| Girl
On Love |
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I realized earlier today that a friend of mine has been seeing a girl for a few months now and I have no idea what her name is. It’s not that I have a particularly bad memory, in fact, I tend to remember most things I hear. It is that he has never once mentioned it to me. She is always referred to as “The girl I’ve been hanging out with,” “The girl I’ve been hooking up with,” or, when time is scarce “that girl.” It makes me wonder how long it will take before he refers to her by name, let alone admit that they are actually dating. At this point I refuse to ask, because I’m curious as to how long he can keep her at arm’s length. The last conversation we had about her went like this: “So what’s going on with the girl you’re dating?” “Not really dating...” “Is that why you spend all of your free time with this girl and make out with her whenever you can? Does she KNOW you’re not dating?” “I mean...” “You’re stupid.” Another fine example of the commitment-wary man in a great deal of discomfort is the “gift-contingent special occasion.” One otherwise kind young man was discussing at the office today how he had only just started spending time with a great girl when her birthday had come up. He worked himself up into an indecisive frenzy about what to buy her. Something thoughtful or expensive would indicate to her that they were officially dating, while a casual gift might risk seeming offensive and drive her away. Rather than muddle through the decision and the inevitable pigeonholing or loneliness to follow, he simply stopped calling her. The lack of clear definitions and boundaries in the development of the modern romantic relationship must have something to do with dating culture’s metamorphosis into “hang out and hook up” culture. For the most part, young people don’t go out on a series of dates any more; instead they casually hang out for an indefinite period until they don’t want to hook up any more. If they keep hooking up for a substantial amount of time, then phase into exclusivity, they may very well be dating. After dating for enough time to feel comfortable letting everyone know they’re definitely taken, the pair becomes boyfriend-girlfriend. I do understand, of course, the desire not to rush into any situation in which more is expected that one is willing to give. I realize I am capable of being more of a commitmentphobe than most. I had been in my last real relationship for eight months before I started referring to him as my “(gulp) boyfriend.” And I suppose, technically, that the last guy I was seeing had been in my life for about a year. Not only would I never have referred to us as “dating,” but he never even made it into my cell phone. Perhaps our generation’s widespread refusal to commit to the word “dating” stems from a pervading fear of being hurt or abandoned. After all, to many, including myself, it is much easier to dismiss the significance of a relationship than it is to assert that it has a future and then learn that the other party disagrees. Rather than having awkward ill-timed chats about where a relationship is “going,” the emotionally protective find out where we stand in someone else’s life by observing where we stand with his or her friends. I recently heard the clearest example of this from a girl who has been hanging out with a foolhardy young man whose friends have nicknames for all of the girls he’s dated: Bottle Blondie, Cruella, Hot Jane, Double D and Nutcase, all reflecting what, exactly, they found pertinent. She asked him one day why they didn’t simply refer to them by their given names, and he said it was a practice of his childhood friends to come up with code names for girls they were talking about. He mentioned, for example, a friend of his who had been dating a girl that resembled a zaftig Christina Aguilera, who his friends called “Chubby Chris.” “What do your friends call me?” she asked, curious now. “You’re going to be pissed.” “No no, just tell me.” “Retarded Brooke Shields. Ow.
A2P Email girl@annarborpaper.com.
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