How Long After Dating Someone Will You Wait to Talk About Being Exclusive? Do You / Have You Initiated the Subject?
How Long After Dating Someone Will You Wait to Talk About Being Exclusive? Do You / Have You Initiated the Subject?
r/AskWomen
How Long After Dating Someone Will You Wait to Talk About Being Exclusive? Do You / Have You Initiated the Subject?
Comments
Personally, I would not have sex in a non-exclusive relationship.
I give a max 1 month, I call it the 30 day free trial. After 30 days you should know whether or not you want to be with me it shouldn’t take months to figure it out and if you aren’t sure if you’re ready for a relationship maybe you shouldn’t be dating at all then. It took my boyfriend no more than 3 days for him to know he wants to be with me and took the initiative to make it exclusive
I honestly like to give it a few weeks, I usually do end up asking my partner out first but by the first few weeks I know if I want to pursue a relationship with them
With my current girlfriend I talked about it like once a month for like 2 or 3 months, she was never ready for it, then one day she just was. No idea what changed it for her to be ready but that was like 2 years now.
After? Im bringing it up before the first date.
I never put hard and fast rules on matters of the heart. The heart wants what the heart wants and in its own timeline.
I’ve also never really liked juggling multiple women. Even at my most popular I pretty much stuck to one woman at a time whether I was dating them or just seeing them.
It’s going to sound stupid, but if I’m dating someone other than you know a first or maybe second date it’s because I like them and like spending time with them. Like I said it sounds stupid, but I can’t even begin to tell you how many friends of mine I have seen dating women that they didn’t actually like. I usually try to spend as much time as I could with them. Not to the point of suffocating them though. And I typically tend to date women that seem to feel the same way.
There are very few women that I have gone on more than one date with and didn’t end up in a more serious relationship.
My point is you can’t put a timeline on it and say ” okay, I’ll be ready to be serious with someone in 45 days, or after 5 dates” if you do that you may be rushing yourself into something that you might not be ready for or actually want. Or you could be wasting time waiting when you could be enjoying being with someone. Just follow your heart.
Tbh I was generally afraid of commitment. With my first long-term boyfriend after maybe 6 months I had said to him “You could be my boyfriend if you want” and he agreed, we were together for almost six years. Casually dated various people after for several years. Then three weeks into dating one person he asked me to be his girlfriend, super freaked me out initially and I asked him what that meant to him etc. then ended up agreeing. Moved in after six months together then after another year got married. Going strong. 🥰
For me, relationship exclusivity has always been within 1month and not intiated by me… I don’t think I’d wait longer than that, and I’d suggest nobody wait longer than 3months.
I do and have initiated sexual exclusivity. I bring it up right after the 1st time.
Wait? We becomed officially by second date and already were exclusive by the first one. Why would you wait when it feels right?
My SO and I communicated on the first date that we were both looking for a life partner. And that our eight months of purely platonic friendship before that date was enough “prep time” to commit to exclusivity while it lasts.
That was a year and eight months ago. We’re getting Married on Saturday, so it’s worked out!
I would assume that from the beginning
That is such an American thing. Here we don’t see others while starting out with someone new. Instead we usually have the “do we want to continue seeing each other or stop here” conversation 1-2 weeks later.
[removed]
My rule of thumb given by my best friend is 8-10 dates, give or take. My relationship, it took about 7 dates (3 weeks).
I initiated. We were already pretty familiar bc we went back to his apartment after every date (lol) and I would sleep over so date 7 we were literally just hanging out in his apartment and watching tv.
It got to the point where I knew I wanted to know where it was going so I asked what he was looking for and it became a relationship after that lmao. Before that we really hadnt spoken much about if we were looking for fwb, casual dating, serious, etc.
Even tho we only confirmed exclusivity at that 3 week mark, it turned out neither of us had been seeing other people anyway, I just didnt want to assume before that moment.
3 months is the max. I waited more than that once and it just made me feel too shitty about myself to do again. But I’ve been with my boyfriend for a bit now so hopefully won’t have to do that song and dance again anyhow 🤪
When I ask them out/get asked out for a date. Im not looking for casual ever
The day they feel like they will say maybe in a week or a year depends
I have no interest in an exclusive relationship (and I’m very up front about this), so someone asking me for exclusivity is my cue to leave.
I don’t date several people at once, so for me a date is always exclusive. That being said, I’m aware it’s not necessarily the case for the person I’m dating so I like to communicate about it very clearly. I don’t sleep with people unless it’s exclusive. If my date takes too long (like, over 2 months) to decide whether they want to be exclusive, I’d break it off.
Someone mentioned playing the field is a very American thing, but I disagree. It’s definitely become more prevalent in Europe as well in my experience, especially when using dating apps.
OMG. So, I was in my 40s and post-divorce and after a couple years I started dating. Took a couple years before I was ready because it had been >20 years since the last time. Went through a couple fizzles but finally met my now boyfriend of almost 8 years.
Neither of us want to get married again (I am 50 and he’s 54). We both have COMPLICATED finances due to our age and stuff. But we really liked being together and spending time together. So we agreed to just do that. And it’s been awesome.
But we ARE exclusive. Now, I will admit I did go to bed with him before having that talk because I was just a horny middle aged woman. But, one night we were out at a neighborhood restaurant and the owner came around and I just introduced him to her as my boyfriend.
He didn’t even pause. Just we kept the evening going.
The NEXT MORNING, though, he brought it up that it just surprised him. And I just said, “It’s just a term…you ARE a boyfriend. We date, we sleep together, we like being around each other. You’re a boyfriend. But if you don’t want me to say it again, okay.”
Like, we’re not PARTNERS. We don’t share expenses or other major responsibilities. He’s got a teen son and I’ve got an adult son. We don’t live together and don’t plan to. We’re not getting married. So, he’s my boyfriend.
He actually relaxed at that point and said we could go with that. I think he’d had a couple of dating situations where boyfriend was a STAGE of dating that might lead to marriage and he knew he didn’t want to get married again.
But, after that, he was my boyfriend and we agreed to be exclusive. In part because it was such a hassle NOT to be when we really liked each other. And so, here we are!
Plainly there is no OSFA for relationships… You base it entirely on the relationship itself and how well it is going for you and whether or not you want to start taking things further.
Personally I’m an over communicator so I walk into things with either a “I’m not in this for the long haul” way of sharing, or I express that “I am plainly open to something more but not looking to force a square peg into a round hole”.
I might agree to go on an initial date or two to see if there’s any potential there, but I wouldn’t consider actually dating anyone or becoming romantically or sexually intimate unless we had agreed to be exclusive already and I felt comfortable and secure in the relationship. I was just never interested in dating more than one person at a time, and I wouldn’t be interested in committing to dating someone who was still seeing other people.
I follow the 3-months rules. If the subject has not been initiated by HIM during this period, I am out.
I don’t think I’ve ever had this conversation with anyone I’ve dated. We just kinda knew that we were each other’s person. And I don’t plan on having this discussion with anyone I date in the future.
Around two weeks (so four to five dates) to discuss what we’re looking for, three to four weeks (~10 dates) to dtr.
I (32/f) have initiated the discussion of what we’re both looking for before.
i’m not a casual dater, i don’t have a roster of dudes i rotate thru and i make that very clear with anyone i’m talking to; that i don’t do casual so if that’s what they’re looking for, look somewhere else. dating me comes with the intention of exclusivity.
Honestly I had that conversation after our second date lol
We had been dancing around each other for a while and I knew what I wanted. Dating other people at the same time is not for me. Thankfully, he was on the same page and loved that I took the initiative to bring it up.
We’ve had sex on the third date (like a month in), after which he asked me if that meant that we were together. At that time I said no. I didn’t actually see anybody else (and neither did he), but I wanted to give it a bit more time before committing. Took about 2 more weeks, I think. We had sex without a condom (he’s had a vasectomy), and afterwards I cheekily said that, well, I don’t have unprotected sex with people unless I am in a relationship with them… so that was that, we were officially a couple. 🙂 And then he suddenly paused… looked at me all serious and sort of concerned and said: “That means we’re not dating anyone else anymore, right?” It was very cute, and I very much appreciated him verbalizing it, instead of assuming.
(Besides… hearing him say this to make sure we’re on the same page made me SO happy after my previous relationship which ended because he was poly, and I was not.)