I had lunch with a friend on Wednesday, curry in Lan Kwai Fong - a friend who I haven't seen that much of recently. We were discussing various mutual friends who neither of us had seen much recently, and as you do, we were doing a bit of gossiping. Some of the people who came up are in stable relationships, some are stably not in a relationship, and others are less stable. The particular thought was, if you haven't seen or heard from or about someone recently, what can you guess or assume about their relationship status? It came to me later that these different types of people can be described in terms of electronics:

Stable 'ON'

These are people who are in stable relationships - relationships which are long-term, or feel like they will be. Most marriages would fall into this category, but nowadays it's common for people to be this stable, without getting a piece of paper to confirm it. And of course the paper doesn't really mean that much anyway...

Stable 'OFF'

People who seem to be permanently single, and are relatively happy that way. This doesn't mean no dating, celibacy, anything like that - but it means that you can generally assume that unless you hear otherwise, they are not in any sort of ongoing relationship. As an example, career-minded people might fall into this category, since they are putting their romantic life second to their professional life.

Flip-flip

People who fall in and out of relationships, but don't seem to stay either single or attached for very long - more than a few months, say. If you haven't heard their latest, they are probably not in the same situation they were when you last heard, but it's quite hard to guess what they could be up to now. It depends on what part of their 'cycle' they are in.

Oscillator

People who are constantly switching. They may not be particularly relationship-minded and are probably more interested in some flexible fun - not getting tied into anything, but not going without either. If you haven't heard from them since last week, you're probably out-of-date, but on the other hand, there's not necessarily much point keeping up with what they're doing this week either, since it probably won't last until next week. For friends like these, you want to concentrate on your friend, not their relationships.

I have friends in Hong Kong who fall into all of these categories - some of whom will probably read this, and some of whom will recognise themselves. Of course, since these are generalisations, they aren't really true, and none of them are meant to be judgments - there are good and bad things about all of the categories. The other big thing to say is that, also of course, people change. Sometimes they are not happy how they are, for example a flip-flop who wants to be stable 'ON' but is looking for the right person. Alternatively, people can change because other things in their life change, either things they have no control over, or things which are more important to them.

As for me? I seem to have moved from stable 'OFF' to stable 'ON' recently, and I'm quite happy that way!