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Modern relationships are confusing. Gone are the days of our parents where you told a girl you were going to marry her, went on five dates, and within a year had three kids and a house in the ‘burbs. Nowadays, things are a little more fluid and there are a lot more relationship options.
You could just be fuck buddies and solely rely on each other for sex. You could be friends with benefits, and have a relationship based on sex, but also enjoy each other’s company. You could be exclusive, which means you’re dating but you don’t want to admit you’re dating. You could have a roster, you could have exes you’re still banging, and you could actually be in a real relationship (one that’s on Facebook and everything!) You could also be “talking,” which is a bullshit phrase that encompasses anything from “we’ve been messaging on Bumble for three days” to “we’re celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary next month.”
Basically, it’s a clusterfuck. And to add to all that confusion, any one of these relationship stages could lead to a different stage, making it very complicated to figure out how the relationship actually started. Were you fuck buddies that travelled through all stages until you were official? Did you jump right into exclusivity? Did you start as fuck buddies in college, try and date, realize you’re not right for each other, remain friends with benefits, become exclusive-but-still-refer-to-each-other-as-“my ex,” before finally growing up and becoming boyfriend and girlfriend? All of these are plausible and all of these happen constantly because of all these unconventional routes to a serious relationship, it’s more difficult now than ever for a couple to figure out exactly when their anniversary is.
This is an issue I’m going through right now. My girlfriend and I are approaching a year together, but I’m not sure which exact day we’re going with as our anniversary. We met on a dating app, went on several dates and quickly progressed through the “talking” stages until we were official. But which date do we pick as our relationship starting? Is it the first date? We hit it off immediately, but it’s not like we knew exactly where this was going. Is it when we decided to be exclusive, a topic I foolishly brought up literal days before I was going on a trip to Vegas? There’s also the day I officially asked her to be my girlfriend, although I doubt she finds the memory of me saying “so I’m too drunk to figure out how to introduce you to my friends, wanna be my girlfriend and shit?” as super romantic.
I’ve spoken with other couples and gotten a variety of answers. One of my best friends and his girlfriend just picked the day of their first date as their anniversary because it was the easiest date to remember. Another friend told me he picked the date they first said, “I love you,” because up until then he was still hooking up with another girl. The fluid nature of modern dating makes it so that there is no consistent time for knowing that a serious relationship has started, and therefore everyone has to decide based on how their own timeline progressed. As for me, I’m leaning toward our first date, for several reasons.
One, it’s a date I can actually figure out. I remember it was a Wednesday because my now-girlfriend was late due to her tutoring a refugee family on Wednesdays, and I know it was the week leading up to my friend’s wedding, so I’ve managed to nail down a specific date. Secondly, we were both pretty committed to each other from the get-go, so there were no other hookups or relationships mixing things up before we officially became exclusive. I could tell there was something special going on between us, and in very uncharacteristic move, I decided not to fuck it up for once in my life. Thirdly, our first date was actually the most romantic out of my relationship step options. We discussed exclusivity while lying naked in bed and eating pizza (awesome, but not romantic). I asked her to be my girlfriend while drunkenly stumbling from bar to bar at 4 p.m. on a Saturday. Our first date is the only story that’s fit to share with people, so just in case people ask, we won’t have to lie.
I think I made the right choice, but I’m not 100% sure. What do you guys think? How did you pick your date? Let me know. .
Respond
Nick Arcadia
The opposite of a life coach. Email or DM me if you want some bad advice: nickarcadiapgp@gmail.com
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Don’t do anything to celebrate your anniversary. The day she gets mad at you for forgetting is your anniversary.
Or get the gift, card, etc weeks before the possible anniversary. When she yells at you for forgetting the date, pull out the gift and card. Make dinner reservations every night until you get it right
It’s on the framed wedding invitation that hangs on the wall in the bedroom. It’s also the key code to my garage.
name checks out
You defer to whatever date the girl decides is your anniversary unless your married. Then that date becomes your anniversary.
Word to the wise: Go easy with the one year anniversary. If you set the bar too high you will regret it later. Flowers, Dinner, and a “thoughtful” gift (maybe a reference to an inside joke?) is where you want to be. Under $150 for all 3. Don’t be a hero.
Just pick Christmas to consolidate and save yourself the money of having to pay for shit multiple times. Plus like everything is closed on Christmas except for Chinese food places which will again save you money. With all that money you’ve just saved, you could then convert to Judaism and then never have to worry about celebrating xmass and your anniversary ever again and you’ll in turn save even more money. Don’t worry about the Hanukkah thing, just act like every single business and tell them it’s not in the budget this year.
Can confirm that this is awesome. Our “dating anniversary” is the day after Christmas so I can consolidate that into one. Now all I have to remember is our wedding anniversary.
Just asked my girlfriend what our anniversary date is, we still haven’t really exactly decided on it (we keep switching between the second and third dates). Her response, “I don’t know…does it honestly even matter?”
She’s a keeper.
I have been trying to answer this question myself. I think I landed on the date of when I slipped drunkenly in her shower, broke the hot water knob, sliced my left ass cheek open, and she had to scotch tape a bunch of paper towels to my ass to stop the bleeding. Seems like the most romantic option.
When I was dating my wife – it was the day we went FB official. Because that was still real 7 years ago. Still expected to remember that date even though our wedding anniversary is the only one that counts in my mind.
Damn, I assumed the wedding anny trumped the dating one and you could forget that one.
Just make them the same (or close enough) and then nothing to worry about!
There is still much to learn.
First off, default to what she says. If that doesn’t work, go with the first date. Easy to remember and it should be a nice memory
Clearly haven’t been on my first dates
Had this exact conundrum in with my ex. Met on app, met each other out a few times, started going on dates and about 2 months in had the exclusive/bf/gf talk. Used that as the date, because even though I had not been seeing other people for those 2 months, I thought it would be weird to have the first date (or first time we actually met?) be it because I 100% was still swinging (read:missing) for the first few weeks of seeing her. Seems weird to have it be the first date if you had hooked up with other people between that and the talk. On the other hand some people seem to be together for years and never even had the talk in which case I have no idea what you would do and that gives me anxiety just thinking that someone could play the we never had the talk card at any time.
Maybe I’m out of the norm for girls, but I never celebrated anniversaries for dating or remembered those dates at all. I got a dozen red roses from a guy once to mark our one month anniversary and color me surprised, it was a bit embarrassing that I had no idea we were “dating” that long.
Now I’m married, so that date counts. But if you’re doing it right, and make her feel special on random days (or everyday if you’re a champ), then you don’t have as much pressure on the big dates.