Don’t Complain About Your Quasi-Relationship If You Knew What You Were Getting Into In The First Place
It’s a common topic of conversation among girls.
“Well, he said this morning when he left that he would ‘text me later.’ It’s been like six hours. Maybe I should text him first?”
“His best friend on Snapchat is this girl he used to hook up with last semester. I mean, yeah, I know he and I aren’t really official or anything like that right now, but like, still, ew.”
“He didn’t text me for three whole days, and he’s apologizing for it now. What a douche.”
Among my own friends, I have heard any and every variation of these comments about guys, hook-ups, boyfriends, “what-are-we”s, “I-think-we-are”s, and fuck buddies. And to be quite honest, I’m getting a little sick of the whole thing.
Now, many people may assume I’m biased in some way because I’ve been in a relationship for the past two years, so you could say I’ve been “out of the game” for awhile. True, but hear me out. I was single once, I did single things once upon a time, and I certainly hear enough about the single life to know a bit about it.
Guys can be sketchy, and douchey, and all that other stuff, but I think there is one severely fatal flaw in female logic that, when we all get together with our bottles of wine and bash the fuck out of these guys, we simply never acknowledge: our internal expectations are inconsistent with what we actually say we’re looking for.
Now, what do I mean by this? I mean you sit there, sloshing wine all over yourself in our kitchen and tell me that you’re “obviously down for whatever with [insert random guy here],” that you’re not gonna get feelings, that you’re totally capable of just maintaining the physicality of the relationship, and nothing else. But then, two days later, you’re nearly in tears about the fact that he hasn’t texted you to say “Good morning” or “How is your day going?”
“Well, you know, I just want to be respected, that’s all,” my friends will say to me.
Fair enough. Everyone deserves respect, I can totally agree with that. But I need to be honest with all of you: if you get yourself into one of these weird, label-less, hook-up situations, you should know fully well about the implications of such a relationship. That there will be no sober cuddling. That there will rarely be any hang-outs during the daytime. That there will only be texts exchanged to meet up after the sun has set and your BACs have risen.
This is far from a reality of dating culture that I actually agree with, but I am aware enough to know that it’s (for the most part) entirely accurate. I mean, come on, we live in a world where men demand nudes from girls they barely know, and it isn’t even that taboo. In fact, when those nudes leak to a larger audience, it is almost always the woman who is blamed for taking such pictures in the first place. Nothing is said about the man who betrayed her trust and her privacy in doing such an atrocious thing.
But, I digress. My point: it shouldn’t surprise you that guys are dicking you over like that. Especially when you have led them to believe you’re an emotionless human being who is only down for sex and random hook-ups
They won’t all fit this stereotype, but I can assure you, a lot of them will. And it’s up to you, as young adult women, to have the proper self-awareness, and the stable self-esteem, to be in control of your relationships.
That doesn’t mean that you call all the shots, and “you’re the boss,” or any of that. It simply means that you communicate to your guy when you have a concern, even if he is just a fuck buddy, or a hook-up, or whatever. Don’t talk to me, or to your sorority sisters, or your mom (ugh, definitely not your mom) about it. All they’re going to do is puff you up and tell you that you’re awesome and he sucks, and blah blah blah. Because they love you, and they’re right, but you and I both know you need real advice when it comes to this shit.
Talk to these guys. Get everything out on the table, make sure you’re both on the same page. Make sure your expectations are consistent with what is actually going on. I promise, it’ll benefit you both in the long run.