Managing Expectations in Dating
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Everyone has been there: we meet someone, think they are awesome, and then jump headfirst into the “relationship duties." This includes but is not limited to making favorite meals, spending nights snuggled on the sofa watching their favorite movies, taking trips together, perhaps even "pasting their toothbrush," like Kim Kardashian apparently does for her suitors. The only thing we fail to do is tragically also the most important thing - to define the relationship in concrete terms beyond just “we’re feeling each other.”
Inevitably, in this scenario, someone is going to get hurt, particularly the one putting in most of the work with dreams of it “paying off” with a committed relationship. How do I know? At one point, I was that person. Years ago, a long time friend of mine and I reconnected and found out we lived in the same city. Not too long afterward, I found myself cooking his meals, cleaning his house, picking up his dry cleaning, meeting for dinners, sleeping over (void of sex nonetheless), and attending cocktail parties hand in hand.
Perhaps this was my way of showing or proving to him how good of a woman I was and that he would be crazy to not “wife me up” soon because I was a good catch. Yet, my attempt to define our “dealings” was always met with “I’m slow to commit”, “we are such good friends”, or worst yet - silence. In short, he knowingly benefited from my expectations of commitment without actually making one. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t what he was looking for at the time (and vice versa) and I stopped putting in the fruitless efforts in pursuit of his attention and commitment.
I soon realized the solution to this sort of problem: make sure your expectation level matches your commitment level. That’s it! I remember a good friend of mine started liking a friend of hers. After about a week of “seeing” each other, they slept together. However, after about another week, she started calling me to complain about how he wasn’t as available as she wanted him to be and admitted she had an attitude about it. My only question to her was “would you get mad if I didn’t call you for three days?” Of course, she said “no," but my point to her was that she and this guy were friends, just like she and I were friends and if she didn’t get mad when I didn’t call, she didn’t have standing to get mad at him because they were just that - friends.
Her answer to me was “it’s more complicated than that.” Well, I disagree. In a world where commitment can be avoided with the use of meaningless titles like “just kickin’ it”, “seeing each other”, or “getting to know each other”, I champion the cut and dry, the black and white, the “we are friends” and “we are in a committed relationship." The “grey area” dealings I had in the past left me confused, irritated, used, and hurt. They also left me feeling angry because I knew those guys didn’t value me as much as I deserved, especially not in the way God ordained.
So, what does this mean for you and avoiding the “grey area”? It means that if you are getting to know one another, you are just friends with no expectations of commitment. During this time, solely focus on simply finding out if this person even qualifies to be a friend, because that should be the basis of any relationship or marriage. Moreover, if you make the choice to be intimate (emotionally or physically) with this person or you start performing girlfriend/boyfriend duties without the commitment, you have the difficult task of keeping it straight in your head that you are only “friends” and shouldn’t expect anything above and beyond that.
Your expectations should only increase with the commitment level, but not a second before. Save yourself the pain and anxiety; you deserve to be certain about where you stand... trust me!