{"id":264856,"date":"2010-02-02T11:00:16","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/collegecandy.com\/?p=51954"},"modified":"2010-02-02T11:00:16","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T16:00:16","slug":"the-forbidden-words-of-dating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/264856","title":{"rendered":"The Forbidden Words of Dating"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019m just going to be blunt here: why do we feel the need to pretend we don\u2019t know what we want?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m serious. Whether we\u2019re looking for friends with benefits or a one night stand or – worst of all – an actual relationship, we\u2019re terrified to openly admit it. We don\u2019t want to be viewed as clingy or slutty or any other label that will send the guy running for the hills.<\/p>\n

Because that\u2019s what it comes down to, isn\u2019t it? The reason we\u2019re so scared to say what we\u2019re thinking? That once we do, once we admit what we\u2019ve been praying they\u2019ll pick up on telepathically, the guy in question is going to reject us so quickly we\u2019ll practically see a blur as he leaves?<\/p>\n

Not that we should want to be with a guy like that anyway. But the problem is we do<\/em> want this guy – in some capacity – and we don\u2019t want to know if the word \u201cboyfriend\u201d is repulsive to him. And society (and possibly some past experiences) has taught us that the words \u201crelationship,\u201d \u201cboyfriend,\u201d and \u201cgirlfriend\u201d are instant boy repellent.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been sort of seeing a friend of mine for about a month-and-a-half and before we left for winter break, I tried to be honest with him: I couldn\u2019t deal with the crazy back-and-forth anymore, with him acting like we were in a relationship one day, then actively avoiding me the next. Or hugging and kissing me around strangers and my friends, but literally dropping my hand and stepping away when we saw one of his. I was so proud of myself for actually having the nerve to tell him all of this, and to go one step further and flat-out tell him that I wasn\u2019t sure what he wanted, but I wanted a-<\/span><\/p>\n

That word. The forbidden word we dare not speak. Even, in that vital moment when I was laying my heart on the line, I couldn\u2019t bring myself to say the word \u201crelationship.\u201d I danced around it, alluded, gestured, everything but actually saying it. Imagine how ridiculous I looked…<\/p>\n

And the reason was as simple as it was ludicrous: I was worried that since I genuinely had no idea where he stood – and even though I was essentially saying I wanted a relationship – if I actually said<\/em> the word, he\u2019d immediately reject me. As it stands now, whether I said the word or not probably wouldn\u2019t have made much of a difference. We both knew exactly what I was alluding to, and our decision for him to take the winter break to decide what the hell he wanted probably wouldn\u2019t have been any different had I just used the damn word.<\/p>\n

But why are we so hung up on these words? Why do we believe so deeply that they\u2019ll destroy our careful cultivation of anything substantial with a guy? I have tons of close guy friends and I know that plenty of them are perfectly fine with it; hell, one of my friends was smiling for weeks when the girl he was seeing finally agreed to be his girlfriend. And yet, when it comes down to actually using the words with a guy with whom I was personally involved – even though I know he\u2019s a lot like the guy friends I have, seeing as he\u2019s technically one of them – I couldn\u2019t do it. It\u2019s so ingrained in us from an early age not to use the words that it\u2019s almost impossible to overcome.<\/p>\n

Not that it would have made much of a difference in this situation; even with my game of charades things turned out to be a total bust. But maybe I would have figured that out a bit sooner had I not been so afraid to say the words.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m just going to be blunt here: why do we feel the need to pretend we don\u2019t know what we want? I\u2019m serious. Whether we\u2019re looking for friends with benefits or a one night stand or – worst of all – an actual relationship, we\u2019re terrified to openly admit it. We don\u2019t want to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5075,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5075"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}