Date before you define?

by The Group Hug Expert March 16, 2019, 5:09 pm 2.1k Views

A couple of weeks ago I had a very interesting chat with a male friend of mine who recently started seeing someone. He explained to me how he had met this lovely lady online and they were enjoying weekly dates together and daily contact via telephone. From his side, all was going very well and he was more than happy to ‘see how things go’.

That was until she asked if they were officially together.

She needed to define them and know that they were In a Relationship. As my friend shared with me how he felt suffocated, stressed and confused, my instant reaction was to jokingly (not joking) accuse him of being a commitment-phobe who, at the age of 36, needs to take a more mature approach to dating! However, the more I listened the more intrigued I became by his point of view, and thus am opening the discussion with you.

In a nutshell, my friend does not see the necessity to define the relationship status three weeks in. How does adding a label affect our connection? If here and now we agree to be in a relationship will it actually change our day to day interaction? He believes it is better to see how things go, and then, if all is going well, and we believe ourselves to be a good match, move into the relationship box. Why go into a relationship before you have tested how you get along and how compatible you are? Date before you define?In a society where people update their relationship status on the likes of Facebook for all to see, are we putting too much emphasis on definitions and labels?