Complicated Is Overrated

One thing I've noticed in dating Mr. Wild Card is that everything was just so easy with him.  We became 'official' with minimal talking - he initiated the conversation and I was more than agreeable.  We made it official on Facebook without much push and pull.  We were able to transition into saying "I love you" easily.  All of these things made sense in the moment, there wasn't any hesitation or backpedaling.  It was so easy.

It made me look back at some of my old relationships and realize that all the times that I have become a couple with someone, it was just as easy.  (Now, the breaking up part wasn't so easy, but such is life.)  There weren't any guessing games or having playing my cards close to the vest - it was easy.  Huh.  I think I'm onto something here.

See, the thing is that sometimes girls, young women, ladies or other such feminine creatures make relationships a lot harder than they need to be.  They make non-relationships harder than they need to be.  (Note: I make everything harder than it needs to be - sorry, Mr. Wild Card.)  It doesn't have to be that way at all. 

If you are supposed to be dating someone, it's going to happen.  There's no amount of scheming, make-up, pouty faces, purposefully missed calls or causal run-ins that will make anyone want to date you more than they already do or do not.  You can't create a situation in which you suddenly become more desirable to someone who just isn't interested.  Why waste all that effort and subject yourself to heartache when that person you're putting on a pedestal doesn't even have you on their radar?

Advice tells you not to be too available, not to talk too much, not to be too needy, not to pry, not to monopolize all their time, not to do this and that.  It's garbage.  There is no cocktail of behavior that can make someone want to date you.  Be yourself - your person will care about you no matter how much you talk or how often you call.  The person that you are supposed to be dating will find the amount of time they see your face just right or not enough.  Your partner will care about hearing you complain about work, will tweet at you no matter how busy they are and will like when you post pictures of you and them on every social media outlet in existence.  Your person will love you no matter how you act - they love you because you are you. 

Why, then, do we make it so complicated?  Because the heart wants what the heart wants?  Because endless books and articles about dating tell us too?  Forget that.  You aren't supposed to convince or persuade someone into a relationship.  It's meant to be easy and natural; we all need that reminder every so often. 

So, get rid of the notion that there is some magic to dating.  It's straightforward.  You like someone and they like you and you spend time together and if you still like each other, you continue to date.  Simple.

Here's to more simple in 2013.

~j

Can I Label You Now?

While I'm not even close to being at a stage to call anyone my boyfriend, I have a few friends that are at that awkward stage in their relationship where they have to have the dreaded DTR conversation.  Yes, they feel like it's time to define the relationship.  Are we dating?  Are we exclusively dating?  Are you my boyfriend/girlfriend?  Do we go live with this on Facebook?  Can I tweet about it?

So many questions.

You see all these movies or TV shows where the guy takes the female protagonist to some event and introduces her as his girlfriend. Naturally, she is taken aback and has a conversation with her friends like, "I didn't know he thought of me like that.  We've never discussed it!"  Secretly, though, she's written in her diary the week before how the ambiguity of the non-relationship is giving her heart palpitations and is going through various scenarios in her head on how she can bring in up "casually."

Those conversations are not easy to have.  I've been lucky in that regard, since I usually find someone I like to hang out with and it just evolves into a relationship, which sort of defines itself.  I like the simplicity of that, the natural agreement to be exclusive - there isn't a push and pull to it.  I've never had to guess where I stand and if I did, I would probably be a puddle of self-doubt and confusion and annoy all my friends. 

I'm not even sure how I would broach the topic.  I am, as I have said before, a chicken.  I would be completely incapable of talking.  I would stutter, start and stop and then probably give up.  (Confrontation isn't my strong suit.)  I would go on about my life in this are we or aren't we limbo until he says something.  And if he never said anything?  Well, as much as I'd say I would just move on or be spurred to action, I would probably just be all romantic and hopeful that we would somehow work out and be together until the end of time.  *Cut to him getting married to another chick*

Maybe there is something to this whole "definition" thing.  I've never been one to label anything, but I can understand and appreciate that some people need that definitive statement from the person they are seeing.  It makes it easier to know where you are going, if you know what exactly you are.

~j