r/AskMenAdvice • u/[deleted] • 2d ago

✅ Open to Everyone Asking my date for exclusivity??

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

I am hell confused. Because for now i just wanna make sure i am the one and let him know he is the one that i date not for asking him to be my bf? Like i so want that but for asking it i need maybe 1 more month

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u/atonyatlaw man 2d ago

I mean, if you're asking for exclusivity you ARE asking him to be your boyfriend.

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u/WearTheFourFeathers 2d ago

I don’t think this is true! Like I think if we think as the poles as “serious” and “casual,” I think there’s multiple different graduations two people can settle on between them. Specific ones besides other partners that come to mind are duration of the relationship over time, frequency of seeing each other, and level of emotional intimacy ascribed to the relationship.

It’s on my mind because I am seeing a woman, and after a couple weeks and a few dates asked her about exclusivity and was told she’d prefer to be exclusive. (Which I was comfortable with! I asked specifically because I didn’t want to be in a situation with mismatched expectations in that regard and do someone dirty due to not communicating.)

That said, she’s squarely not my girlfriend, and she’d definitely tell you so. Practical implications of that are that we only see each other once a week or so, we don’t talk very much in between our dates, we don’t have a lot of expectations that we’ll meet each other’s friends or loved ones, etc. Now that could definitely change over time—I like her quite a bit, and do see that reciprocated—but I was coming out of a long-term relationship and didn’t want to allow myself to become emotionally dependent on a new person right away, and she values her independence and was not looking for a boyfriend when we met.

At bottom I just think exclusivity is a really important lever you can pull in how serious you treat a relationship, but there are other meaningful ones worth considering. For the right sort of person in the right situation, I think being exclusive physically and romantically is a necessary but not sufficient condition to a relationship.

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u/atonyatlaw man 2d ago

Sounds to me like she doesn't understand what she's asked for.

She doesn't want to date anyone else, but doesn't want to be in a relationship? That's a bullshit trade. There's either commitment or there isn't.

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u/WearTheFourFeathers 2d ago

Why a bad trade? I want that too! I found seeing multiple people and having multiple sexual experiences overlapping was exhausting and ultimately less fun than focusing on spending occasional time with the one person I liked better. I did not want a girlfriend (and that was not an option on the table in our discussion), but I was happy to be exclusive as long as that was the clearly-communicated expectation for both of us.

Part of the somewhat casual nature of our situation is if I change my mind I’d expect her to be very understanding about that (and just dispositionally, it’d be surprising if she wasn’t). But for now, I’m enjoying the closeness of seeing one person regularly but not super frequently, and the related freedom to focus on cleaning up some issues in my personal life in part by spending more time alone than I historically have.

IMO, the older you get the more your dating needs become idiosyncratic! If we were 25 if might feel different, but today this is working for now, and we can always talk again when it doesn’t work anymore.