“When I hear the term ‘in an open relationship,’ I immediately think of people who want their options open yet still want to belong to the person they are with,” says sophomore Stephanie Goenaga at the University of Central Florida.
The vast majority of teens and young adults these days will most likely give you an ambiguous, yet similar, definition for the word “open relationship.” So, where do we draw the line? When do we decide the rules of the playing field, and how long after we’ve been hooking up with a significant other is it okay to define it as an open relationship status?
Most girls might say the minute they even mutter the term “relationship,” the guy runs for the hills and never looks back. Yet some boys, like sophomore Austin Martinez, counter that statement by admitting, “I would much rather the girl send out some subliminal clues that she’s interested in me as more than just a hook-up.”
Let’s say a girl, let’s call her…Adrianne, has been hooking up with this guy, let’s call him Brad, for a little over a year now. He likes her as more than a friend, but knows that Adrianne really isn’t looking for a relationship right now, in which case their relationship is only centered on the physical aspects with zero strings attached. So, what happens when one of them unintentionally runs into the other swapping spit with some other person at a club? Do they start yelling in the middle of Fubar and start fist pumping in a more “horizontal” direction, thus creating a very large awkward scene? Do they start sobbing and running out of the club to Burgers and Beer with their friends trailing behind them? Or do they sit back and continue grinding on the opposite sex as if nothing had happened? Nine times out of ten, the last option is never the case. Whether you’re Brad or Adrianne, usually the first two solutions would be the route of choice. But, why? Aren’t Brad and Adrianne JUST hooking up without any rules? These unanswered questions are always looming over us without any sort of promising conclusions.
If only there was a rulebook, a guide that showed the do’s and don’ts of relationships, but then what would be the fun in that, right? The simplistic, yet gorgeous Carrie Bradshaw most eloquently stated in her movie Sex and The City 2, “Every couple has the right to make their own ripples…we have the luxury to design our own life.” In other words, every relationship is your own canvas; you get to decide your color scheme, your paintbrushes, and whether or not to start with the lips or the heart first.