Defining the Relationship Talk: It Shouldn’t Be As Scary As It Is – Guest Post by T

Defining the Relationship Talk: It Shouldn’t Be As Scary As It Is – Guest Post by T

Long gone are the days of asking a girl to go “steady.” Nowadays, how two individuals find themselves in an exclusive dating relationship with one another is often a mystery. Instead, we live in a generation of “hooking up”, “talking” or “seeing each other”, “special friends” and “situationships”. People have lots of different words for it, what I call as “casual dating” might be a “friends-with-benefits relationship” to you. Ultimately though, they all refer to the same vague thing: a situation where two people who like each other enough to act like a couple, but who, for some reason or another, won’t commit to a full-on relationship. In a nutshell, it’s a non-relationship relationship, a relationship without the label. 

People have all sorts of preferences, and hey, if casual dating is your jam, I don’t blame you. I’ve been in enough situationships to know that it has its appeals. Don’t get me wrong, it’s stressful as hell, but it’s also alluring. On one hand, it can be frustrating if you really want to DTR and have a solid answer to the infamous “what are we?” question. On the other hand, the ambiguity often feels worth it if it means you get to hang out, cuddle, and sleep with your crush. But we all know that all good things must come to an end. 

With each new situationships, I thought I’ve learnt my lessons and that this time I know how to survive it. I invested myself enough to spend hours and hours talking, hanging out, and spending time together, while simultaneously holding back enough to hopefully not get my feelings hurt if things go sour. Truth be told, out of my many, many situationships, I was almost always the one who expected more. It’s simple really, when you’re willing to give someone so much, you’d expect that they’d do the same exact thing for you. It is usually because I have a gut feeling that the person that I’m seeing is not on the same page as I am that stop myself from initiating The Talk sooner. It’s always those “but I just got out of a relationship and it wasn’t a pretty break up”, “Why can’t we just enjoy what we have? Why make things awkward if it ends?”, or “I’m not looking for anything more” excuses that I know he’d say that stops me from asking for what I want for us. 

Without being in an exclusive relationship, the lines of expectations are blurry. Is it safe to assume that because you’re not hooking up with anyone else that your partner is not too? How long do you date casually before deciding to become exclusive, assuming both of you want to be? If I ask about being in an exclusive relationship too early, will it scare them off? I could list questions until my head spins.

The thing that I’ve learnt though, is that having The Talk doesn’t always have to mean that you’re asking for a label. In any relationship, whether it’s with a friend, a family member, or your boss, there needs to be a communication of a sort where both parties express their expectations of each other and the relationship itself. Don’t settle for the “I dont want a relationship right now” excuse, because that fear of relationship must have had come from somewhere, their past, their family, a recent story they’ve heard, so which part of the relationship doesn’t they want? And then you can start from there. 

It’s like this, if you are allergic to shrimps, and only shrimps, and you want to order a seafood fried rice with just the squids and fish balls, tell the chef what you’re expecting. You don’t just sit around and order a seafood fried rice, without giving any disclaimers and special requests, then throw the whole thing away when they serve you that just because it has shrimp in it and you’re allergic. That’s a waste of everyone’s time, yours, and most importantly, the chef that has invested their time, money, and ingredients to make the perfect seafood fried rice all for you. 

So, whenever you find yourself stuck in the middle of a situationship, and you’re dying to initiate The Talk but you want to save yourself from a heartbreak, maybe you can try communicating your expectations and ask your partner what they expect from you. Instead of giving away all of your love – or seafood fried rice – to someone who might end up being allergic to commitments and shrimps, save yourself the trouble and ask. When someone only respects their partner when they slap a title on them, they’ll make anyone who they unofficially date miserable. No relationship can function in a healthy way if one or both parties don’t care about the emotional state of the other. But if there’s communication, understood boundaries and respect, almost any kind of relationship can be a positive one — yes, even a “situationship.”

“Tarot reading is an attempt to understand ourselves better and discover how we might live better in the future”
Tunggu apa lagi? Yuk Narot!
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