Sarah Hempel wonders why many people classify “committed relationships” as something other than being “single”:

I am not sure what this means exactly. I understand dating exclusively, but since you are not yet married or betrothed, serious dating relationships are still comprised of two single people. Plus, I find the word “committed” to be vague and, quite frankly, rediculous. So, you haven’t pledged life-long fidelity to one another, so “committed” means what? Committed until someone better comes along, until we have a huge blow-out and break up, until we tire of one another? Marriage promises “until death do us part;” what does a “committed relationship” imply?

I’m not sure one can fail to draw the distinction between “single” and “betrothed” and not recognize “committed relationship” in the middle; after all, betrothed (or engaged) means “until death do us part unless I come up with a good reason before the marriage ceremony why we shouldn’t stay together,” which doesn’t seem to be very different from the definitions provided for “committed relationship” except there’s now a slightly stronger promise to keep (and more people get annoyed if you break it).

Nor am I really sure “divorced” is a meaningful separate category either. Single, married, and widowed seem to cover all the bases pretty well, and even “widowed” is troublesome and could easily be lumped in with “single.” So, here are the two types of relationship:

Married: I’ve promised to spend the rest of my life with someone else and am still following through on that commitment.
Single: I’ve done no such thing.

Sarah Hempel has followed up on our discussion of relationship categories from a couple of weeks ago.