Statusfying Your Relationship: the DTR
by Sophia Hsu

As a generation of overachievers, we feel entitled to have the perfect life the moment we envision it. Everything must be accessible at the speed of a mouse click, and the lives we embark on must provide a clear route to our future. Gen Y has no patience for ambiguity, and this includes our personal lives. Courtship has always been one huge gray area, especially in its beginning stages when we don’t know where the flirtation is going. So to allay the stress of the unknown, we have those infamous DTRs – the “define the relationship” talks. But what do those talks really mean? And if we’re confident in our feelings, are those labels really necessary?

The always awkward talks arise from our need for definitions, boundaries, and tangibility. A bit of mystery characterizes every romance – it’s what makes the chase so thrilling and the other person so intriguing. Yet there comes a time when the mystery gets old. The unknown is unnerving, particularly when it comes to emotions (where we’re the most vulnerable). With our hearts on the line, we need to know where we stand in the other’s eyes. And the only way to achieve that is to put ourselves out there and ask the inevitable, “So what are we doing with each other?”

But whether we’re the initiators or the avoiders of those conversations, we need to first determine if we’re ready for such demarcation. As a generation, we don’t like to waste our time. Our lives must be planned out as soon as we graduate, that new job must put us on the fast track to our dream career, and any significant other must be worthy of the long term or we don’t date at all. We don’t gamble our futures, so the pressure to solidify or deny the uncertain really puts us in a corner when it comes to our emotional well-being.

There are those whose need for structure takes over, and they rush into romantic situations for which they’re not prepared. We all know someone who has been blindsided into the girlfriend status (or perhaps someone who has done the blindsiding). And any pairings that arise from those instances are doomed to fail.

Then there are those like me, who will deny until their dying day all romantic entanglements. It’s the flip side of our generation’s intolerance for ambiguity—a fear-of rather than a compulsion-for definition. If all that matters is emotions, why do we need to pin them down when we’re sure of what we feel? Unfortunately deliberate ignorance is also an equation for catastrophe. Resolving nothing, it only pushes aside those pesky matters of the heart until they rear their messy heads again.

Though uncomfortable to the max, “define the relationship” talks are crucial to developing healthy romantic interactions. We’re not the only ones whose hearts are at stake, and we can’t forget about the other person’s feelings in our selfish quests for specificity or denial. But timing is everything here. Having these conversations too soon or too late in the courtship may spell disaster. Progress happens in due time. If your partner isn’t ready for a certain label, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ready to kick you to the curb. Relax and enjoy the courtship. Bode your time, take heed of your emotions, and most importantly, listen to your partner.

courtship, dating, dtr, gen y, Generation Y, label, language, relationship, romance