On Sex, half-truths, and Indecisiveness

I think it’s about time we started considering the other half of my grey argument. I feel that I left a lot out last time about making decisions. When faced with a choice, you first consider the options. Many times, some options are overlooked in the “grey” area (neither right nor wrong, innocent nor guilty). When faced with these choices, I think that it is in our best interests to analyze and probe each and every possible solution to the problem. The part that is left out is the final step of this process. The final decision. After you sift through all the solutions, it is imperative to make a final choice.

For example, imagine you are walking down the street after a day of work, on your way to the gym, and a woman comes up to you, says hi and asks how you are doing. You do not remember this person. Your thought process would probably try to decide how you know this person. Let’s think. She is wearing a business suit, coming from the direction of the office. Simple. You probably know her from work. She’s coming from the direction of the gym, but she’s not sweaty and tired. Therefore, you have analyzed the situation and came to a conclusion that you probably know her through work somehow.

Now, that is a fairly mundane example. Coming to the incorrect assumption does not harm you or the other person. You are not doing them a disservice by forgetting who they are, or even refusing to approach them about work, on the off chance that you know them from somewhere else.

Now let’s move on to the type of person that does not complete the decision making progress. Now imagine the subject is a girl, who is taken out on a date. She likes the guy, but its too early to start labeling them as a couple. Three weeks later, they are by definition, going steady. They spend nights together, go out to eat together, and spend copious amounts of free time together.

In my experiences, there is not ever a “will you be my girlfriend?” conversation like back in middle school. It is generally accepted that when a couple is mutually exclusive to each other, that they are together. Now what if that girl, never referred to her significant other as a boyfriend. They go out on dates, spend nights together, do dirty things.

Hold out on that for one second. I want to define a boyfriend/girlfriend situation. How do you define a “couple”? To me it means that 2 people have decided that they like each other and want only to date the other member of this couple. I would call them boyfriend and girlfriend.

Now suppose that the male partner begins to refer to the female as his girlfriend. They have been together for 3 months, and have spent many more nights together. They are exclusively together as far as the guy knows.

The girl however, is an indecisive idiot. Call me harsh, call me vulgar, but it is the truth. She is exclusively dating the male, showing affection (although most of it only in private). But, when referring to her dating partner, she calls him just a friend.

In this case, the female has gone through the process of becoming someone’s girlfriend, and is exclusive. The only problem is that she can’t decide if she wants to have a boyfriend or not. She rationalizes it by saying that she does not like titles. She thinks by having titles, things become assumed. However, while calling someone your boyfriend assumes that you are, in fact, mutually dating each other. To me, it seems that although she is going through the motions, and showing these feelings to her partner, that she is not honestly sure if she wants a relationship or not.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb and suppose that I am this guy. I am aware of the fact that she does not “believe” in labels. I don’t care. By definition, she is my girlfriend. I treat her that way. She treats me the way a girlfriend treats her boyfriend. I thought that was all that really mattered.

My God was I wrong. These labels create a bond. Similar to an engagement. By introducing people as their boy/girlfriend, it is letting everyone know that “this person is important to me, I am committed to this person”. Without this label, a certain indecisiveness shows that she is not sure if she wants that connection. She created the feelings in me. I acted the part of the boyfriend. She acted the part of the girlfriend. The problem was, she was not sure that she wanted what she had. But that was as far as her decision went. She was neither supportive nor opposed to the idea of labeling ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend. This created a precarious situation when I approached her about it. She would neither confirm nor deny that she wanted to be my girlfriend. She was opposed to any form of PDA. However when in private, she played the part well. On the surface, we were a couple who had only been dating for a couple weeks, and were not fully sure of the conditions of the relationship. Inside, I felt she was my girlfriend, and treated her like how I would treat any other girl I had been dating for five months.

Of course over time I could not bear the fact that she was never a proponent of PDA, or “labels". I had a feeling that she was not planning out how we were viewed by people in public. When people have been sleeping together for three months, people begin to talk. People begin to assume things. Of course, the girl has no idea why. She wanted the whole serious part of the relationship to be secret. Let me rephrase that. The girl wanted a private adult relationship, but a public relationship that was still in the indecisive early few weeks of dating.

You can see where this can run into problems. When I approached her about the issues, things just went downhill. If she doesn’t believe in labels, who are her friends? Does she treat all of her “friends” like me? What kind of person has a five-month relationship with someone who they refer to as a “friend?”

All of these questions tore me apart. This woman was so indecisive that she had no straight answer for any of these questions. I was distraught. Was the “friend” she had over in the beginning of the semester just a “friend,” or a “friend” like I was becoming. Was her “stalker” really stalking her? Or was she just leading him on as a friend and he did not understand why she would not want to be involved with him.

Through all of these questions, I never got a single straight answer. I asked why she lied to me so much. Her response was along the lines of “I never lied to you, I just never gave you a straight answer.” To me, in that situation, they were as good as the same.

All of this shit, this horrible, emotional SHIT, that I am going through right now, after finding out that I was almost never given a straight answer through an entire five month relationship, has one simple source. Indecisiveness. Labels.

If she had labeled myself as a boyfriend, and been honest with me throughout the relationship, things might have worked out. She could have said that she led on her “stalker” whenever she was bored and indecisive. She would lead him on for days; even some nights sleep in the same bed as him. She would never let him know how she felt about him. She simply wanted a hand to hold, someone to hug when she was down. She wanted a friend, but could not bring herself to stop there and label him as a friend. What man would not take an invitation to bed as a sensual, if not sexual thing? He assumed she was into him. No one can blame him for that. Of course he became attached.

This huge, relationship-killing, problem (like most) started out small. Labels. The process of relationships is fairly simple. People become acquaintances, they move on to dating each other. At some point they become boyfriend and girlfriend and are exclusive to each other. After this, the same couple becomes engaged, taking the bonds that are created in the relationship and solidifying them. Finally they are married, forming a (hopefully) life-long pact to love and serve each other. I view this as a kind of stepladder sort of thing. These are steps, you do not slowly fade between being friends, dating, becoming engaged, and marriage. There are watershed events, and without labels we cannot know as observers if anyone is involved with anyone else. Labels are imperative to our society. Whether this girl is your friend, fuck-buddy, girlfriend, fiancé, or wife, it is important that she views herself that way. It is important that she acts how a wife, girlfriend, or a fuck buddy would act. It is fairly clear that a fuck buddy and a wife would treat their significant other in very different was.

Without labels, the social structure of our society would collapse. The next time you are with someone that you hope to date, be sure that if you call her your girlfriend, they refer to you as their boyfriend. To some people it’s easier to act the part than accept the fact. If they do not label you in their own head, you can never know how they think of you. I dated a girl that wasn’t sure if she wanted a boyfriend, but she played the part, for five months.

Don’t be indecisive. I will end this with a quote by Tucker Max, which I think sums up this article pretty well.


“There is no greater freedom, there is no more potent weapon, there is nothing more conducive to mental health and stable relationships than being honest about who you are and what you want.”