Dating isn’t easy.
You don’t need me to tell you that between texting, social media, our generation’s inexplicable phobia of actually talking on the phone, and the advent of this so-called “hook up culture,” it’s exceedingly difficult to know what the hell is going on with the people you’re “seeing.”
Or “dating,” “talking to,” “fucking,” or “hanging out with.” We don’t even know what to call it anymore!
Everyone says they “don’t play games,” they “aren’t just looking for sex,” and they want to “take it slowly.”
But when everyone says it, it loses all meaning, and then we’re all back to square one: playing relationship chicken, and wondering why no one wants to show their cards.
One of the hugest problems with dating is that people are flaky.
They take forever to answer texts, they say they’ll call and they don’t, they’re hot and then cold—effusive one moment and distant the next. And when it’s someone you don’t know very well, it’s hard to know what it means. Maybe he’s just “bad at texting” (whatever the fuck that means), or hasn’t looked at his phone for hours. Or maybe you just aren’t a priority.
It’s impossible to know what someone else is thinking if they don’t tell you, and all too often you feel like you’re on the wrong side of a one-way window; they can see you but all you can see is your own panicked reflection.
It’s an extremely vulnerable feeling. And vulnerability, without the comfort of emotional trust, often turns into anxiety.
You try to assuage this anxiety by spending what would otherwise be productive time at work with your friends on Gchat endlessly overanalyzing the nuance of every text message, whether or not when he sent it is important, and why he started to reply—seeing that ominous little iPhone text bubble with the “…”—and then stopped. (What was he going to say??)
Which isn’t sustainable.
But when you don’t have a solid relationship dynamic in which expectations are set and met—or else—there’s no protocol for addressing disappointing behavior.
The problem is that calling them out on it makes you seem needy, which is new-relationship kryptonite. When in reality, flakiness is something we shouldn’t accept even from our friends, much less people we’re trying to become more emotionally intimate with.
But it’s that very promise of intimacy that skews the whole process of calling someone out for being a flake. Forcing someone to be accountable makes it seem like you want something serious, when all you really want is to be treated with basic courtesy, decency, and respect.
You want to be able to send a text message and not agonize for hours about why he isn’t texting you back.
“Was it something I said?”
“Did he suddenly stop liking me?”
You want to be able to end a date and know that the guy will be in touch. Even if the date wasn’t great, you’d like to think he would have the courtesy to say, “I had a good time, but I don’t think it’s going to work out,” instead of leaving you in torturous post-date limbo, wondering why he never followed up.
And all too often this very fear of coming across as needy is used as a manipulative tool by the other person to excuse flaky behavior and get away with it. It may not always be intentional or malicious, but the results are the same.
It’s gaslighting at its worst.
Because then you start to question yourself.
“Am I needy? Am I being unreasonable?”
“Maybe I really do want something serious…”
But you don’t, necessarily! All you really want is a modicum of clarity and reassurance.
It doesn’t have to be something serious; it just has to be something you understand.
Unfortunately, identifying the problem doesn’t make finding a solution to this any easier.
In a situation that warrants it—where there’s a clear and consistent pattern of disappointing behavior—a candid conversation can clear the air and put everyone on the same page. Getting past all the games can help you decide if you’re actually both looking for the same thing—and just being coy—or if one of you does want something more than the other, in which case you can decide whether or not you’re wasting your time.
In less obvious cases, we’re back to this idea that asking for reliability is tantamount to asking for an engagement ring.
The solution?
As my friend so aptly put it, “don’t date people who interpret simple human decency as a serious commitment.”
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