Do you remember when we were in high school and how scandalously simple life was? There was a time when boys who liked you didn’t think twice before taking the initiative to ask you out. Dating in high school went a little something like this: boy likes girl. girl likes boy. boy asks girl to the homecoming dance. and everyone knows that the homecoming dance was where all great love stories began. The rules of engagement were pretty simple after that: the agreement to enter into an exclusive relationship made it crystal clear that neither of you were allowed to—or wanted to—explore the possibilities of other relationships.
As we grew up, somewhere along the way, relationships lost clarity and certainty, and a world that was once definitively black and white gave way to muddy shades of gray. Gone are the days when when mutual attraction and genuine feelings were enough to cement a relationship. In regrettable reality, few relationships these days begin the way they are supposed to. Anticipation, butterflies and good morning, how are you? text messages have been replaced with obscurity, drama and late-night you should come over texts. Too many relationships are loosely assembled on a faulty foundation of one-foot-in, one-foot-out, are-we-or-aren’t-we, hot-and-cold, halfway-out-the-door mentality.
Society has come to endorse these casual, no-pressure, go-with-the-flow, no-strings-attached relationships in which either person is allowed to bail on a whim at any given time because their relationship doesn’t have a “label.” We use words like “technically” and “hanging out” and “it’s complicated” to justify a lack of commitment and exclusivity, and to keep our options open. Never before have we had so many of these options made available to us and all within effortless reach. Because of these infinite options, we can find ourselves paralyzed between decisions that require commitment. Are you sometimes afraid that making one decision would cause you to miss out on a person, a career or an opportunity better suited to you? Me too.
Once upon a time, labeling your relationship was enough to understand where you stood with someone. There was a code of ethics to abide by if you were someone’s girlfriend or best friend. Nowadays, we’ve done away with labels but in the process, it seems that we have also done away with boundaries. Human nature tends to crave labels because we believe that it will allow us to define the relationship, but really, it’s the boundaries we establish that gives definition to our relationships.
Author Cheryl Strayed said it best when she said:
“Boundaries are the basic principles you identify for yourself that define the behaviors that you will tolerate from others, as well as the responses you will have to those behaviors. Boundaries teach people how to treat you, and they teach you how to respect yourself.”
Those defining behaviors that you tolerate teach people how to treat you. How people treat you will tell you everything you need to know about where you stand with them. And I believe wholeheartedly in knowing where you stand with someone. At the end of the day, we’re looking for so much more than a title for our relationships. The question is not what are we?, it’s who am I to you?—I don’t need to know if I’m your best friend, your second best friend, your girlfriend or the girl you’re dating—I need to know if I’m the person you call whether you have a breakdown or a break through. I need to know if I can call you up in the middle of the night to pick me up after a date gone wrong or after an unintentional run-in with Jose Cuervo.
Can I count on you to pick up your phone at 3 a.m.? Will you turn to me when life turns against you? How much of a mess can I be when I show up at your doorstep? Where do I fit into your life? I need to know, and you need to know, where the lines are drawn and which of those lines are safe to cross with the people in my life and yours. The question is not what are we?, it’s who can I be with you? I need to know, and you need to know, that the person you choose will look at you and say, whatever this is, I’m all in.
Life is too short to have it any other way. It’s too short to keep choosing someone who can’t make up their mind about you. In a world where few things are certain, you owe it to yourself to find someone who is certain of you. So if someone can’t make up their mind about you—please—make up yours.
When you know who you are to the people in your life, you can adjust your expectations of the relationship and establish the boundaries that your heart demands. Maybe that means walking away from a relationship or friendship. Maybe that means taking a step back to figure out your non-negotiables. Maybe it means apologizing to someone for having one foot out the door. Maybe it means deciding to go all in on someone you have been on the fence about. Whatever it means to you and for you, don’t settle for a life of in-between. Don’t settle for half of a relationship, for 75 percent on a good day, for inconsistency or for uncertainty. Decide what it is that you want. Decide what it is that you need in your relationships. Respect yourself enough to draw boundaries. Learn how to hold yourself in high regard and teach people how to treat you. Settling for this yes-and-no, it’s-complicated, depends-on-the-day treatment is not the way to do it.