Are you ‘dating’ someone you’re not actually DATING?

Are you in a friendship/situationship with someone that looks something like this: You text back and forth every day, you send each other jokes and memes and maybe even selfies, you talk about alllll the things, and you may or may not hang out (or make out) from time to time.

Maybe you connected on a dating app or through friends and you developed a relationship of sorts, but technically it is not a dating relationship.

You might even share your dating horror stories with this person and they might share theirs with you.

But you're not actually... dating?!?

But you want to be dating someone. You want to find a partner.

I call this 'dating someone you're not actually dating.'

And I don't think it's a great idea. Here's why:

These kinds of relationships can be red herrings and can distract us from going after what we really want. When you are spending so much time and energy invested in a relationship like this, you are not spending time and energy on building a relationship that is one that you actually want.

I have found myself in situations before with men that I kind of liked and then this would happen. We would text non-stop for hours on end, we would talk about our exes, our divorces, our jobs, our dates, our kids, everything. I was being emotionally supportive to them, and I thought they were being emotionally supportive to me (although sometimes it seemed to skew more heavily in their favor). Sometimes we would hang out (although often not) and I would be waiting for that next available opportunity to spend time together but often that person would either go on dates with someone else or hang out with friends or just decide to have a quiet night at home. All of which are reasonable.

But eventually I would ask myself, "Why does it seem we are so heavily invested in each other's lives but we are not actually dating?"

And here's the answer: If that person wanted to be dating me (or you), we would be dating.

End scene.

So now I've decided I am not going to invest so much time and energy into emotionally-involved-pseudo-dating-relationships unless I am actually in a relationship with that person.

Because spending time and energy on people who are Not The One takes time and and energy away from being open to finding the person who could be The One.

Need help figuring out if you're dating someone you're not dating? Need help figuring how to stop? Message me, I'd love to help!