DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a 22-year-old, straight single woman. I’m still a virgin because I was raised in a religious family and because, in order to save money, I’ve been living at home while attending college close by. However, I’m graduating this spring and, since I’ve spent the past 6-7 years secretly developing more progressive beliefs, I’m looking forward to moving to a larger, “bluer” city and starting my own life – which will hopefully include dating.
My goal is a committed relationship leading to marriage and family. But I won’t consider it a tragedy if I have to date several men before finding “the one.” I even think it’s great that I’ll be able to be sure my husband and I are sexually compatible before we get married. The problem is, I’ve read some stuff online suggesting I might be even more old-fashioned and out of the loop than I thought. Is it really true that open relationships are more the default these days than exclusive ones, especially in the early stages? And that when you first start dating someone, you should assume they are also dating other people, until you reach a point where you decide to be exclusive?
This fills me with sorrow and panic. I absolutely do not want to have sexual relationships with more than one man at a time, or with a man who is simultaneously having sexual relationships with other women. Does this mean no one will want to date me? Or that I’ll be limited to religious or conservative men I’m not politically or intellectually compatible with? I’m not bad-looking, but not beautiful enough that I feel like men would jump through hoops to date me if they have plenty of other options who won’t make the same demands. How badly should I expect this to affect my dating life, and what can I do about it?
Exclusively Exclusive
DEAR EXCLUSIVELY EXCLUSIVE: One of the truths about dating is that any preference is going to limit the number of potential dates in your particular pool. Unless you’re literally considering all and sundry, you’re going to be narrowing down the number of people you might connect with. This is part of the price of entry to the dating market. The key is understanding that this sort of filtering is inherently a good thing; you’re filtering out the people who aren’t right for you.
The flipside of this, however, is understanding that some preferences will narrow your options far more significantly than others. You have to decide for yourself which preferences – and the accompanying reduction in potential choices – are important to you, and which are ones you could do without.
Now, despite the current cultural moment that polyamory and ethical non-monogamy is having (and the thousands of think-pieces about it), most people are going to be some flavor of monogamous. You’re going to find more people who want a more traditionally closed relationship than folks who want an open or poly one. You’re going to be pretty safe on that score.
However, most people aren’t going to want to be exclusive on the first or second date, and they’re not likely to agree to that if asked. And honestly, it’s going to be hard to find someone who would.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who prefer to date sequentially rather than in parallel. Some folks do indeed go on dates with one person before deciding to pursue someone else. There isn’t a reliable metric to measure how many people are like this or how to identify them; it can often be a question of timing and where they are in their lives at that moment as a general preference. Someone who was a sequential dater may find themselves in circumstances where they have multiple dates with different people and vice versa.
The problem is when somebody who expects exclusivity doesn’t say so, and then proceeds to get angry that the other person didn’t live up to the agreement that they were never asked to participate in. This is part of why I think the best practice is to assume that you’re not exclusive until you and your date have both opted in. To do otherwise isn’t fair to either party.
If it’s going to be important to you that the person you go on a second or third date with is only seeing you at the moment, you’re going to have to say so early on, and you’re going to have to accept that this may make it harder to find people who are of the same mindset as you are. That doesn’t mean you’ve made the wrong choice; it just means that you’ll be narrowing your options further than you might otherwise – including filtering out the overly conservative and/or religious men who meet that standard. Especially since you’ll need to state it, clearly and out loud, rather than assuming or implying it. Otherwise you may be finding yourself having a lot of unexpected and unpleasant conversations that you’d rather not have.
Now, it may be worth exploring a little deeper about why you’d be uncomfortable dating a man who might be seeing other people. If, as it sounds in your letter, it’s a matter of fearing that his having other options makes him less likely to choose you… well, to be honest, then that implied exclusivity isn’t going to actually help. I understand the anxiety underneath; it’s the same anxiety some monogamous people feel about non-monogamy. If they are out dating or sleeping with other people, then they might meet someone else and leave their partner. But here’s the thing: they might still do that even if they’re monogamous. Monogamy or exclusivity aren’t magical talismans against being dumped or cheated on; people cheat and leave their partners all the time without non-monogamous arrangements. The idea that exclusivity can prevent or mitigate this is like my carrying around a half-dollar in my pocket to keep the tigers away.
In any relationship, monogamous or non, you have to have a certain level of belief in your own value and in the connection you have with the other person. You don’t need someone to “jump through hoops” to date you and honestly, the idea that their willingness to do so is a feature is kinda off-putting. The best relationships, in my experience, are ones where both people feel like they’re getting the best out of the equation, not “I’m willing to move mountains in order to drink her bathwater.” You don’t want someone who feels like they have to “earn” your love, any more than you would want to feel the same about them.
Nor would dating someone who feels that way make the relationship any stronger or more secure. If anything, it would be far more likely to create a sort of relationship imposter-syndrome, where you worry that someday they’re going to wake up and realize that you’re not the goddess they thought and move on… which brings us right back to the anxiety problem we started off with.
If you don’t believe that you’re awesome enough in your own right that your matches would be fools not to want to be with you and/or you don’t trust what you have with the other person to be so good that they would choose you over someone else, then you’re going to spend a lot more time trying to manage your anxieties than you are enjoying the relationship. Similarly, if you can’t trust the other person to pick you out of all the other people or to be sincere when they do? Well… good luck ever feeling secure in that relationship.
Yeah, our partners have a role to play in this. It’s always good when they remind us that they have chosen us, specifically, and why. But you have to be the one leading that particular charge for yourself, to be your own cheerleader and hype-person. If you’re not your own biggest fan, then how would you believe someone else who says that they are? It’s a lot harder to accept love when you can’t feel it for yourself; you’ll always worry that the sword of Damocles is hanging overhead and the thread is starting to fray.
Every relationship comes with the risk of heartache baked in. The key is to avoid unnecessary heartache. And part of that starts by learning to love and appreciate yourself, to recognize your worth and to value yourself, so that you can believe others when they recognize and value you, too.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com