The “I miss you”s and “hey babe”s get you wondering if you’ll one day be in a relationship with the person you’re dating. Without talking about what it is you want from each other, you’re just sitting in the dating pool until one of you realizes there’s no commitment.
When you start talking to someone you’re interested in dating, your interests, passions and flirtatious side begin to surface. As time progresses, you share laughs, tell jokes and probably start planning out a first date. At this point you’re anticipating the best date ever and the beginning of forever (well that’s if you’re a hopeless romantic like me).
Still unsure whether you’re exclusively dating, you drop hints through sarcastic jokes. For example, “I know you need to call up one of your hoes, ha ha,” or “don’t act like you don’t have other dates lined up, ha ha” ironically mean “please tell me I’m the only one you’re dating and that you’re really into me.”
Once you agree to strictly date one another, you’re showing that you want something more. I don’t talk on the phone for hours, call a guy cute nicknames and tell him random things throughout today in the hopes of a new friend (I have three sisters and that’s enough, trust me). I do it because I want to get to know him so well that he becomes my best friend and boyfriend one day.
Talking about where these hangout sessions and dates are leading to will occur whether you want it to or not. At a time when you both are out with friends who are in relationships, the thought slips in your head and one of you will ask at the end of the night, “what do you want out of this?”
Without the talk you both end up on different pages. While one thinks they have the title of a girlfriend or boyfriend, the other is thinking this person is really cool to have sex without labels. Someone is bound to get hurt unless there’s a mutual understanding of what is actually going on.
The pace of how well you’re getting to know that person will change but that doesn’t mean it’s over. Before discussing about having a relationship, you were seeing each other as often as possible and having fun together with company and in private. The difference now is that the attention is more on their personality, ambitions or the lack thereof, and whether being in a relationship is something you both even want in the near future.
Sometimes your expectations of being in a relationship with the person you’ve grown to strongly care about will not always go your way. The two of you could drift apart if one of you wants a serious relationship and the other one doesn’t. In other cases, you could both continue to learn about each other and find new ways to have fun together. However it turns out, it’s better than waiting with the fear of losing something you don’t really have.
Danielle Beckford is a freelance writer who enjoys volunteering for organizations, such as Queen Geniuses (which is an organization that empowers young girls.)
