Single millennials often find themselves swiping right and left, eager to find love online, only to be met with disappointment when ghosted, catfished, or breadcrumbed.
When your absence doesn’t bother the person who stopped talking to you, your presence never mattered.
We tend to date complicatedly. When someone is interested in us and cares about us, we find it clingy, suffocating, and demands too much of our time. The thrill of the chase is over. We ignore the guy who’s interested in us and go back to the guy who left us on read—back to the comfort of a one-sided relationship because we’re used to that and get to write about it on g.spot.
Modern-Day Dating
Dating is hard because we swipe people on the regular—Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, and whatever dating app you are currently using. Millennials nowadays are not being honest with themselves.
We act like we don’t care because it’s cool. No-strings-attached kind of cool. This classic move is said to guarantee to get someone to be in a relationship with you.
Convos usually go like this:
Boy: I like you.
Girl: I like you, too.
Boy: But... I’m not ready for a long-term kind of thing because I’m trying to find myself, and I have a lot of personal issues to work on, and I don’t want to be distracted from my career.
Another scenario is dating a guy who is not a big texter and claims to be always busy. Sounds familiar? That’s already a red flag. He might not be interested in you or as the movie title put it: he’s not that into you. You deserve someone who is sure of you. Move on, girl.
We have this strong, independent, IDGAF facade but behind the thick protective walls around our hearts, deep inside we all want a stable relationship. We try to act cool that we are into the no-label kind of relationship when in reality, we just want to have exclusive rights and privileges for someone we care for.
No Label Relationships
You are seeing this guy because you have been crushing on him for years. When he decided to establish the fact that he likes you, being the marupok that you are, you signed up for a no-label situationship.
Of course, ground rules were laid out and presented with a nice red bow. He likes you so much that he prefers not to put a label on your relationship because he knows that when things go south, you will block him out of your life. And he doesn’t want that as you both started as good friends.
Now you are stuck in a quasi-relationship.
Before you go into a no-label relationship, don’t expect to be his priority. Don’t invest feelings and know your limits. Because in the end, if it doesn’t work out, the pain will kill you.
No-label labels are similar to dating. During this stage, you are trying to get to know the person before you take the relationship to the next level to make it official. The people who invested too much in this situationship are usually the ones who get hurt. They lost the dating game.
Pro tip: give only what you receive. Respond in the way they respond and reciprocate the same energy they give out. Play it safe, playah.
Emotional Investment
Most of us are unsure of our feelings. That’s why we always end up as FWB (friends with benefits) or looped into a no-label situationship.
We are simply not attracted to them as we thought we were or maybe you both don’t speak each other’s love languages. We are always looking for the spark. The kind when you get butterflies in your stomach, when your face lights up when he sees you, the world around you stops for a few seconds, or that kiss that turns your knees to marshmallows.
What makes us not invest emotionally? You both have different priorities. You are both waiting who will reach out first. Pride Month yarn!
Most of the time, commitment is heavy for the quasi-couple. Once tied to a commitment, guys need to show up and be consistent and have someone rely on them for things. He doesn’t like to be inconvenienced and not live his life completely on his terms. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like you. It just means he is not ready for all those boyfriend duties that come with the relationship package.
Why would he let you go if he can have you and you are allowing him to? Congrats! He is having his cake and eating it too! Let’s have another slice.
Connect with ourselves, reflect, and recognize our own worth and value. This will make us realize why we should not give anyone a free ride. If we want to be in a relationship with someone, we have to earn it. Otherwise, we don’t deserve it.
How to Get Out of No-Label Situationships
The most confusing relationship is being in one that you are not. The downside of being stuck in a no-label relationship category is that you cannot dictate someone to do boyfriend/girlfriend duties for you. They might be dating someone or you might be boyfriend/girlfriend number two (or three!).
Yes, you agreed to a no-label situationship but as the months went by, you realized you wanted more. Don’t be ashamed of wanting more and don’t be ashamed of yourself for wanting more.
You deserve to be someone’s number one. Not one of the many side chicks or side pieces. Your love story is not a romantic comedy movie where the guy or the girl chases the other at the end of the movie because they realized their true feelings.
Be honest and ask to DTR (define the relationship). Tell him what you want. It can go either way: you get what you want or you move on to the next emotionally available guy. Make sure that before you go into that kind of situationship, you know how to get out of it.
The most important thing is there will be no regrets and no what-ifs. When you lose your emotional connection to someone, you will realize how ordinary they were. Your love and energy made them special.
Once we are healed and gained confidence in ourselves, red flags are no longer red flags. They are now called deal breakers.
There’s always pain when you turn a new page when you realize that somebody is not going to be part of the next chapter. Yet that next chapter is where your new life begins.
Be a better version of yourself. Thank you, next!
This article originally appeared in G.Spot on October 2022.
