How Do You Reconnect With A Crush You’ve Lost Contact With? Plus, ‘Defining The Relationship’ In 2014
Hey kiddos,
This week your questions centered around things like defining relationships, breaking up whilst in a not-a-relationship, and making moves on people you kinda lost contact with. As always, thanks a mill de blasio for your continued question asking, and certainly ask away using the form below for next week.
Note: although we’ve seemed to carve out a niche of being relationship masters, there are certainly other early 20s topics we’d love to help out with. For instance, smoothies. Feel like we could answer some solid qs about smoothies.
-Lance & Steph
Q. Right now I am a freshman in college(ish). Let me explain, I basically dropped out in my second semester to work more. Also because I really dislike college. It’s not forever, but for the time being. Anyways, I’m pretty interested in this girl that is a grade under me. We became friends toward the end of my senior year. We were kind of close for a bit, but we both had other romantic endeavors going on at the time. We ran in different circles of friends but they would occasionally intersect. However, now that I’ve graduated I don’t see her nearly as much. I still live in the same city so it won’t be hard to see her, I just don’t know how to naturally start talking to her again. I feel it would be weird to just ask her out, out of the blue. I could invite her to group hang outs and the like to get a feel for things I suppose, but I’d like a girls perspective on this.
Steph: I appreciate you wanting a girl’s perspective on this issue. Girls are scary, man! Who the hell knows what goes through their – I mean, our – heads?! Sometimes, it’s nice to know how the other gender perceives things – since we XX-chromosome’d monsters think en masse and all. Personally, I think you should ask her out by delivering a handwritten note and two pizzas – one which spells out “Will You Date Me?” in peppers and onions – to her front door. No one has ever done that for me (pity – the guys I date must be ignorant), but it sounds like a great idea in theory because…pizza.
Lance: As a not girl, any advice I’d give would be pretty useless. I defer to pizza.
Q: I have been seeing this absolutely gorgeous guy for over two months now. We met on Tinder and since we started hanging out neither of us even use it anymore. About a month into this “thing” we have, we sort of had the “what are we” talk. He was in school full time and worked a lot so when the subject came up, he said he just wants something simple, and drama free. We both admitted we liked each other already, but he did say that because of him being so busy with his last semester in college, that he couldn’t handle the “pressures of having a girlfriend” right now. So I’ve kept it at that. During this whole time, we’ve managed to make time to see each other 1-3 times a week. It’s been really great and he’s very sweet to me. It took us about two months to have sex, we took our time and he never pressured me. Now that he’s graduated college and he only has a couple summer classes and work, his schedule has freed up a lot. Now he hasn’t brought up the talk again, and neither have I. I still do want more out of “this thing” we have, but I’m scared to bring it up and ruin what we do have. Honestly, nothing would change. We already act like a couple, it’d only be a label. But it’d be a weight off my shoulder to know if he wants to be in a relationship with me or not. I guess my question is, should I bring it up or should I just enjoy what I have and go with the flow?
Steph: If you can truly let go and go with the flow, as you say, don’t talk to him. If not defining the relationship will make you neurotic and insecure (let’s be real with ourselves), definitely DTR or at least discuss what’s on your mind if only to ease your mind. The worst thing that can happen out of a honest conversation is that he says he doesn’t want to commit, meh. Continue keeping it no-strings-attached or drop him at that point.
Lance: Bringing it up is inevitable, but see if you could figure out a way in which the coupling naturally happens; i.e., a summer barbecue, or even a casual family event — where him attending implies he wants to take the ‘ship to the next level, and him not attending sends a message in the opposite direction. (The bad direction.)
Q: So I have a disgustingly huge crush on a coworker.
She’s awesome in every sense, beyond cute, and easy to hang out with over the past few weeks. She was there for me and helped me end a terrible relationship. We do things outside of work pretty often, and even asked me to spend the night at her place when my power was out (nothing juicy happened, I was raised better!) Every exchange is flirtatious, every outing could easily be considered date material, and if it weren’t for one glaring issue, I would’ve been on that like white on rice; She has a girlfriend.
Well, kind of.
That’s the thing- “It’s Complicated” on Facebook, but when I ask her about it, she manages to sidestep the question. All her friends (and even our boss) say it’s an abusive relationship she needs to get out of, but even they aren’t sure if they are actually together.
How do I get a straight answer or deal with this, without making things uncomfortable or making her think I’m trying to own her?
P.S. Did I mention how cute she is?
Steph: As someone who has toed the line many a time with people kinda-sorta in relationships (hey, for the sake of full disclosure – I never said I was perfect), let me just say that you want to opt out right now. You should be there for your coworker if she asks for emotional support for you, but don’t try to jump into a relationship or anything romantic with her right now if she’s trying to break off an abusive relationship. She’ll probably need time to heal, and that ish is going to leave a lot of emotional baggage.
Lance: Seems like you have something that’s potentially very positive (and cute), but if tinkered with the wrong way could be disastrous. Stay on the sidelines for now, be a friend but be a little bit more passive. See what happens, see if things start naturally #gravitating.
Q: So I’ve been dating this guy for about seven months…we had that whole DTR convo three months back and things did not go the way I expected. He held his ground on not wanting a relationship so we agreed to keep dating but keep it casual, leaving the option to date other people open. We go out on a lot of dates and we sleep together, obviously. But I haven’t started dating anyone since our talk and I am almost certain he hasn’t either. I met his parents recently, which I thought was strange since we’re just casual. Am I completely out of line to think that maybe he might want something more than just casual now?
Steph: From personal experience, I’ve found that guys are really into committing as long as it’s not labelled “commitment.” So while he might hesitate to call you his girlfriend, you might be right that he’s feeling girlfriend vibes towards you. An efficient way to test this theory is to hook up with someone else and see how red your boo-thing’s face turns when he finds out. “But, sweetie, I thought you said we were allowed to see other people!” you can say in your defense.*
*This is actually terrible, trust me. Don’t do it.
Lance: No guy introduces a girl to his parents unless he wants to date them. He’s probably still at that stage where he doesn’t want to be the one who brings it up — meaning he’s likely playing the leverage game, something that gets more and more toxic as a relationship goes on.
Hooking up with someone else may cause irreparable damage to your not-a-relationship, so I’d just be straight up with him — with the full intention of leaving if he holds his ground. If he realizes you’re actually gonna leave, he’ll change his tune. Probably to a Jesse McCartney song.