I know that I’m not the most adept person when it comes to interpersonal/intimate relationships, so I’m hoping other Dopers can provide some insight…
I was at a movie the other day and bumped into a sorta-friend of mine. She introduced me to her girlfriend (n.b.: we’re all lesbians) and the three of us were chatting as we left the theater. We were talking jobs when the friend (let’s call her Jane) turned to me and said, “Yeah, I think you were working there when we were going out.”
Eh???
Going out?
Um, okay. Jane and I did go through a period of time where we chatted on the phone about once a week. We went to a couple of events together (a play, a movie) but not really as a couple…I kissed her once but it was not, uh, reciprocated, so I was pretty embarassed and told myself she just wanted to be friends. We didn’t have any sort of falling-out or anything, just stopped calling each other quite so frequently.
Was this a relationship? I’m so lost…not that I’m against postponing intimacy, but in my experience, dykes normally hop into bed by the second or third date and experience mind-meld by the end of the first month. I’m just totally befuddled…
Well, you “went to a couple of events together” so you were “going out with your girl friend” even though you weren’t “going out with your girlfriend”. See? Simple.
Well, it’s interesting to hear that (some) women can be just as confusing to lesbians as they are to us poor befuddled males.
Some people consider engaging in boinkery as the defining line between “hanging out” and “going out.” Others do not.
I imagine some women I’ve dated considered that we were “going out” when I thought we were dating in order to determine whether we would end up “going out.”
I thought this thread was going to be of the “If anyone asks, I was out with you last night, OK?” variety.
It happened to me once, in rather amusing circumstances. When I was in college, a female friend of mine was being pestered for a date by another guy. Finally one day she lost patience with the guy and told him, “Look, I’m going out with (Duke), OK?” Of course, someone who knew me overheard the conversation and asked me later what was going on. The female friend had to explain to me, “I had to come up with a good excuse, and your name was the first one I could think of…”
I have been acquanted with a couple who didn’t know they were a couple.
They professed to be just really good friends.
These two even had names that rhymed. Anytime I’d run into one of them the other was definitely nearby. I tried dating the woman but it got weird.
The clincher was when “Pam” ran out to her car once to bring in a gift at a birthday party. She needed to sign the card and had to find “Sam” to sign the card also. I asked “Oh, are we all going to sign the card?”
"No, just me and “Sam.”
I remember a few months later I was dating someone else and so was she.
We were all together at a party and “Sam” was off in a corner by himself stewing.
I’ve had a similar experience but not quite the same at all. Just because you are having sex with someone doesn’t make it a relationship either. Interestingly enough, most of the men I know seem to understand this as well.
My wife always explains it this way: I was dating her for X years, but she was dating me for X+1 years. That’s because, the year I thought we were just really good friends, she took it to mean more (and stuck around as a result) because she knew eventually I’d figure out the truth.
