Having the 'exclusive' talk with a guy

Jedi_Archivist

As the title suggests, im curious to see how other boardsies have approached this conversation?

For context; Im in my early thirties and have not had a relationship before for various reasons- being busy with life being a big one. But ive started to dip my toe into the dating world in recent months. As a result ive started meeting a guy i met on tinder more regularly, early days yet and im just taking it slow and enjoying his company. But, in the interest of being prepared, i wondered how this question of 'what are we' etc can be raised? Or is this even a thing now?

Just to be clear also- im not looking to rush into anything just to say i have a boyfriend. I guess these relationship related questions are just on my radar now for the first time, and any thoughts, advice, comments would be welcome

leggo

Yeah, I'd say it's a thing more than ever now because of Tinder/dating culture. Previously, in my experience, 'exclusive' was like a pre-relationship agreement where it was really the start of the relationship but not officially. Like when a couple discusses marriage and confirms they both want it but there hadn't been a proposal. Now it's typically something different: it's more a case of, "We're not committing to anything long-term yet so let's not make any big plans or anything but just agree we won't sleep with/date anyone else and carry on doing what we're doing." So people would start being exclusive a bit earlier these days than when I first started dating, about 10ish years ago for context, but the getting into a relationship part would be more serious than it was too.

In terms of how: it typically just comes up naturally by virtue of both parties wanting it. And if you're finding it difficult to bring it up, in my experience, it's probably because you're having subconscious reservations about it either not being right or perhaps too soon. So I'd say don't think about it too much and let it happen. When it's right, it'll just spill out of you or him. Some will say to just go for it, and I'm not disagreeing with that either, but in my experience the couple times I've forced it were bad calls in hindsight.

silverharp

There shouldn't really be a need for a conversation unless your "slow" is iceberg like and neither of you can figure out whats going on in which case it will probably fizzle out anyway. I assume ye both have disabled (or whatever way it works) your Tinder profiles? or you will just know that it would be unacceptable to either of you that the other party was still going out on dates with other people.

SozBbz

I'm around the same age as you OP, but I've not been on the market since Tinder became a thing, but in my view thats a good place to start.

Have either of you deactivated your profiles, and if so have you spoken about it? If not, thats where I'd start. If there is something blossoming here, then you'd think that you should both be able to agree to this fairly easily.

I also agree that getting into a relationship is a bit of a 2 step process. First is the "I'm not seeing anyone else, are you? No? great!" and then theres the relationship conversation which I'd expect to happen 4/6 weeks (ish) after the exclusivity conversation, all being well.

With my OH we actually had the exclusivity conversation on our 2nd date, but weren't officially in a relationship until I attended an event with him after about 2 months of knowing each other, and he said something like "all my friends are asking if you're my girlfriend", to which I replied "well would you like me to be?" andwe were both just smiling our heads off so that was that.

TL:DR - lots of people find this awkward but if its going well, the subject will come up!

s15r330

I just told my now fiance that I deactivated my profile, she smiled and asked why and I told her it was because I had found what I was looking for, simple as!