You met someone you liked and exchanged numbers. Now you have been texting back and forth. You have been sending spontaneous snaps. You have been liking each other’s pictures and commenting on statuses.
You have made it clear you are interested in each other — but you have never actually hung out in person. You might mention how you should see a certain movie together or vaguely talk about hanging out soon but it never happens. You just keep talking. And talking. And talking.
The conversations might have been fun at first, but the excitement has been dying down because there is nothing left to say. You keep having the same conversations over and over again. You talk about the same shows, the same sports, the same celebrities. You ask the same basic questions (how are you? what are you doing today?) and have the same boring answers (pretty good. just working.).
If there are any inside jokes between you, you will bring them up to keep the mood light, but then you are back to having no idea what to say. For every flirtatious conversation you have, there are three awkward ones.
You’re stuck in a weird situation because feel like you know this person well and you also feel like you don’t know them at all. You would have a better idea of your feelings for them if you hung out face-to-face, if you tested your chemistry in person, but for some reason that never seems to happen.
For now, you have no idea what you mean to each other. Are you in a relationship? An almost relationship? Are you friends? More than that?
You’re not sure whether you should look at your other options or whether you should consider yourself off the market, because your relationship is undefined. You know there is something between you, but you’re not sure what that means.
When you’re in the talking stage, a part of you might be excited about seeing their name appear on your phone screen — but another part of you is frustrated because you want something more. You don’t want to settle for sporadic conversations over text. You want to flirt face-to-face. You want to see their smiles and hear their laughter and graze their lips.
When you’re in the talking stage, you feel like you’re stuck, like the relationship isn’t progressing. Sometimes you don’t even feel like continuing your conversations at all because they are so repetitive. You don’t see any reason to answer since nothing ever changes, nothing ever brings you closer together.
Eventually you reach a point where you wonder whether you should give up on them completely, whether they were a waste of your time all along.
The worst part of dating is the talking stage because you could spend weeks, months, or even years waiting for a relationship that is never going to develop. Sometimes, even though it seems like you have strong chemistry, the conversations are as far as the relationship goes. It never gets any deeper than that.
