When you first got involved, you both swore you were going to keep things casual. Neither of you wanted a relationship and were happy to just to “hang out” and stay chill. This also meant you could date other people, didn’t have to feel tied down, and avoided the common pitfalls proper couples often experience. However, things have started to change recently and it may be because your casual relationship is getting serious. Here’s how you know that’s the case.
- It’s automatically assumed you have weekend plans together. One of the benefits of a casual relationship is that you can do whatever you want and then just fit your time with this other person in whenever you feel like it rather than having to make it a priority. However, you know your casual relationship is getting serious when it pretty much goes without saying that your weekends are reserved for one another.
- You’ve started leaving things at each other’s houses. When you’re not properly dating someone, you don’t leave your stuff around when you leave their place – everything comes with you. Otherwise, you might as well be a couple. That being said, if you’ve suddenly got a toothbrush as their place or they’ve left their favorite hoodie and jeans at your place, things are obviously a little more than casual, don’t you think?
- Everyone assumes you’re a proper couple. You’ve never said this person is your boyfriend or girlfriend but people automatically assume they are because you’re always together and you basically act like you’re together. Whenever you go somewhere, they’re automatically invited to come with you (or it’s assumed that they will). Why wouldn’t they be? You’re a couple, right?
- You’ve developed sweet nicknames and inside jokes. There’s no denying that your casual relationship is getting serious when you spend enough time together and become fond enough of one another that you develop your own inside jokes and even come up with nicknames for each other. If you regularly refer to each other by pet names or some other weird name that’s a reference to one of your jokes, you guys are basically in love forever. Sorry, I don’t make the rules!
- You miss them when they’re not around. When you’re only seeing someone casually, you don’t really have a deep emotional connection to them or miss them when they’re not around. This means that if you’re starting to miss them when you’re not together, something has changed. You’re missing them because they’ve become part of your life and you like having them around. There’s no shame in that, but it does mean you may have to have a pretty serious conversation soon…
- You’ve stopped looking for anyone else to date. This one speaks for itself. One of the perks of only dating someone casually is being able to play the field a bit and see what (and who) else is out there. If you’ve stopped doing that because you’re content right where you are, I think you know what that means.
