So, I walked into my living room the other day, and my friend was talking about a thing she used to have with a boy. This is not in itself unusual: my living room is frequently used for debriefing and informational sessions about our various love lives. What was weird was that, as I walked by, she described her and said boy’s relationship as ‘whispering.’
‘Whispering,’ which cannot be found in Urban Dictionary, is a term she made up to describe an ultra-casual back-and-forth communication with a potential future. ‘Whispering’ is different than ‘talking,’ which is different than ‘hooking up,’ which is different than ‘dating.’
All of a sudden, all these extra steps are being added in front of us, and the staircase seems like it’s never going to end. When will we get to the top; to that mythical ‘healthy relationship?!’ Just give me your freakin’ letterman jacket and say we’re going steady already.
My parents always want to know why I don’t ‘date casually,’ (they don’t understand my emotionally attaching to people like a leech to a patient in medieval England). I asked them this weekend if this ‘dating casually’ also entailed having sex. Their answer was, "Sometimes, but not necessarily." Then we got into the question of whether sex is better when there’s already an established relationship. My answer was, "I don’t know."
Theoretically, if you know and trust your partner, communicating openly about your sexual preferences should be easier and therefore lead to better sex. But how many of us tell our partners, “Yep, that’s my clit; you found it; thanks!” to avoid the confrontation of asking for what we want? Is taking the step from ‘whispering’ to ‘talking’ or from ‘hooking up’ to ‘dating’ actually going to get you anywhere or change anything?
I understand clarifying exclusivity, if that’s what you’re into, although I’m not exactly sure where exclusivity fits on the staircase of relationship building. I’ve heard of people ‘talking exclusively’ and my parents’ version of ‘casually dating’ involves seeing many people at once.
All these different steps just create more places for people to get confused about where their partners are at. Are you supposed to be having the exclusivity talk now or after you hook up for the first time? And then there are the buttholes who never actually want to give the exclusivity label so that they always have an out in case someone else comes along. Don’t be that guy.
So how do you get from meeting to 'whispering' to 'dating?' My preferred strategy is just sticking around someone long enough and hoping they feel the same way. Isn’t that romantic? Keep climbing those stairs! I believe in you! If nothing else, at least you’ll get your steps in. (Yes, that is a metaphor for life experience building character and teaching you lessons about yourself).
