D.T.R.

I don’t claim to have much insight into the inner workings of a man’s brain. Especially when it comes to relationships… or beginning a relationship…or trying to define a relationship. What men think and why they think it doesn’t always make sense to a rational person (read:woman). You see evidence of this all the time. Her profile reads in a relationship, his says single. She can’t wait to introduce him to all her friends, his friends have never heard her name. He can go months-- even years-- just hanging out, she is asking after a few dates where this is heading. She's trying to have the D.T.R.(define the relationship), and he's having none of it.

I am not stereotypically ‘female’ when it comes to labels and such. I have been known to drag my feet a bit at times but if I had to fall on one side of the fence, I would definitely say that I prefer knowing that we are reading the same page, and that in fact we are turning pages in the same direction, at roughly the same place. I believe it is important for sanity’s sake. But men tend to have a different definition of sanity, one that believes life is easier and more enjoyable when you don’t have to “define” anything. I shake my head in wonder when one of my guy friends laments over receiving the D.T.R., that may come in the form of a face-to-face conversation, phone call, email, or text. Just when things are going perfectly in their mind, she has to screw it up and try and make sense of it all. The audacity!

So in my attempts at understanding the male mind just a little bit better, I want to know what about defining a relationship is so unpleasant. Why do you break out in a cold sweat when the conversation begins with we need to talk…. Is it an all the time occurrence or does it depend on the specific relationship in question? I realize this doesn’t apply to all men and does apply to some women so anyone and everyone is free to add their two cents as we figure out this phenomenon together.