Relationship Labels: Are You Hooking Up, Dating, Or Having A Relationship?

What constitutes a full-blown relationship? What is the difference between a situationship and simply dating? Is a hook-up a potential relationship, or is it just a fleeting romance? How have our relationships become so complicated that even defining them is hard these days? We help you make heads or tails of whatever it is you have by helping you put your own relationship labels.

Why Relationship Labels Matter

Even if you belong to the type of liberal people who don’t like to put labels on things, we bet you are not the same when it comes to your love life. Why do we need to know what it is that we have with the object of our desire?

It’s simple: we want to know what kind of relationship we have so that we can either invest in it emotionally or detach ourselves to a degree that can guarantee that we won’t get hurt in future. This is how to distinguish things.

Find Your Relationship Label

The first thing you need to examine is whether you are seeing each other exclusively. If one (or both) of you is playing the field, then what you have is definitely not a serious relationship. If you have made an agreement to see other people too, but still date exclusively, it can be a situationship you’re in. If you’ve only been on a couple of dates that mostly involved sex, then it’s probably just a hook-up we’re talking about.

The second thing to take into account is the frequency with which you meet. Is it a date every once in a blue moon, is it a couple of times a week or is it every chance you get? If she is as eager to meet as you are, we could be talking about a full-blown relationship that you haven’t even realized is there. If you are not too eager to meet her but are just passing time, it’s definitely a case of casual hook-ups, and if you’re still unsure how you feel but would like to know more about her, it’s a case of dating.

A third clue that can tell you what sort of situation you are in is how much you communicate. If you can’t stop checking your mobile for text messages and she calls you at every possible chance just to hear your voice or ask your opinion about the simplest things in her life, there are clear signs you’re either already in a relationship or at the threshold of one. If on the other hand, your communication is sparse and limited to arranging a steamy night out, it’s most probably a case of hook-ups. In the stage in between, where you sometimes text and talk over the phone but don’t really care much about meeting frequently, it’s most probably a situationship you are in; a no-strings-attached kind of relationship.

Once you take stock of these clues, you should be able to determine the kind of relationship you have, its seriousness and depth but also its potential to become something more. In any case, you should not be afraid of putting relationship labels, as they are often a necessary thing.

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