These past few days, it has come to my attention that we spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out where our boundaries are when it comes to relationships.
Where is the line when your best friend has a girlfriend? What's appropriate when you're a text couple but you've only talked in person a couple of times? Is it okay to have 2 dates in a row? Is it cheating if it's not official, or are you officially a bitch? Last but certainly not least, where do we draw the line with our exes' friends?
There are of course, the simple, humane rules to dating and relationships that we learn from early on. The backbones of our cultural dating norms- including but not limited to: Don't Cheat, Don't Abuse, Don't Be Yourself Until The Other One's Trapped (this one's unwritten, but we all know it's absolutely vital) Be Supportive, Make Time for Your Significant Other, Don't Lead On, Don't, Do, Don't Do- The list goes on. But where do we go from there? What do we do when the line is fuzzy? The problem with label-less relationships, is that we find ourselves in an extremely gray area. The only rules we know are rules that are set aside for legitimate couples- and the rest of us live in this ambiguous, lawless society- and we're lost.
Part of the problem is, when you aren't in a relationship- that automatically makes you "single." And the definition of single, means one. Which means, you're watching out for you. So when the going gets tough, you're protecting yourself, and sometimes what bounces off our shields, hits the people around us smack in the face. That's when you start to feel shitty and THAT, is where we start asking questions, and drawing lines- freehand.
One of my best friends this week, faced a new dilemma, in her "dating" life. The one guy she had been seeing, let things fizzle and (stupidly) started being irresponsible with both her heart and mind. Outraged, she decided to reconcile with an old fling, who just so happened to be a friend of guy #1. Was this wrong? Guy #1 wanted casual, and casual is what he got.
What about my other friend? She has a date on saturday night with a "friend", and the next night- with her bbm contact du jour.
In this cyber world we're living in, our rules have gotten ten times harder. We now have the ability to know someone well, a week before our first date. Technology makes the regular boundary lines even harder to see than they already were, we find ourselves in make-beleive relationships, before we find ourselves in real-world situations with our make-believe new boyfriends.
The point I'm trying to make, officially unofficially- is that these days, we walk a zig-zag line in our relationships. We get caught in the dichotomy of having a new best friend to share our lives with, and being our own best friend to shelter our lives. We purposely hurt each other, and break the rules- because we can. The word boyfriend seems to change things for us, as women, and unless exclusivity is delineated in the contracts we have with our hook ups, and bbm contacts, and text buddies- then we seem to think we can do whatever we want. And maybe we can, but have we lost sight of the prize? We're only seeing these people so that they one day can take us seriously enough to call us their girlfriends, but here we are-giving them no reason to- because they didn't call us that yet.
This is an endless cycle that we're going to continue to struggle with, until someone changes the rules for us, and makes us want to be better. So maybe, it's for the best when we act selfish, because it may just mean we haven't met someone worth being selfless for.
Love always,
The Dime
"So maybe, it's for the best when we act selfish, because it may just mean we haven't met someone worth being selfless for."
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