I don't even like to use the word relationship. I don't know

Hear the restless words of Ron Silver, who declared with candor: “I don’t even like to use the word relationship. I don’t know what it means.” In this confession lies the struggle of the human heart to define that which is both fragile and immense. For the word relationship is often spoken, yet its essence escapes capture, like smoke rising toward the heavens.

Silver’s unease reveals the truth that love and human bonds cannot be confined to syllables. The word relationship has become a vessel too small for the vast ocean it seeks to contain. It is spoken of casually, as though it were simple, yet in reality it carries countless shades of joy and sorrow, trust and betrayal, union and solitude. To claim to know its meaning fully is to claim mastery over the very mysteries of the heart.

When he says, “I don’t know what it means,” he voices the doubt of many who have wrestled with love. For what one calls a relationship may be devotion, another may call dependency; what one names love, another may name illusion. Thus, the word itself becomes uncertain, even deceptive, while the experience remains raw, vivid, and beyond definition.

In this saying is also hidden wisdom: that perhaps it is better to live love than to name it. Words divide and limit, but the truth of the heart is lived in action—tenderness given, loyalty shown, presence kept. Silver’s hesitation to embrace the word is an urging to look beyond language into the living reality of connection.

Thus let this teaching be passed down: do not be deceived by the word relationship, nor imagine that naming it grants understanding. For the bond between souls is greater than language, deeper than thought. It is not in the naming but in the being—how one loves, how one honors, how one endures—that its true meaning is revealed. And so the wise approach it with humility, confessing mystery rather than claiming mastery.