One More Thing

I know I'm supposed to be writing a paper, and I am (if you can call my current list of quotes from book chapters, links to articles, and notes to myself in vague outline form a "paper"), but I had to take a break because guess what I just found out?

You remember Phil's whole, "Well, as far as I know she only has sex with me and as far as she knows I only have sex with her, but even though we both think we're monogamous, she's not my girlfriend because I don't CALL her my girlfriend, and therefore I can technically still sleep with whoever I want?" Well, apparently this bizarre sort of rationalization is not unique to Phil! I was talking to Kiki this evening and she said that a guy she has been flirting with recently pulled the same story on her this weekend. After insinuating last night that he wanted to come over to her apartment and hook up, she was texting him today and mentioned that she might come over to his place and he said something to the effect of, "Don't come over right now, I'm at school with the girl." And when she was like, "What girl?" He basically gave her the same spiel about how she's not sleeping with anyone else and he's not sleeping with anyone else but she's not his girlfriend because he doesn't want a girlfriend.

WTF, mates?! What is up with these men? Are you really not in a relationship these days until you have a VERY OFFICIAL TALK and sign a decree that says that you are now a part of a couple? Or maybe it doesn't count until you've changed your Facebook status to "In a relationship"?

Believe me, I get the premise of an open relationship, and there have been times in my life when an open relationship has worked quite well for me. But as far as I'm concerned, it's not an open relationship unless I can say to you, "Sorry Bob, I can't come over to your place tonight because Fred is coming over." That's an open relationship. And it does work. Trust me, I did it for years, and it was pretty much that open (or at least open enough that the next day I could say to College Ex, "Did you not call me last night because Katie came over?" and he would shrug and say, "Yeah, sorry," and I'd say, "Oh well, that's okay"). I also understand that there's always a period of time at the beginning of a relationship where you both realize you like each other and you're spending a lot of time together but you haven't yet had a talk about whether or not you want to be monogamous. And I understand that that stage can last a while, depending on the relationship. And that's fine.

But a whole year or more of being in a relationship and not defining it?! No. That is ridiculous. I think all the men on the fence need to just suck it up. Either be in a relationship and OWN IT and freakin' call her your girlfriend and treat her with the respect a girlfriend deserves, or have a talk and decide that you're in an open relationship and treat it like an open relationship. Which means being forthright about who else you are sleeping with, and actually sleeping with other people. I'm sorry, but there's no such thing as an open relationship in name only. In order for it to be an actual relationship, at least one of the parties needs to be regularly hooking up with other people (and not doing it in secret). You can't just call your relationship an open relationship on the off-chance that it might become a true open relationship someday if you meet someone else you like. That's fucking stupid.

What happened to the simplicity of being in a committed relationship and then just breaking up if there was suddenly someone else you wanted to date (or sleep with)? How does it make things any easier/better to just stay in a constant sort of limbo where, hey, you never have to feel guilty about sleeping with whoever you want because you never SAID it was a relationship. It doesn't make things easier, it just complicates the situation for everyone involved, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't save anyone's feelings from getting hurt, either.

I'm really hoping that by some strange fluke of nature Kiki and I happened to meet the only two guys in America who believe this type of not-so-open open relationship is cool. Because seriously, does dating and defining a relationship need to become even more complicated than it already has been in the twenty-first century?

But hey, maybe I'm in the minority. Maybe there are girls in the world that never need to define their relationships at all. But I'm not one of them, and I can't really think of anyone I know that would be totally cool with never ever discussing the nature of the relationship. I mean, I like relationships to progress slowly and naturally, but even I reach a point where I feel the need to ask whether or not you're my boyfriend or whether we're still cool with seeing other people. And I imagine other people like that sort of definition too, right?
Is there anyone out there who is honestly okay with not knowing whether or not the person you're climbing into bed with at night is climbing into other beds, too? Is there anyone who has ever been in a long term relationship where the question of committed-or-open just never came up? Let me know. Because it's all just way too confusing for me and I'm annoyed with these guys acting in a manner that I view as shady, but maybe I'm just not evolving fast enough.