, so they will be, your own efforts.

For example, now it has become fashionable and usually represent intimate relationships as a sexual relationship, well, or, in the old mode, as a sexual relationship.

Meanwhile, not only in dictionaries, but also in life, Russian people have always understood intimate relationships as “deeply personal, intimate – intimate relationships.”

Unlike just personal relationships, sexual relations, friendships, companionship.

Or, for example, formal relationships for many – “this is when you are approached.” And I did not realize that formal relationships can be and are, and in the family, and in the relationship of lovers, and so on.

That is, formal, personal, intimate relationships, although almost all have them, are often not understood at all as such.

For example, a visitor to a prostitute is not in an intimate relationship with her, nor in a personal relationship, but in a purely formal relationship in the field of sex and trade.

When, in search of a betrothed bride, they write: Intimacy, intimate relations are not offered, then, in fact, they mean: I don't need intimate, intimate relationships, but something simpler.

In general, by saying the wrong words, we not only distort the essence of phenomena and things, and, literally, distort the language, but, most importantly, cloud the truth and spoil our lives.

In particular, not understanding what formal, personal and intimate relationships are, we directly spoil our lives.

For this relationship, staying in it, in fact, is our life. How?

Well, just to be clear, a husband and wife can live in a purely formal relationship for a long time, believing they have both a personal and an intimate relationship.

And they will wonder: And why is our family life unhappy – and there is no understanding, and intimacy, and sex – no.

Formal, personal, intimate relationships, what is their essence? There are many types of relationships, and their content is not subject to, as they say, accounting, because how many people, so many unique relationships.

And even multiplied by several tens, because people have a lot of relationships, with different people and in their various hypostases.

So, first of all, from what his hypostasis is in the relationship of a person, such in the form of relations will be and are.

I would single out the main forms of relations between people: formal relationships, personal relationships and intimate relationships. Why?

Because these forms contain all kinds of relationships between people: from loving to hostile, from business to friendship, from sexual to parental, and so on.

Is that true? Let's see.
Formal relations – status relations

Each person is a person - has on himself that mask - a face that he voluntarily and forcibly put on himself in society. Voluntarily – on the part of his “I”, and forcibly – on the part of society.

But this is not all in a person’s personal forms: each person has a whole set of masks that she puts on herself depending on where, with whom, when and how she enters into a relationship.

These are the so-called status masks. Here's one person during the day, like a man:

- At home, husband to wife;
- Father for children;
- Chief and subordinate at work;
- Colleagues and colleagues;
- A man with men;
- A man with women;
- Lover with mistress;
- Ham or a cultured man on the street.

And so on and so forth. And all this during the day, and all this with an instant change of masks, statuses, with a change of scenery.

What is common in all these relationships? Right, all of them can be and, as a rule, mostly are, it is status – a person enters into a relationship, according to his status, with these people, in these circumstances.

That is: with his wife he has the status of a husband, with children – a father, at work – a boss, and so on.

And, note: all this, with an unchanged personality, the personality does not change and does not manifest itself, but only its statuses change.

What is important in terms of status? Wear and not remove the mask prescribed by society in this case.

Should you and your wife be husbands? Treat her like a husband, not like a lover or an uncle on the street. Should you be a father? So behave according to that status. And so on.

In other words, all such relations, if they are performed according to the status prescribed by society, are formalized – formal relations.

Formal relations are also because the personality itself, if it manifests itself, is very insignificant, no more to distinguish this person from those who are in the same status.

Like: Oh, this is my husband, he's always slow. Or: This is my subordinate, he's been drinking all the time.

That is, the main thing in these relations is not the attitude of the individual and to the personality, but the attitude of a status person as to the status: Be like that! Otherwise, we will start to treat you differently - our relationship with you will change.

More often, of course, for the worse, because status is, a priori, a restrictive prescription on the part of society - a social template for a person and an individual:

- Be like that! We have no time and no need to have a personal relationship with you – here, on you, the ready-made form of relationship to you and the form of your relationship to us.

Conclusion: Formal relations are those relations that have the established form and the established main content of these relations.

And the properties of the personality in them are ignored as unnecessary: formal relations are unified – suitable for many individuals if they have a status in such relationships.

For example, the status of husband and wife can have almost all men and all women. The status of the employee is known to all people. And so on.


Of course, formal relations are vital not only for society, as levers for regulating the behavior of its members, but also for the person himself.

Although few people like formal relationships as leveling personality, many personalities find their charm in formal relationships.

For formal relationships remove personal responsibility for relationships: I do everything as it should in my status, and the rest is outside my area of responsibility, activity and competence.

A completely different situation develops when a person, even in a formal relationship, begins or tries to start a personal relationship.

If in a situation of formal relationships, a person behaves as prescribed by status, then in personal and intimate relationships, he is guided by the “call of the heart” – manifesting himself as a person.

What is the relationship mechanism here?

Personality, in its essence, is the “I” of a person, actualized, realized in relationships, both with himself and with people.

In other words, a person is not an abstract person, but a more specific concept: a person endowed with his properties, manifested in his qualities.

The next concept will no longer be an abstraction, but a concrete one: the personality of Ivanov, the personality of Lyuda’s neighbor, and so on. Unless, of course, we begin to classify individuals according to some trait. For example, the identity of a woman, the identity of a man, the identity of a child.

Personal relationships are relationships built on the manifestation of a person’s personal qualities.

These conflicts arise or may arise:

Features of personal relationships 1. Being in a formal relationship, a person tries to establish a personal relationship.

For example, being neighbors, someone wants to develop this formal relationship into a personal relationship.

If the desire to have a personal relationship is reciprocal, it can go from formal to personal. And if it wants to have only one side of the relationship, then personal relationships will not work.

At the same time, one and the second person will remain in mutual negativity in this relationship: one person from the fact that they wanted to impose a personal relationship on her, and the second from the fact that this personal relationship was rejected.

2. Personal relationships are a very slippery slope.

For the personality, a priori, is a complex complex of properties and their manifestations – qualities.

In the relationship of personalities, the qualities of personalities are intertwined in a complex tangle of likes and dislikes – the acceptance of personality qualities or rejection, to one degree or another, and in one amount or another.

Depending on what is outweighed in the relationship, the negative or positive, the personal relationship will either take place, will be conflicted, or will not take place at all.

3. The most important thing in personal relationships, if they exist or are only established, is the balance of mutual desires and interests as conscious desires.

That is, if formal relations are established, and often simply imposed, as a necessity, then personal relations are built purely on the interests and desires of the individual.

As I want, I treat, or do not want to have in common with this person, I do not want to have relations with these people – this is the principle of personal relations.

4. Personal relationships can change into formal relationships and vice versa.

For example, a wife can be a wife, performing only the status of a wife. But, she can change this relationship into a personal, personal relationship with her husband, for example, loving him or hating him with all her fibres.

But, by the way, in the relationship of a husband and wife, the opposite often happens: starting with a personal relationship, a husband and wife, sometimes, keep the relationship, but transferring them to the status of a formal relationship.


Every person who has learned the bitter and sad experience of relationships with people, consciously or subconsciously afraid to open up - to show themselves completely, even in personal relationships.

This is manifested in the fact that the person “does not agree”, “dark”, hides, in relationships with other people.

This “something” is usually the true interests of the individual, or even the true qualities of the individual.

It is not always a deliberate deception, it often happens that a person, for example, trying to show himself better than he is, acts, portraying himself as what he really is not.

That is, in other words, taking into account this circumstance, in personal relationships there is a degree of trust in the individual.

If this degree of trust is very high, then the relationship turns into an intimate relationship – a particularly trusting relationship.

And, since men and women do not have the property to trust as sexual and, often, social competitors, intimate relationships arise between men and women.

And, since the highest degree of trust is to entrust your body to another person, what happens during sex, the concept of “Sexual relations” is firmly fixed for intimate relationships.

Even in modern dictionaries, intimate relationships, intimacy, are interpreted as synonymous with sexual relations and sex.

Although, it is more correct, from all points of view, to distinguish, nevertheless, borscht from flies. If only because sex is not only physical affairs, but also, to a greater extent, spiritual affairs - emotional and sensual: falling in love, passions, and so on.

And, moreover, sex, most often, is in the form of formal relationships. Execution of “marital duty”, prostituted sex, friendly, disposable, casual sex and all forms of non-traditional sex, as a rule, is status sex.

A man and a woman have different statuses of sexual, sexual partners here: from macho, passionate woman, to, sorry, fuck, "honest giver" and husband, womanizer, and so on.

In fact, entering into a formal relationship, but trusting your body in sex with a partner, here, a person does not even enter into a personal relationship, and not what is in an intimate relationship, if you look at the truth.

Rhetorical question: Isn't that why we humans have so many problems with sex, from sex crimes to misunderstandings between sexual partners?

But, there is, and not so rare, intimate relationship, when a man and a woman are close to the degree of kinship, not only in bed, but also in personal relationships – their hearts and souls – mind and feelings, open to each other.

When, in fact, between them is what many, including myself, consider love. For love is definitely an intimate relationship, no matter how you look at love.

What, where and with whom to have a relationship? Well, you know what I'm going to say, right?
It is your relationship – it is your life – it is your choice: what, with whom, how, when and how much to have a relationship.

But why, in fact, I wrote this article: not always your choice is only your choice, and not always it is the right one.

And that means that not only does your life get bad, but at the other end of your relationship, people get hurt.

I am sure that if a person understands his relationships, being able to distinguish formal relationships from personal relationships, and intimate relationships are not confused with formal and personal relationships, then his life will be much easier and better.

Author Vladimir Fesyuk published

Source: love-family-life.info