quotables

A New Way to Label Your Most Confusing Relationship

Mindy Kaling, creator of a new relationship category.
Mindy Kaling, creator of a new relationship category. Photo: Courtesy of InStyle

InStyle asked Mindy Kaling to define her relationship with B.J Novak. Are they friends? Lovers? Friends on the brink? Soul mates?

Theirs, like so many relationships, just doesn’t fit into one of the conventional boxes like “monogamous,” “open,” “polyamorous,” or “declining.”

Instead, Kaling, always there with a perfect description for that which we cannot name, came up with this:

I will freely admit: My relationship with B.J. Novak is weird as hell. He is not my boyfriend, but he is not my best friend. I guess you could describe our relationship as a “romantically charged camaraderie with loud arguments,” but I don’t think Facebook would accept this as a new status.

Mark Zuckerberg: Could you please consider adding “romantically charged camaraderie with loud arguments” as an option?

A New Way to Label Your Confusing Relationship