The English word relationship seems to carry with it the notion of the relative freedom of the relata. Etymologically the word, formed from relation = re+ latio, means bringing back, being the past-participle of referre, or reference, as it were. It is one of that very large family of re- words, like reflect and recount, with their odd connotation of a doubling, or repetition. Relationship as a noun for the middle term leaves the two end terms in balance and essentially detached from each other; the relationship comes later and is attached on to them; it is an option and not constitutive of the matters or substances in relation. There is a certain appropriateness to this, but in the interpersonal context it misses a quality which is prominent in the German word Beziehung. At the basis of this form of two-ness there is a Zug, a ziehen, a pull or pulling, a drawing towards each other, or perhaps also a drawing away. The English words attraction/repulsion have some of this sense, but they generally refers to the initiation or ending of a certain kind of relationship, rather than its steady state. The draw, the traction, between two parties, suggests a symmetry, by default, as well as an involuntary character. Goethe's 'Elective Affinities', Die Wahlverwandtschaften, also seems a natural concept in a world where connections are understood as brought about by the forces aroused by complementary valences and exchanges (as we now say, of bosons). The Wahl, the election, or selective choice, cognate most likely with willen, to will, is also part of this complex, with its echoes in chemistry, which adds such phenomena as crystallisation, reaction, transformation, catalysis, exothery and endothermy etc. This energetic register provides an essential perspective on what we call relationships and assists in our efforts to understand just what it is that they relate.