Dating in your 20s: what a complicated mess.
I tend to remember all of my 20-something relationships by the part before they happened and the part after. The hook up and the break up. But there’s also the part in the middle, the part where one person is all, “let’s not get naked with anyone else,” and the other person is like, “sweet.” And then there’s kissing. Or an over-the-shirt boob grab. Or sex in a public restroom. Or, I don’t know, something a lot more romantic.
In the best situations, The Talk (and the exclusive stuff that comes after it), goes something like this:
Feel insecure. Think about breaking it off. Talk about things without really talking about things. Wonder if maybe he’s going to break it off. Freak out. Ricochet to the other end of the spectrum and tell yourself that you don’t care. Realize you’re a bad f*ing liar. Ricochet back. Hard.
Make it through the heinous period of vulnerability that leads up to The Talk. Have The Talk. Decide to stop seeing other people. Feel relieved. Feel excited. Momentarily freak out about commitment. Feel relieved and excited. Repeat.
Let your flirt friends and in-the-meantime crushes know that you can’t play anymore. Wonder if he’s doing the same thing. Let your mind explore the possibility that he’s recently been sleeping with other girls. Feel nauseous. Explode with trust issues. Remind yourself that this guy is worth trusting. Remind yourself again. And again.
Start getting to know each other in a more relaxed way. Cook together. Kiss more deeply and more often. Have sex. Have more sex. Have sex until you can’t breathe. Or walk. Dirty text. Lift boundaries and limits, one by one. Try everything you’ve always wanted to try. Have more sex.
Think about changing your Facebook status. Worry. Wait for him to change his first. Realize that while there are kids in the world who don’t have clean water, you’re stressing out about dumb things like who changes whose whatever first.
Laugh at the idiocy of dating in the digital age.
Let him in a little bit at a time. Share secrets, like how all you want is for someone to read to you in bed at night. Develop comforts and little traditions.
Take your new relationship out at night. Put yourselves through the big test of being able to drink together and have fun with friends without being too couple-y. Pass easily. Relax into him even more.
Have your first fight. Cry. Stomp around. Realize you’re with a guy who’s going to say he’s wrong when he’s wrong. Prove that you’re a girl who does the same. Promise to always err on the side of full-frontal honesty. Have make up sex until you can’t remember what the what you were fighting about to begin with.
Tell him about your family. Learn the in-between-the-lines stuff about each other: how he likes his eggs, the fact that you like to brush your teeth in the shower. Do the necessary but heinous thing where you share stories about your exes. Talk. Listen. Surprise yourself by being jealous of women that happened before you.
Get the hell over it. Push each other in the best ways. Push more. And more. Smile. Realize you’re on your way to being in the kind of love where love is a verb and not a noun.
That is honestly simple, yet extremely elegant writing. I am totally blown away with how well you summarized the seemingly complex — Thanks for sharing and inciting a browsing non-participant to feel the urge to share back!
Merci=)
Wow, this was brilliant. I wrote an article titled “How to Find the Guy or Girl of your Dreams” (here http://ow.ly/12CSK) which was all about the logistics of love, but this is so much more passionate and heartfelt. Your writing is impressive. It struck me to the core. Kudos to you!
Wow Nicole, this is incredible. Thanks for the insight into a woman’s mind. When you put it that way, dating really is awesome, isn’t it?
i love it when you write like this. they’re the best! and soo eerily spot on 😀
Here is a little tip for men, PURSUE HER. Women want to know that you want them. And not sexually. They want to know that you want them emotionally, and mentally. Pursue her heart, her mind, chase after her. Romance her. Invest in her. Every woman’s desire is to be know. She wants to know that you know her. Do you know all of her likes, do you know her tastes, her dreams, her desires? And what do you do with that knowledge?
I also have to disagree with the sex and more sex part. I have found that sex and a lot of sex can often create a false sense of connection and false love when there is none there to begin with. At least in the beginning of a relationship. People start having sex on their first and second dates and think they are in love. But emotions are fleeting and we as human beings are, well fickle.
Loving someone isn’t an emotion. I love pizza and ice cream and my wife? Love is action, I love my wife everyday, even when I get mad at her, I love her. And I choose to put her before myself. She makes feel the emotion of love, but not always.
I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but I just wanted to convey some personal experience.
You’re making an enormous amount of sense – and sharing our personal experience is all we can really do, right?
Also, I’m thinking I’d like to get your first paragraph made into a t-shirt.
Hehe nice post. However in my opinion, the sex and more sex is the other memorable part besides the hook and break up!
My favourite part is the hook up. But I dread the talk… I have written – but not yet published – an entire post on the DTR (determine the relationship) talk 😛
Very entertaining post! I love how your writing is brutally honest yet hilarious…just have one question. Is this a post more geared for women on how to fall in love? Or both men and women?
Definitely agree with much of your post though. KEY is listening, and in a sense, sacrificing. Can’t agree more with pushing each other and you hella hit it head on; having it where love is a verb and not a noun
Awesome post. Did you copy it from the “Hollywood’s Guide to Making Romantic Comedy/Drama/Love Teen Movies”? hehe… It sounds like a perfect template for those type of movies… and to post it on the Untemplater website (ohhh… the irony is delicious ;)).
Talking about delicious, chocolate mousse is of course the best dessert (refer to Ian’s post #2). How many studies have been done about positive impacts of chocolate? Tons! How many similar studies have been done on cheese? Less than tons 🙂
Hi, nice post!
Just thought if you’d like to link concepts of business and relationships. I’ve once heard from a friend that in business there’s a concept called the sunk cost fallacy which says basically when you have, say, a million dollars sunk into an investment and it’s turning bad, often we’ll justify putting another million into it to try and ‘save’ the initial million even though things are looking bad.
What happens is people stop being objective and stop having a realistic view of the future to avoid feeling like they ‘wasted’ the first million… We do the same thing with relationships. Because we have two years invested in a relationship, we try to make something bad work even though in our hearts we know the prospects are bad.
The point is that often it’s better to accept the million-dollar loss and use the next million to find better opportunities than to throw good money after bad… And in relationships it’s better to accept the two years we spent in a bad relationship as a learning experience and use our time now to find better opportunities.
What are your thoughts on that?
This is incredibly poignant. Please hold while I read this out loud to my roommate and discuss passionately.
Glad you like it 🙂
Alternatively: How to Fall in Love in Your Twenties:
Date someone 10 years older who’s not a freaked out immature slut with commitment issues.
Amen.
So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong this whole time: no make up sex! I’ll have to rectify that situation. Also, note to self: find synonym for rectify safe for gay man to use without brain exploding I to dirty jokes.
You totally just ruined the word rectify for me.
Uhh, fix?
Falling in love sort of snuck up on me.! I was dating like 5 guys and really enjoying the heck out of myself when I met my love muffin. He totally ruined my one-guy-for-each-day-of-the-week vibe.
The less you think about it, the better!
If I follow this advice and wind up finding someone to call “muffin,” you get all the credit.
I’ve always been old school when it comes to relationships. Meet, get to know, ask out, date (with the assumption of exclusivity from day one). Sex comes late in the relationship, if at all.
I actually only have close friend who’s ever hooked up. Coincidentally, he’s also the only friend who isn’t married or engaged.
Yes, yes, and yes. I have so many feelings on the hookup culture subject. If it wasn’t a ragingly narcissistic thing to do, I’d link you to my blog post about it.
Go ahead, I shamelessly link to my blog whenever I can. 🙂
Excellent. Can I join your shameless self promotion club? I hear you have jackets…
http://nicoleisbetter.com/how-to-survive-the-hookup-culture
Oh, I have lots of jackets. Oh, wait, you mean jackets for the shameless self-promotion club. Not yet, but they are coming! Now if your blog name says that you are better, you definately need to join the shameless self-promotion club. Besides, how else do you get hits on your blog? 90% of the hits on http://entryleveldilemma.blospot.com are from links to it that I’ve posted in comments here on Untemplater.
On a more serious note, I read your blog post and I really can’t imagine living that kind of lifestyle.
Not that I wish to work in hyperbole, but I’m not sure that anyone’s ever made it further under the same circumstances. Didn’t you want to be a part of a Guinness record?
Start the petition.
Dear Guinness: Please award me the title of “Fastest Ever to Fall in Love via Facebook.”
Seconded. But I want a co-title. And a parade. And free bacon donuts for a week. Also, angioplasty.
Bacon donuts, top row, third from the left. : http://www.dynamodonut.com/our_donuts.html
I always thought the best way to fall in love was to have a “Twenty Messages or Less” standoff, where both can win and both can lose but there can’t be any other way.
Great post though.
So, status check, how are we doing so far? Are we both winning?
So true. All of it.
As crazy as it is, I am looking forward to all of it again!
I am sort of looking forward to it, but I think I’m really more cautiously optimistic than anything else. LOVE IS HARD.
Love is being sympathetic to your pregnant girlfriend when she complains about being uncomfortable for the millionth time that day.
Thanks for the post Nicole, I really enjoyed it.
P.S. Cheesecake is the single best desert in the entire universe! I’ve done studies.
I hereby request a copy of these studies to use as proof when people who are wildly less cool than us try to claim cookies as the best dessert in the entire universe.
Maybe I should clarify…
By studies, what I actually mean is that I have eaten copious amounts of cheesecake my entire life. New York style cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake, strawberry cheesecake, lemon cheesecake, toffee cheesecake and so on and so forth.
I must be the best repeat customer the cheesecake shop ever had. In fact, this article kind of describes my lifelong love affair with cheesecake. And guess what? Even though it’s only 6.24am, I now want (and subsequently will go out of my way to get) cheesecake.
Oh and cookies? I think we’re being hoodwinked by people less awesome than us…
Haha this is great. I’m pretty tired of the hookup culture myself. Right now I’m just loving life and not worrying about it–whatever happens happens and I’m already happy. Great writing and your “How to survive hookup culture” is awesome!
I’m pretty sure you just asked me out.
No? Fine. Sigh.
oooooo rejected without a proposal! Just do what you love and you’ll get what you need. Your blogs are great–keep writing and we’ll keep reading.
Ha, I was totally teasing. But, you know, thanks for the sweet comment 🙂
wow this was really awesome, enough said. 🙂
Thanks Mike 🙂
Ha, thanks Tyler! Yeah, I’m sort of waiting to see how long it takes them to kick me off this site for posts that are not at all advice-y and topical. So far, so good.
Describing that whirlwind almost felt like a relationship roller coaster happened in the time it took me to read the post. Very well written, and even if things are crazy, can’t wait to fall in love again!
Ha, maybe that means that all of us who have read the post actually *are* in a relationship now.
LOVE this! ah, the joys of falling in love! 🙂
It’s the best and worst, that’s for sure.