There is dating, and then there are
relationships, right? No one is going to
disagree with me there? You meet someone, you
crush for a while of varying longness, you href="http://www.scottmcj.com/data/000028.shtml"
target=_blank>manufacture an opening, you
hang out and/or date, and if things go well, you
segue into a relationship. That mysterious segue
has been on my mind lately. Here is my
stereotype of dating: you are sitting across
from each other at dinner ordering food that you
have specifically chosen for its inability to
splatter you with sauce, there are tickets for a
play at 8pm in your breast pocket, and you are
conversing about what kinds of things she likes
to do in her spare time and why. Here is my
stereotypical relationship moment: I am washing
the dishes from the dinner I made for us while
you sit on a counter opposite and we contemplate
whether we would like to rent a movie, play a
game of pool or chess, or go out for ice cream.
In short, I am her spare time.
What marks that transition? At what point does
the balance tip from nervous anticipation to
comfortable hanging out? It was breakups that
actually started me thinking about it. All my
breakups, I realized while listening to John
Mayer (age: 14 years old), occur during the
relationship phase. Is there a correlation?
Because dating is very exciting, in an
ulcer-forming kind of way. You are going to cool
restaurants to eat great food that you might not
have eaten otherwise, you have an excuse not to
wear sweats after work, you
get to take in fine cultural events such as
opera and monster truck rallies, and you get to
live in the constant thrill of anticipation that
someday you may be granted the privilege of
unsnapping her bra, like the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow. By contrast, when you
are knee deep in an established relationship,
the cool restaurant count goes way down, special
events go back to being special by virtue of
their rarity, and not only do you no longer
bother undressing her,
but you may suddenly find yourself going to bed
together and not even having sex. What a
complete turnaround. At no point in the
salivating-with-anticipation dating phase did
the thought ever occur to you that you might
someday go to bed and just... sleep. It is
almost like a bait and switch. ?Hey, pretty
girl! Look at all the wonderful things I will
show you and the wonderful things I will feed
you! Come with me ? for who in their right mind
could refuse this roller coaster of novelty!?
And then you get her in and she?s yours and the
roller coaster turns out to be Mr. Toad?s Wild
Ride
or It?s a Small World After All. And then you
break up. Was it the fading of the novelty
factor? Maybe we thought we wanted love and
stability and long-term togetherness, but in
point of fact we were not ready to give up the
constant injections of newness that comes with
dating? What goes into a breakup? How can that
be seen as anything other than a failure of
self? We all go in thinking we are willing to
work at a relationship, to be flexible, to be
compassionate and understanding and kind. And
then all our best intentions are betrayed when
we get inflamed. Maybe it has something to do
with the way you develop a blind spot for the
ones you love and end up treating them less
thoughtfully than you do acquaintances and
strangers. Maybe we lean on each other too hard.
I have no idea. I wish I knew. Because I really
loved the women I have been close to, and it
killed me every time I lost the connection. Each
time I would resolve never to make those
mistakes again, only to go on and make brand new
mistakes the next time. Is there something in
the relationship phase itself that encourages
breaking up? And if so, why would you ever cross
into a relationship phase? It was not a
conscious choice, so how did you get there from
dating? There was never a moment where you got
home from the symphony, experienced the magic of
shared nakedness, and afterwards said, ?that was
a brilliant and exciting night, thank you so
much! What do you say, though, if going forward
we mostly hang out at home, eat whatever I
happen to have in the fridge, and maybe
sometimes we can rent movies? But it would still
be great if we had sex every time we saw each
other!? No, relationships just sneak up on you
somehow. We get comfortable with each other and
start wanting to share everyday moments as well
as events. Much later it occurred to me that of
course a lot of girls quit in the dating stage.
She or I decides that we do not have much in
common or much energy or whatnot, and we simply
stop dating. It is generally so clean and
easy at that stage, though, with so little
emotional energy spent, that they never make it
into your break-up list. It is a circular
argument. The girls I don?t care about break up
during the dating stage, but the girls that I
really care about and get to know all break up
during the relationship stage, so there must be
something wrong with how I do relationships,
because that is when I lose the girls I care
about. And, what kills me all the more, is that
I really love that relationship stage. I adore
having comfortable hanging-out time with the
girl I love. Sometimes there is nothing better
than to drift off to sleep together after
spending an evening just hanging out and
reading. Plus, you get this enormous repository
of shared history vested in this one, wonderful
person. When I look back on the breakups, that
is a big part of what hurts. The girl rejected
this phase we were in that was particularly
wonderful and together and sharing from where I
was sitting. All of that was so right, how can
she say it was wrong? Ah well. Still, though, I
wonder if you could apply some maths to the
transition point? Do you leave the realm of
dating when you spend two out of three
get-togethers just hanging out rather than doing
event stuff? Or are you already settled at the
50/50 mark? Or is it when you return to ordering
splattery food and eating like a starving man?