Dear Roe,
I’m a woman in my 20s and I’ve been talking to and sleeping with a guy for about seven months. We met through friends and hooked up, and go through periods where it feels like we’re properly dating. We go out together, spend weekends together, and then we go through periods where we don’t really talk that much until there’s a night out and one of us texts the other. I’m getting really frustrated with this and it came to a head last month. I knew it was his birthday and heard through friends that he was going to have a party, but he only told me the day before. I said I was busy because I didn’t want him to think I didn’t have any weekend plans and he could just summon me whenever he wanted. We have barely spoken since then. I’m hurt and annoyed. I feel so stupid and am wondering what I’ve been doing for the past seven months.
What you have been doing for seven months is playing a game where there are no winners. But if it makes you feel any better, you and this guy are not alone in your sport. This, in a nutshell, is one of the biggest problems with modern dating – particularly for people in their 20s. This is game playing; it’s treating every interaction like a points-winning exercise where you are both in competition with each other. Instead of approaching dating as a way to connect with someone, as an opportunity to embrace what is gorgeous and vulnerable and open-hearted about the experience of liking someone and getting to know them, you’re instead approaching dating as a competition where any evidence of caring, of affection, of emotion, of vulnerability, are treated as weaknesses. And it’s exhausting.
Decide who you want to be. Decide that you want to be honest and caring and self-respecting and vulnerable, but still with strong boundaries
You like this guy. Whether he’s a person who is actually worthy and deserving of your time and energy is another question, but you do. But instead of telling him, you’re pretending that you don’t. You’re pretending you don’t care when he disappears for weeks. You’re pretending you don’t really enjoy those weekends when you spend time together and get to know each other a little more and when it feels like his attention is all on you. You’re pretending you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about him when, in fact, you do. You’re spending a great deal of time thinking about him and feeling about him and strategising around him – but because he doesn’t know how much time you spend thinking about him, you think you’re “winning”. Because you’re playing it cool, you think you’re coming across as cool. And something in our deeply damaged culture has taught you that being “cool” is far more important than being honest and open-hearted and vulnerable.
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It’s not. It’s really not. You know this. Because you know how bad this feels right now. You know how much time and energy and effort this whole scenario is taking from you. You know how angry and frustrated and unmoored it makes you feel to be locked in this endless game of dating chess, where you have to monitor all of his moves carefully, and are constantly updating who you are depending on his last text. Instead of just getting to exist as you are, you are constantly reacting to this person, crafting your entire sense of self around him. It’s this loss of your self that’s making you feel stupid and crazy.
You have to decide who you want to be, yourself. And that answer shouldn’t change daily or on an hour-to-hour basis depending on the tone or text frequency of a guy.
That answer, by the way, also shouldn’t be based in an image you want someone else to see, but how it actually feels to you. For example, take his birthday. You wanted to be a person he prioritised when making plans, but he didn’t. So in retaliation, you decided not to go, and stayed home feeling angry and upset about it. In your head, the image you are portraying to him is of a person who is in demand, who is busy and doesn’t really care about him. But the reality of the situation is that you stayed in, thinking about him all night, feeling upset. You’re prioritising an image of yourself over the reality, and it’s causing you pain because constantly acting like someone else and acting out of alignment with what we want and what is good for us always will.
What would it look like to think about who you really want to be, and to actually embody that, instead of putting on a performance of it? You want to be someone who values their time, who only stays in relationships where you are respected and prioritised, and who gets to feel relaxed and appreciated around someone as you are, instead of constantly shrinking down your desires and emotions and personality to suit them. You have none of that right now with this guy. Which means you literally have nothing to lose by being yourself.
You have three choices now; you can continue doing this, and not having him. You can be open and honest with him, and maybe he’ll step up and you can have everything you want. Or you can be open and honest with him, find out that he’s not interested, and reclaim all the time and energy you’re currently spending on him and find someone else who will give you everything you want, without the performance and headache.
This seems scary because you think you really like him – but you don’t, really. You like the idea of him. You like the idea of what it would be like if you were properly together and he prioritised you and was consistent and invited you to parties first and spent the parties with you, and if you got to know each other on a deeper level. But you don’t have this, so you have nothing to lose.
Decide who you want to be. Decide that you want to be honest and caring and self-respecting and vulnerable, but still with strong boundaries.
Pay attention to the way you feel when you’re constantly shrinking yourself down for others, and how terrible and confusing and frustrating it feels – and do the opposite
If you want to give this guy one final chance, do it. Tell him that you like him but that you’re no longer interested in the game-playing and inconsistency. He’s known you for seven months and knows enough to decide whether he wants to date you properly. If he does, happy days (but make sure he steps up and is actually consistent with you). If he doesn’t, tell him you wish him a happy belated birthday and to take care. That’s it. You’ve either gotten everything you’ve wanted or saved yourself another seven months of ridiculousness.
Either way, start respecting your own feelings and desires. Pay attention to the way you feel when you’re constantly shrinking yourself down for others, and how terrible and confusing and frustrating it feels – and do the opposite. Decide who you want to be and how you want to be treated – and walk away from people who aren’t able to meet you there. Show people through example that dating can be fun and exciting and vulnerable and honest, instead of a lose-lose game of pride and points-scoring. No matter what happens, living like that will feel so much better, I promise. It’ll feel like winning.