In relationships, sometimes it’s okay to keep things casual, so long as both people are on the same page about it. What’s unfair is when I’m putting my heart and soul into you and think you’re doing the same, only you’re really planning to run away before things get too real. If you’re not in it for the long haul, that’s fine, but at least have the decency not to get my hopes up by doing these things:
- Make promises you don’t intend to keep. Promises might sound wonderful and make me feel loved and secure in the moment, but if they mean nothing to you, I’d rather not hear them at all. I’ve had enough empty promises in my life and I don’t need any more. If you don’t mean what you say, I’d rather you say nothing at all.
- Talk about the future. If you’re talking about where you’d want us to live, how many kids you envision me chasing after, and the dog you want us to get, forgive me if I assume that you want all that; that you want all that with me. Don’t talk about the places you can’t wait to take me someday when you consider our days numbered. If you see no real future, please don’t paint a make-believe one for me.
- Pretend. I can’t stand pretense, so please don’t be something you’re not, don’t say things you don’t mean, and don’t talk about something you don’t feel. Stay true to yourself and what you want. Don’t change your expectations for me or pretend you can. All I ask is that you be real. I don’t want to doubt what we have for as long we have it for. I want to look back someday and know that, however fleeting, what we shared was all real.
- Spend all your free time by my side. If you see me all the time, I’m bound to become slightly addicted to you. It’s cruel to become so integrated into my routine, only to disappear. I’ll subconsciously start to see you as part of my everyday life, and when this temporary relationship of ours reaches its doomed end, I’ll miss you terribly.
- Be friends with my family. If you don’t plan on sticking around, meeting them is bad enough. I mean, really you could have saved me a whole lot of nerves and anxiety that first time I introduced you to them if you’d only told me you weren’t thinking long-term. But to meet them AND befriend them, all the while knowing you’re not going to stay? That’s just unfair. It’s bad enough that I’ll miss you when you’re gone; I don’t need my family constantly talking about you or my mom asking me if she should set a place for you at the table the week you decide to call it quits.
- Get to know me — the real me. If you’re not here to stay, don’t ask me the deep and personal questions you only ask those you care the most about. Don’t let me share my deepest fears with you, my hopes for what’s in store, the things I dream of at night. Let me keep some things to myself so I can save them for the guy who plans to stay.
- Make me the center of your universe. I’m referring to the way you brush my strands of hair out of my face, how you stare into my eyes as if you’re looking for my soul, how you make me feel like I’m the only one. If you’re going to leave, please don’t do those things. Don’t intertwine my universe with yours, moving your stars to fit with mine, if you can’t make it stay that way.
- Lie to me. Don’t lie about what I mean to you, what the thing between us is, why you’re not right for me. Don’t give me the cliched, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Be honest, and please do it from the get-go. Don’t mislead from the start and later tell me that you weren’t looking for anything serious, that you thought you would wait and see how it goes, that you thought I felt the same. Don’t lie and say you weren’t sure at the start when you knew damn well you didn’t want serious. I’ll respect you way more for being upfront from the beginning.
- Hold me back. Don’t try to mold my expectations into something I don’t want and I swear I won’t ask you to change. If you’re not in it for the long haul, fine. If I don’t want something that is fleeting and temporary, that’s fine too; please respect that. Don’t make me compromise on what I want in a relationship. If you can’t give me a long-term commitment, I respect that, but don’t prevent me from chasing mine with someone who can.
- Stay. I don’t want you to stay and try to be everything I need when that’s everything you’re not and know that you can never be. Don’t force yourself to stay when the only thing that’s on your mind is leaving. Be fair to yourself and be fair to me. Sometimes being fair means walking away from something that you know will never work. Let me find something that will. I deserve that much.