Define Dating

Or what is your attachment style?

[Originally published on October 7, 2020]

Something I have struggled with in my adult life is relationships. It’s something I am constantly discussing with my therapist. Not just romantic relationships, but friendships too. There’s a lot of reasons why I have trust issues, but understanding your root trauma doesn’t resolve the issue.

In the last few days, I have been reading a book called Attached, by Amir Levine and Rachel S.F. Heller, which explains the theory of attachment and how it can affect our relationships. The theory of attachment was developed by British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby. In the 1950s he spent his days examining the impact early relationships with our caregivers have on who we become, and therefore our romantic relationships.

There are three types of attachment:

• Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back. They make up approximately 20% of the population.
• Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness. They make up approximately 25% of the population.
• Secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving. They make up approximately 50% of the population.
• The remaining percentage of the population is in the lesser-seen anxious-avoidant group.

One of the key pieces to attachment theory is the understanding that our need to be in a close relationship with one or more individuals is embedded in our genes and is not an inherent character flaw. Something that has become somewhat ubiquitous in our society is the adage that you cannot love someone else until you love yourself or until you are happy being alone, you aren’t ready for a relationship. This always felt impossible to me because my desire for a relationship was never a reflection of how much I love myself or my ability to be alone. Attachment theory explains this. “When our partners are thoroughly dependable and make us feel safe, and especially if they know how to reassure us, during the hard times, we can turn our attention to all the other aspects of our life that make our existence meaningful”.

Understanding your own attachment style is critical to finding and maintaining a healthy relationship. Dating is hard. Add living in New York on top of it and attending a largely female college? This is a recipe for a single life. And the cherry on top of that sundae is coming of age in the world of dating apps. All this is to say, we are dating in a world of uncertainty. No one knows what to say about the person they’re seeing. The concept of defining the relationship is more confusing and full of nuance than ever before.

Hanging Out: When someone tells me they are “hanging out” with someone, to me that means that they’ve been on a couple of dates and possibly have slept together, but it is still too early to see if they are going to keep going out.

Friends With Benefits: This one should be pretty self-explanatory. Y’all are banging and nothing else. No prerequisite drink at the bar, no texting in between, no daylight. It’s the 11:30 pm “u up?” text.

Dating: You see the other person regularly. You do fun things and go to dinner. You ask about each other’s day. This is the stage right before defining the relationship but does not necessarily mean you’ll end up in a relationship with this person. You’ve made it past the initial hanging out phase and are now in a comfortable place

Relationship: Another self-explanatory phase. You’ve graduated from dating and have defined your relationship. I’m not going to dictate what kind of relationship this is for you (i.e. exclusivity), but this is a place of commitment and mutual understanding.

All of these different definitions of seeing someone else are normal and acceptable ways to spend time with people as long as everyone is on the same page about it. Understanding your attachment style and the attachment style of the other person is what is going to remove all the guessing and confusion that so often goes along with dating in a place like New York. The problem arises when you aren’t honest with yourself or the other person about what you want or need out of a relationship. If all of us were just a little more honest when dating and took the red flags seriously when they appear, maybe we would be able to save ourselves a little bit of the pain and suffering we put ourselves through.