Once upon a time, I liked this boy, and from what I could tell, he liked me back. We met through friends and we started hanging out instantly. The first date was fun and nerve-wracking and everything you’d expect. We started hanging out with each other’s friends. He met all my work friends and we meshed our groups together. Only a month in, our lives were pretty well intertwined with each other’s. Now I tried to take it slow, make sure I didn’t spend too much time around him and get too attached. But we were spending six days out of the week together, and before I knew it, I was starting to fall. Now this wasn’t the first time I’d been in this situation so I knew I had to be careful.
Being careful wasn’t really my thing, and I knew that I wanted to be more. So one night I got honest. I told him my feelings, my thoughts and what I wanted. He told me he felt the same way, but since he had just gotten out of a long-term relationship, he wasn’t ready to commit to me. I thought it over and since it had only been a little over a month, I thought with more time, things could change.
Thinking we were just kind of seeing each other, I thought maybe I should keep my options open. When I shared my thoughts with him he got upset, said he was only seeing me and, in a way, was committed to me. I asked why we weren’t dating then, and he told me he just wasn’t ready.
I should have known then. I should have known it wasn’t going anywhere that I was getting played. But that part of me, that mushy, lovey, hopeful part, said no, he says he cares about you, things will turn around.
And so I waited. And three months in, I was restless. We had met each other’s parents, were in each other’s friends groups, so why weren’t we dating? Finally, I couldn’t hold it in. I asked him, I told him I couldn’t sit here and wonder what we were, that I was either done or we make it work. He told me he was sorry, but he couldn’t give me what he wanted. Then he said he was done. That he needed time alone, and that he needed to work on himself. I stood in shock. The boy who had told me he wanted to keep this going, that he wanted it to work, was saying goodbye?
We decided to be friends. If he really wanted to be by himself and work on himself then I would respect that and be his friend. But a week after we ended things, he hooked up with one of his best friends old girl’s. Shocked, I tried to understand how he went from wanting to be alone to hooking up with another girl. He told me I had no reason to be upset, that we were never anything really and I just took everything he said too seriously.
After it all, I worked on just moving on. And it wasn’t until months later that I realized it wasn’t my fault. It was just how things were. It’s the new way of dating. So when people asked if I knew him, I’d reply, “we had a thing.” But what is a thing?
It’s exactly that. A thing. It’s an excuse to continually see someone without the commitment of a relationship. You have all the great things of the relationship without the title. It provides an easy scapegoat for someone to leave, because you’re not together, so you don’t technically owe the other person anything.
Take my best friend’s last “thing.” They more than two months talking and hooking up, and then one day he just stops texting her and she finds out through twitter that he got back with his ex. No explanation, no warning. He just left.
And it’s not just guys, because girls do it too. We get into the mindset to careless. That if we never put our feelings on the line, then we won’t ever get hurt. Instead of trying to fall for each other, we try to make the other one fall while holding our feelings back because it’s easier for us. Because if the other person cares more, than we are safe. It’s all about keeping a distance.
We allowed the dating world to change because we got tired of crying at night, tired of being broken hearted. We change our definitions of things so that we could get what we want without paying the price. The problem started when girls stopped expecting chivalry and guys stopped doing it. Instead of going out on dates or hanging out with friends, we go to each other’s houses and that leads to hooking up. And we stay satisfied with that. We don’t reach for more; we don’t want to look weak or needy to the other.
Instead of taking a chance and sharing our feelings, we stay unhappy in a complicated thing because it’s easier, and in our minds, it’s safer. But in reality, in the end, you just feel like crap. You feel bad about the fact that it wasn’t anything real. It was so easy, you never really grew.
We can expect the dating world to get easier, but allowing it to get worse isn’t the solution. We all have those hidden expectations, but out of fear of being alone forever, we lose those expectations and just go with what we have, and even if our heart doesn’t get broken, we still lose. Keep your head up and wait for the guy who wants more than a movie night hookup. He’s out there.