The confession

The Confession: The typical peak of a love story where one confesses their love for the other. To be used wisely at the appropriate point of the relationship.
In a Relationship: The relationship status used to indicate you are, in archaic terms, going steady.

In reality, people often misuse The Confession and the idea of being in a relationship. It was a strange realization I recently had. Someone asked me how many relationships I'd been in and how long each had lasted. Of all my high school misadventures, I realized, I had only one proper relationship. The other two who are often referred to as my exes by most people who had witnessed those relationships growing exponentially only to quickly crash and burn, I'd consider as people who had misused The Confession. The rest had even more grossly misused the confession and had just scared me right off.

Here's the thing about many people I see around me. Almost everybody seems to be looking for love. To draw a How I Met Your Mother analogy, they're all Teds and by comparison, I'm a friggin Barney! Incredulous? Yes, anyone reading this who knows me personally might have fallen off their chair and possibly died of asphyxiation because they can't stop laughing long enough to breathe.
So, it's a lovely world to be in, isn't it? There are no sluts/tramps/man-whores to be found anywhere and everybody wants to find a serious long-haul relationship. How sweet.
Not.

I know a girl whom everyone considers such a sweet innocent darling. Nobody could ever possibly even imagine her being anything but angelic. She's only just slept with everyone she's ever dated. And she hasn't gone long between relationships since she was 16. But of course she's sweet and innocent, she's only ever slept with guys she thinks she really loves and wants to marry and have kids and grow old with. And she only breaks up with them when they're no longer conveniently in the same place as her and therefore no longer conveniently available to satisfy any cravings.


Girl likes guy; gives him The Confession. Guy freaks out, says no. Then he realises he wants to get to know her. She's nice, and he kind of likes her. He's just not really all that sure he wants to be in a committed relationship. But to even just go out with her, it's going to take a counter-confession. And to make up for initially saying no, he throws in the L word for good measure. She freaks out and wants to run away.

This heartbreaker didn't mind getting to know guys who showed an interest. Didn't mind going on a date or two. When things go too far and you're not ready, you say no and you stop. She earned a reputation for being a tease and a flirt and is immortally known by friends of one of her exes (some of whom are now her close friends), as the girl who stomped on *insert his name here*'s heart.

So here's what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to judge anyone. Everyone's entitled to live their life according to their own ideals, moral standards and opinions. But let's be a bit more honest about the facts. People are overlooking the idea of a date. Just the thrill of being into someone and having that someone show interest in you, too. You go out to dinner, watch a movie, wonder if you should hold hands. You talk to each other and see each other, discover foibles and idiosyncrasies after which if you still find them endearing, might consider talking about editing your relationship status.

Why insist that you love someone you barely know and call yourselves a couple, even if you know you're not there yet? Why does the negative label to go the one who dares to say no instead of the one who really just likes getting busy but calls it something it's not.