maestrok Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 So I have been dating this guy for 4-5weeks now and we have been seeing each other almost every day during that period. We agreed on becoming exclusive about 2 weeks ago. And recently he has once or twice said im his girlfriend. He had not formally asked me and had never yet introduced me to his friends as his girlfriend. So i am a little confused and curious whether he meant serious/offiial gf or just in a loose sense someone he is consistently seeing? Should I initiate the conversation? How do i do that without scaring him? Also I would prefer him to initiate the coversation which would mean to me that he is eager to make me his gf.. But is there a way to make him initiate? And btw we have not slept with each other yet but its happening soon... so should i bring up the topic before or after? And lastly, do you guys think we are going too fast?
StayBeautiful Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 If you're exclusive, aren't you automatically his girlfriend? 2
Philosoraptor Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 Um, isn't that what exclusive means? And you move at whatever pace feels comfortable for you. No one here can tell you if it's right or wrong, trust your feelings.
Drseussgrrl Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 "And recently he has once or twice said im his girlfriend." You're also exclusive. Why do you feel the need to bring this up? Just keep rolling with it and have fun. Although for the life of me I can't understand why you're seeing each other every day. Be careful not to burn out and keep up with friends and activities that you had before him.
Author maestrok Posted July 18, 2013 Author Posted July 18, 2013 If you're exclusive, aren't you automatically his girlfriend? Hmm really? Idk. Some people i have dated before seem to think exclusive dating is not the same as being in an official committed relationship..? Arent they different?
Author maestrok Posted July 18, 2013 Author Posted July 18, 2013 "And recently he has once or twice said im his girlfriend." You're also exclusive. Why do you feel the need to bring this up? Just keep rolling with it and have fun. Although for the life of me I can't understand why you're seeing each other every day. Be careful not to burn out and keep up with friends and activities that you had before him. Yeah i mean we live practically in the same building so if he wants to get together briefly after work at night, i really cant find a reason to say no to... And i dont want him to feel rejected. Do you have any suggestions as to how to pace it in this case?
StayBeautiful Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 Are you American? I have to admit, I don't get how Americans always need to establish and confirm every stage of the relationship. Here in the UK, you ask someone out. If you go out more than a couple of times, they wouldn't be seeing anyone else. You don't need to have the "exclusive" talk. You'd be their girlfriend. Why do you need to have a talk about it? It's not like you need to have a ceremony or something. You just are. /\ the above doesn't take into account that some Americanisms are creeping in over here. But mostly, if you'd dated some for 2 months and found out they'd been dating others, that would be considered cheating. None of this "but you hadn't had the exclusive talk". And you would just be their girlfriend. No big discussion.
Star Gazer Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 Hmm really? Idk. Some people i have dated before seem to think exclusive dating is not the same as being in an official committed relationship..? Arent they different? They're different to me. Some people date exclusively by choice from the very first date because they don't multi date. That doesn't mean in those situations that you're an official couple, BF/GF. Being in a serious relationship is very different than simply being exclusive (which is exploring whether you *want* to be in a serious relationship by not being distracted by others). However, since he's calling you his GF, unless you tell him you're not, it sounds like you are. 1
Author maestrok Posted July 18, 2013 Author Posted July 18, 2013 They're different to me. Some people date exclusively by choice from the very first date because they don't multi date. That doesn't mean in those situations that you're an official couple, BF/GF. Being in a serious relationship is very different than simply being exclusive (which is exploring whether you *want* to be in a serious relationship by not being distracted by others). However, since he's calling you his GF, unless you tell him you're not, it sounds like you are. I guess what I was getting at is that he seems to use the term pretty loosely. Sometimes still say we are dating. And sometimes call another girl is his friend's gf when they are clearly not in a gf bf relationship.
in_absentia Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 Are you American? I have to admit, I don't get how Americans always need to establish and confirm every stage of the relationship. Here in the UK, you ask someone out. If you go out more than a couple of times, they wouldn't be seeing anyone else. You don't need to have the "exclusive" talk. You'd be their girlfriend. Why do you need to have a talk about it? It's not like you need to have a ceremony or something. You just are. /\ the above doesn't take into account that some Americanisms are creeping in over here. But mostly, if you'd dated some for 2 months and found out they'd been dating others, that would be considered cheating. None of this "but you hadn't had the exclusive talk". And you would just be their girlfriend. No big discussion. I'm British and would have to disagree with this, just to provide a little counter-perspective! In all of the social circles I run in/am aware of, you do need to have the exclusive discussion, or a talk to establish whether or not you're in a relationship (bf/gf). If you dated somebody very intensely for a few months without the 'talk' and found out they were also dating others you'd likely be angry they never brought it up (when I multi-dated I always made people aware of the situation on or before the first daet) but you couldn't consider them to have cheated at all. Also, you don't just end up someone's bf or gf without a discussion. Generally you'd ask someone out, go on dates, and it would come up where you saw it going. If you both saw it heading somewhere you'd then probably talk about exclusivity and whether or not you were now in a relationship, but it's also a good time for one party to say they just can't see it happening. I don't see it as Americanisms, just being open and honest. It'd be a bum deal to assume you were somebody's girlfriend for two months only to find out they didn't see things that at all and were just having fun!
StayBeautiful Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 Maybe it's an age or specific location thing then. When I was a teen in the 80s, we'd read American books / see TV shows where they called it "going steady". We never had that where I was either. It was a case of a boy mumbling "will you go out with me". And that was that. You were his girl friend. Until I became single again in my late 30s, I'd never heard of "multi dating", "exclusivity" or any of the other things I'm supposed to be aware of. And I'm completely baffled as to why, if you're "exclusive", you'd worry so much about a label of "girlfriend". What specifically would change if you were exclusively dating one day, and bf/gf the next? I'm not talking about "well then it would be official", I'm talking about what actually changes in your relationship? 1
Phantom888 Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 And lastly, do you guys think we are going too fast? If you look and act like a girlfriend, then you are his girlfriend. You are overthinking the convention of referencing. It's not too soon to be his GF.
Phantom888 Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 Maybe it's an age or specific location thing then. When I was a teen in the 80s, we'd read American books / see TV shows where they called it "going steady". We never had that where I was either. It was a case of a boy mumbling "will you go out with me". And that was that. You were his girl friend. Until I became single again in my late 30s, I'd never heard of "multi dating", "exclusivity" or any of the other things I'm supposed to be aware of. And I'm completely baffled as to why, if you're "exclusive", you'd worry so much about a label of "girlfriend". What specifically would change if you were exclusively dating one day, and bf/gf the next? I'm not talking about "well then it would be official", I'm talking about what actually changes in your relationship? I am totally with you on this. I was not aware of this "exclusive", "multi-dating", and a bunch of other dating rules until recently. People who were in long-term marriages really don't get exposed to this. This stuff was created by life-long bachelors who never want to commit, so they make the rest of us having to abide by these rules. As far as I'm concerned, when I ask a girl out, I am gonna assume that if she likes me she is not gonna date anyone else. I thought this was common knowledge. If she is not dating anyone else, we are exclusive and she's my girlfriend. How simple is that?! It's only complicated when people are used to uncommitted partners. 2
StayBeautiful Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 But it's been adopted as pretty much the norm it seems in the under-30 age group. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. Decades ago, people did date lots, but it was pretty tame. It wasn't people having several relationships side by side.
clia Posted July 18, 2013 Posted July 18, 2013 I always thought being exclusive and being boyfriend/girlfriend are the same thing, but obviously there are mixed feelings on that! If he's called you his girlfriend, though, it seems he has the view that they are the same thing. Yeah i mean we live practically in the same building so if he wants to get together briefly after work at night, i really cant find a reason to say no to... And i dont want him to feel rejected. Do you have any suggestions as to how to pace it in this case? Your reason to say "no" is that you are busy and have other plans and are doing other things. Surely you aren't always just sitting around waiting for him to call you up to do something. So, make plans with your friends or by yourself. (Going to the grocery store, doing laundry, working out, sitting at Starbucks reading are all "plans," you know?) Don't worry about him feeling rejected -- it's okay to say no sometimes. I tend to agree that seeing each other every day at this point could get to be a little smothering.
in_absentia Posted July 21, 2013 Posted July 21, 2013 And I'm completely baffled as to why, if you're "exclusive", you'd worry so much about a label of "girlfriend". What specifically would change if you were exclusively dating one day, and bf/gf the next? I'm not talking about "well then it would be official", I'm talking about what actually changes in your relationship? To me, being exclusive just means that while you're dating, you're not dating other people. You haven't actually made the decision to be together, have a relationship, go public with the relationship. It could still fizzle out or not work out and there's no break up, you just stop dating. When you're actually boyfriend/girlfriend you've decided to be exclusive and actually begin to build a relationship, introduce to your friends and family etc. Kinda like if you're dating exclusively there's no assumption or belief on either part that you're going to stay together or anything like that, the exclusivity is just a potentially temporary thing while you figure out if you're compatible enough to start a relationship. What changes I guess is that you start to take it more seriously, you start to think about the future together, you would take each other along to places as your plus one, and so forth. It's a bit nitpicky I suppose but it seems to be the done thing! With my current boyfriend we decided that we liked each other enough to become exclusive and start a relationship at the same time. We figured we had already decided we wanted to be together, so we just went for it. Before that point, either of us could easily have been dating others and there'd have been nothing wrong with that.
in_absentia Posted July 21, 2013 Posted July 21, 2013 Also, you can be accidentally exclusive, can't you? You can just both happen to have no other dates going on at the same time. You're exclusive for that time period. But to actually start a relationship, a decision has to be made. Just because you're dating and don't have any other dates on the go doesn't mean you're in a relationship. It has to be an active decision to begin a relationship. I'm not a guy's girlfriend just because he happens to be too busy to date more than one person and I haven't met anybody else I like enough to date... I'm just a girl he's dating.
supaflyz Posted July 21, 2013 Posted July 21, 2013 I thought that exclusive means you guys are bf and gf. My ex was just like you. We have been going out for more than a month. Then i have to ask her out to be my gf. I thought it was already known that we were official.
in_absentia Posted July 23, 2013 Posted July 23, 2013 I thought that exclusive means you guys are bf and gf. My ex was just like you. We have been going out for more than a month. Then i have to ask her out to be my gf. I thought it was already known that we were official. I guess everyone has very different ideas around exclusivity and relationships, which is why it's so important to discuss issues like these, would be horrible to believe you were bf/gf and then realise a month later your date didn't get that memo and was seeing others! A guy I dated from a different city and who was a few years older than myself told me that in his area, you tend to meet someone, you go on a few dates and then you're going out. I found that strange because I've historically always begun relationships with guys who I had already been friends with for several months/years. This time around we became bf/gf/exclusive after four/five dates, only a week or so after actually meeting up IRL (we met online). We'll see how it pans out, but it's going really well so far
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