Mutually investitive friendship

So I was going to tell you half my life story and ramble about relationships for a few thousand words, but I’ve thought better of it. However, back to this new word I learnt. At the end of the discussion night on relationships the other evening we were given some practical guidance on acknowledging the different stages of relationship (though these may not always be discrete).

Stage one was “casual friendship”, which is perhaps obvious, but there was some talk about what’s appropriate there and what’s not, with some encouragement to actually have casual friendships and not be so uptight that you don’t talk to people of the opposite sex (so long as absolutely always you’re treating each other as brothers or sisters in Christ).

Stage two is where it got interesting. It was “deeper friendship”, but after that was the curious “(MIF)” in parentheses. And what this stands for folks is “mutually investitive friendship”. I heard it later used as the verb, or was it the gerund, of “miffing”. (Now did I come up the Clyde on a banana boat or do other people talk about “miffing”?) I did appreciate the concept though. And it is a reminder that at this point what you have is friendship and there’s no need to rush on. (But you need to communicate, without over-communicating in relationship.)

Then there is stage three, which is “courtship”, where you’re going to think about marrying each other, so you put each other on trial and see the ugly stuff, but you don’t play at marriage or think you belong to each other yet. But you do ask why you're not engaged eventually.

Stage four is obviously “engagement”, and it’s not wrong to end these if it becomes apparent that you should.

'Twas interesting. And some aspects of the Q and A I found particularly interesting also, but that’s all for now.

Picture from: http://www.tressugar.com/Can-Men-Women-Friends-245373