Picture it. You have settled into blissful familiarity with your SO. You know, the stage after magic, constantly disappearing underwear and before… well that’s the point of my query. How does one tell (without instigating that AWFUL “Where is this going?” talk) if the raider of your panties has decided that you are the vision of things to come or just the comfortable weekend routine? Assuming that…
1)"I love you"s have already been exchanged,
2)there is stuff being kept at the lady’s house,
3) and Hi, Opal.
I throw my curiosity on the mercy of the wise and powerful minds of the SDMB.
We probably need more information than that. How long have you been dating? Are you living together or just keeping stuff at each other’s house?
Leaving stuff at the other person’s house really isn’t an indication of anything more than “I’d like to be able to brush my teeth and put on some clean clothes the next morning before I split.” And loving each other (and expressing it) doesn’t really mean that much either IMHO. I’ve exchanged “I love you” with lots of boyfriend’s but that didn’t mean that I wanted them to ( or expected them to) propose to me or anything. You won’t know the future of your relationship unless you actually talk about it with him.
A good friend of mine, long after deciding he was destined to be a batchelor his entire life, became engaged. I saw it coming before he did. How? He never made any long-term plans without considering how it would affect his relationship with the woman who is now his finace.
So… how’s the long-term planning thing going with you and PR (panty raider)? If he’s arranging his future life around you, I’d think he sees you as “the vision of things to come.”
You all are very incisive. We are very comfortable in our time together, and it isn’t merely physical. Most of our time is spent in discussion from the cerebral to the trivial. We are in the stage now that it is more of than just an assumption that we are going to spend time together, it is a guarantee. He’s picked up a few of my interests and I share in his hobbies. I guess, upon further reflection, the mere asking of this question was a moment of insecurity. We all have them from time to time and I’d like to thank you guys for the reality check. Deep down, the answer was there all along. Mr. Bing has a saying that goes, “Just because you don’t say something verbally, doesn’t mean you don’t feel it and express it in other ways.” I guess he’s been showing me the answer all along.
You are all WONDERFUL!
WOW!!! You have reached enlightenment. I used to be pretty bad about the flowers and cards thing for example. My feeling was that if I treated a woman like a soul mate, that should count for a lot more than flowers and cards. It used to make me crazy that women would forgive all sorts of bad treatment just because their BF sent them flowers once a week. I finally figured out that some women (and some men) are just naturally a bit insecure, so why not send some extra flowers and cards.
How long have the two of you have been an “item”? How old are the two of you?
Some thoughts:
Has he introduced you to his oldest friend? How many of his friends do you know?
Got drunk together? Been sick together? One of you been sick when the other one is not? How did he handle all of the above?
When you talk about the future, how does his vison of job/house/kids/pets/friday night match up with yours?
What is his history as far as time spent in relationships/jobs/cities/frendships?
Just say sometime, "I always thought that the perfect way to get married would be . . . (Vegas, Justice of the Peace, church wedding, party . . .) Do it while watching a movie about weddings, so it doesn’t seem like a direct question.
Have you gone on vacation together? How well you travel together can be an example of how well the future can be (especially with things like delayed flights, rude waiters, bad hotel rooms, etc.)
Sorry, I don’t want to be a downer but I spent three years with someone who I thought was “the one” and ignored a lot of the above. (includes examples)
Oh come on, too easy, you just talk to the guy about it. One of those defining the relationship sort of talks.
Actually, I would prefer these days that people had those talks before ‘raiding the panties’…
It would be a discussion about STD’s & getting tested for such, then when having a talk like that, you automatically almost get into the area of defining the relationship. Cool, huh?