Relationship Expiration Date

Some relationships are meant to last and some are just fun times with an expiration date. That doesn’t mean you won’t get attatched to that person though. Let me tell you some of my confusing and intense stories since starting short-term dating.

No matter who you’re falling in love with, inevitably, that feeling will fade. That’s the point where people have to choose to stay together if they still wanna spend the rest of their lives together. Incidentally, it is also the point where my last relationship failed. We couldn’t come to terms on how to move forward even though we both wanted a future together.

Photo by Cig Harvey

Recently I’ve also gotten to know other forms of relationships.
And I use the term ‘relationship’ very loosely in this context. I met someone who was in an open relationship. One night he came over to hang. I wasn’t feeling that great but I was up for company. We spend a nice evening together and talked for hours, snuggled on the couch. Some more things I haven’t planned for happened. We had such strong chemistry, it was obvious we were attracted to each other. When he was about to leave, he said that he never had a ‘date’ like this. I wasn’t really sure what he meant because I was new to the whole dating thing. He said that a date lasts about an hour – if it’s a good one. Usually, he didn’t feel comfortable spending hours with a stranger he had no interest in something ‘more’.

I, on the other hand, though we had a pretty normal date.
I like to get to know people beforehand even when I’m not interested in anything more. The next day I received a text from him saying that he had great fun but that he had to be careful with me because I was ‘boyfriend material’. I kinda understood what he was saying but I was a little selfish. I wasn’t in a relationship, not in an open nor in a closed one (closed relationship – does that term even exist?). We met up again, a couple of times, actually. More often than not we just had fun together without having sex. What was developing between us was probably a very fond friendship with a sexual component. What I didn’t know at that point was that he and his boyfriend were not polyamorous. I don’t wanna get into labels here but to simplify they’re in a sexually open relationship, not an emotionally open relationship.

Photo as well as title photo by Kyle Thompson

This was all getting very confusing.
Sometimes I received some very lovely texts, sometimes he rejected me. I knew our strong chemistry was more than a friendship that included sex. I stayed selfish; when I had plans for the weekend, I asked him to join and he usually did. One thing became very clear early on: What we were doing wasn’t gonna last forever. It was all gonna go up in flames and leave a path of destruction behind. I actually told him just that one time. He responded that he wasn’t good in self-control and I wasn’t good at restricting myself. I felt that he was in a predicament I didn’t want to be a part of.

In my weakest moments, I imagined what it would be like always being with him.
I asked myself if he would be interested in that if I’d ask him. But it wasn’t right for us. I stood by what I felt very early on: The two of us were meant to have fun together but we weren’t meant to last. In some cases, we brought out the best in each other. In other cases, the worst. We both liked to be in charge which complicated the whole thing.

Photo by walkingphotolife

At that time, I realized that his boyfriend was becoming jealous.
And I totally get that. I actually wanted to meet him. He seemed very nice and sweet from what I’ve heard. When I heard about their open relationship, in my stupid head I already imagined the three of us hit it off. I asked myself if I would like to be in a relationship with two guys at once. There was no obvious reason not to. Would that be weird? Could I pull it off? What would my parents say – and is that something I would need to concern myself with? In the end, it didn’t matter because I never met him.

The inevitable end. 
Just like I predicted, it all ended in chaos way too early. It felt like it had just started. We weren’t even exclusive lol. One night, he left his boyfriend at home and choose to go party with my friends and me. I knew that it probably was no good idea that he came over. But I asked him to stay. I wanted him to stay even though I knew it was wrong.

Fast forward a couple of hours when I got a text saying that we needed to break things off. He had a fight with his boyfriend and I knew I wasn’t gonna be a home wrecker. But to be honest, that inevitable text hit me harder than I thought it would. (Also, I still think he shouldn’t have broken things off with a text.) We knew each other for a short time frame only but it was intense nonetheless. We mostly stopped our contact except for some confusing text messages showing me all the ways in which we wouldn’t have worked out in the long run. I just wish we could have had a longer short run.

I’d like to know if you’ve ever been in a similarly confusing situation. How did you deal with it?

BenLeander