Casual dating
Casual dating. How your dating life looks depends on what you want. When dipping your toe into the world of dating, it’s important to know what you’re looking for. By not understanding your desires, you could easily end up hurting someone who wants more than you do. You might not mean to, but when you don’t know what you want, you could lead them on without realizing it. So, casual dating vs serious dating, where do you land?
What is casual dating?
Casual dating is when you see someone, but there is no commitment towards the future or even to stay exclusive to each other.
You may be seeing more than one person, and provided you’re on the same page about it, there’s no issue. The issues arise when one person thinks they’re dating casually and fine to see other people, and the other person thinks they’re exclusive. This results in very difficult times and an upset partner.
Casual dating doesn’t have a commitment, and it’s not serious. This doesn’t mean that it can’t progress to a serious relationship in the future.
The main features of a casual relationship are:
1. It may or may not be exclusive
It’s possible to be casually dating someone but be seeing other people. But, you might also choose to remain faithful to that person yet not be serious. Can you see how it can get confusing?
The point is that there’s no right or wrong, you just need to both be in agreement.
2. It’s usually about sex
Casual dating is often about sex and having fun. For sure, it can also be about not going to parties and other get-togethers alone, but you tend to do that with friends. For the most part, if you’re in a casual dating situation, you’re in it for the benefits it brings, i.e. sexy fun.
3. There should be no feelings involved
You can like each other as humans – that always helps! However, for a casual relationship to work you both need to keep your feelings out of it.
As soon as one of you starts to catch feelings, it becomes complicated. If the other person doesn’t feel the same way, one person is going to get hurt. Of course, it might be that you both start to fall for one another, and then you can talk about moving towards something more serious.
4. You don’t make plans
Your plans go no further than hooking up the following night. When you start making plans together, you’re not casual anymore, you’re moving into something else. That’s when it gets blurry. You might talk about going to a party at the same time, but you’re probably not going together officially.
