When is it Time to Stop Dating Around and Get Serious?

I was hav­ing lunch the other day with a cou­ple of friends, Phil and Janet, who are mar­ried and we got to the topic of me and my dat­ing life.  I swear, I feel like such an atten­tion whore and nar­cis­sist some­times.  No, I don’t always talk about myself and, yes, I am my favorite topic.  Any­way, the point is that we were talk­ing about my dat­ing life and how I’m see­ing a cou­ple women at the moment.  They paused to take a break from their bites of food, looked at each other and then looked at me… Uh oh.Phil asked, in his Rus­sel Brand-​​like Brit accent, “Alex, have, you know, given thought to being seri­ous with these women.  Y’know, at least one of em seems to like you enough, beyond all odds she does.”  I had just told Phil and Janet about a gal I’m see­ing and how she’d taken me to a fam­ily Christ­mas party.  I basi­cally stated that I felt that this girl was devel­op­ing some strong feel­ings.  Sens­ing hope for my bud­ding matu­rity and the pos­si­bil­ity of finally retir­ing my wretched “belt of notches” Phil and Janet jumped into a list of rea­sons why I should date some­one seri­ously, mid bite.

First, it was Janet; she was gush­ing over how her and Phil shared so many moments together, the kind of moments that casual daters just don’t share.  Things like trips to other coun­tries, or, heck, just tak­ing a long road trip some­where.  Phil went on to say, of course, that there’s more to rela­tion­ships than “snog­ging and get­ting ‘it’ wet.”  Just as an aside here, my friends thing that I’m a “date em’ and dump them” kind of guy.  I’m really not, I’m a nice guy and respect­ful.  I’ve had rela­tion­ships that were seri­ous and I’ve been in long term rela­tion­ships before.  I’m just not one of those peo­ple that sad­dles up with a girl for five years or so if I don’t see mar­riage in the future.  That’s a long time to spend with some­one that you are not get­ting mar­ried to.  That’s just my opin­ion.  Any­way, I don’t do much to dis­solve the per­cep­tion that I’m just some wom­an­iz­ing tool bag.  It’s kind of fun to see the expres­sions on friends’ faces when I “play it up.”

Any­way, the talk got me to think­ing; when is the right time to set­tle things down and have some­thing more mean­ing­ful?  I don’t know that there’s a right answer.  I cer­tainly wouldn’t force it.  The fact is that I’m hav­ing fun doing what I’m doing and I’m being respon­si­ble with my feel­ings and those of the women I see and date.  How­ever, yes, I do want to have some sto­ries and some shared expe­ri­ences with a lady friend that is more than a casual fling.  Dammit!  I want it all, alas, it can­not be.

I sup­pose when a per­son gets to the point that they are tired of what they’ve been doing then that per­son ought to real­ize it for the oppor­tu­nity that it is.  To make change.  When I get to that point where what I’m doing is no longer good enough then, yeah, I should change some­thing.  Until that hap­pens though, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and have fun while I still have a full head of hear and remain a non turd-​​like look­ing individual…

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