Relationship Anarchy and Categorization

I found this Web page:

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/andie-nordgren-the-short-instructional-manifesto-for-relationship-anarchy

It's not the first description I've found of relationship anarchy, just the most recent. Relationship anarchy is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around, but at the same time it seems like it could be super good for me, a little like learning to drive standard without learning to drive automatic first. Once you can do it, you can drive anything.

As I understand it, relationship anarchists don't categorize people. They don't have "girlfriends," "partners," "friends," etc. Every relationship is unique and therefore defies labeling. I love this part of it: since every relationship is unique, the participants need to discuss the relationship and talk about their feelings. Yes. This is part of what I love about poly in general. When I was monogamous, there was a lot of assuming, and although any two people can misunderstand what the other is about on occasion, in my current relationships we try and minimize assumptions. But with regular poly, a person might say, "Yes, you are my partner, and here is what that word means to me. Let's discuss it." With RA, a person might say, "I have XYZ feelings for you. Let's discuss it."

I can sometimes find a lack of labels to be anxiety producing. If I don't have a word to hang on someone, I don't know where I stand with him, and have a hard time knowing how he feels about me. Even if someone says, "I love you," if there's not a word like "partner" accompanying it, I can get anxious. Calling something a name feels like a guarantee of permanence, even though there is no such thing and there's not really much point to pretending there is.

Striving for a more RA outlook is good for me. I think I'm letting myself miss experiences by categorizing people or insisting that they be categorized. For example, I don't fuck my friends, because I've done that in the past and it hasn't gone well. But if I don't think of friendships as separate from other kinds of relationships, the stress that accompanies a bout of friend-fucking doesn't have to exist.