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I’ve been a procrastinator for as long as I can remember. For some reason or another, I’ve been able to produce passable work the night before something important has been due. School, work, whatever — I could make it happen. Sure, maybe it wasn’t the best I could have done, but it got me by and I was okay with that.
This “put it off until later” mentality infiltrated my personal life on a couple occasions as well. It’s normally not too bad, usually just paying back friends for fantasy football buy-ins or taking my car to the shop. But there’s one case that’s been ongoing for a while that’s sticking with me now.
You see, I’ve been talking to this girl, Lila, since March. What started as a fun, fast moving fling has escalated into a game of relationship chicken that I didn’t even realize I was actively participating in until a month ago. It’s not that I haven’t been paying attention, it’s that we’ve both been very adamant since the start that neither of us want a relationship.
Yep. In true millennial fashion, we decided from the jump that we weren’t going to put a label on anything. That we would take things day by day and drop the safe word when someone took it too far. Being the overthinker that I am, back in May I proposed the question, “So, what happens if we’re still doing this six months from now and one of our parents are in town and they want to meet you or me?” to which we decided, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
From there on, it was all about having fun. We’d send each other late night texts and would get drinks at shitty bars, knowing full well that the night would end in one of our apartments. The next morning would consist of us rolling over and talking about ourselves for a while; a disjointed conversation where neither of us were asking questions, just talking about ourselves blindly so that the other person would know more about the person they were sleeping with.
Late night texts and spontaneous shots turned into “Hey, what are you up to this weekend?” and trying sake for the first time at a Japanese place where we had a reservation. Sure, the night would still end at one of our places, and yeah, we still sent the late night texts, but they were far less frequent. There we were, two people full on planning to head to the Shedd Aquarium on Sunday instead of brunch with our friends, but still not willing to start a relationship.
And that brings us to now. The game of Relationship Chicken has hit its peak. Maybe I’m looking too far into it, but she’s started straight up dropping hints that she wants to have the talk. Here’s the thing: it’s not that I don’t. I just like playing games and procrastinating.
So far, here’s how it’s gone.
– She brings up how long we’ve been talking, I request we go on a double date with my friend Hillary and her boyfriend.
– I talked about how cool her college town sounded, she said that we should go sometime.
– She asked if we should be going to concerts and Cubs games like my roommate and her boyfriend, I asked if she would want to go on a weekend trip sometime a few days later.
The culmination of this whole thing happened last Sunday. We were sitting on my couch and as I was finishing up a few emails from work, she turned to me and said, “I know we don’t really get all mushy, but I’m really glad you’re here,” and I told her I felt the same way.
I like her. I really do. The thing is, the second you attach a label to a relationship, it seems like there’s so much more responsibility or commitment involved. I fully realize that realistically, not much will change because we’re basically already there. If anything, it’s that when I talk about what we did over the weekend, I can call her my girlfriend as opposed to “this girl I’ve been seeing for a while or whatever.”
And like I said, we were adamant from the start that neither one of us wanted a relationship, and we haven’t really talked about it (or seem to have wanted to talk about it) since. We’ve been putting it off for so long, and if she reads this, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll just send me a text saying something to the effect of, “Glad we’re on the same page.”
But that being said, there’s only one way to find out. Guess it’s time for another chat. .
Respond
Charlie
Using sarcasm as a defense mechanism since 1993. At any given moment I'm either tired, drunk, or stressed out. Get at me at charliepgp@gmail.com or whatever.
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I don’t get this fear of defining the relationship, especially since it’s been six months. Like, what’s the worst that could happen? You actually communicate to each other clearly where you stand, because clear communication is the key to any relationship? You’ve been with this girl for six months (and I assume you haven’t been with anyone else in that time span), you clearly like her, so what’s the harm? Grow some balls, and go have the talk with her.
Is this the girl you’ve been using for her air conditioning?
That is a very ~millennial~ sentence.
You might want to have the chat with her before she has it with some other guy.
^^^ can confirm
Yea dude, you have a girlfriend.
Congrats on the girlfriend.
“We’ve both been very adamant since the start that neither of us want a relationship”. You fell into the trap, Charlie. All girls want a boyfriend.
She’s playing chess while he was playing checkers.
Yes, yes you do.
I think every girl at this point wants a relationship. She wants to say “my boyfriend” to her nosey coworkers instead of continuing to talk about her “friend.” That doesn’t mean she lied to you at the start or felt like she wasn’t ready for a relationship then. It just means time and how she feels about you may have changed her perspective.
This gave me crippling anxiety, I’m off coffee for the rest of the day, but congrats on the sex.
When we were dating, about a week or two into the relationship, my wife kind of sprung the girlfriend thing on me. She was talking to one of her coworkers and she mentioned “her boyfriend”…
…and the rest is history.
I imagine she referred to you as her fiancé before you proposed as well.
Shooters gonna shoot