The Failing Love Lexicon

Girl: Aren't those two dating?
Guy: They're together when they're together, and when they're not, they're not.
Girl: So basically you mean like every other New York relationship?

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Him: I thought we agreed we weren't going to be serious about this.
Me: Define "serious." I'm very serious about this blowjob I'm about to give you. Now lie back and be quiet.

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I've given some thought recently to how many times I've said to a lover -- or had a lover say to me -- that we "weren't looking for anything serious." And in some traditional, signified manner, this is true: I'm not looking to get married anytime soon (even if/when I do get married, it likely won't be very traditional), I don't consider monogamy a priority as much as I consider it something I can either take or leave alone, and I'm not terribly concerned about how long any given relationship is going to last. (If it's going well at the time, I always want it to last "a few more months." Anything beyond that is usually beyond my immediate comprehension.) In our society's generic, codified relationship-speak, these leanings usually translate to "I'm not looking for anything serious."

The truth, of course, is that I take dating, sex, romance, seduction, and relationships very seriously. I mean, obviously. I wrote a whole damn book about the subject. I plan dates in a way that would put Carl von Clausewitz to shame. I spend more time thinking about how to be effective in my romantic affairs than I do thinking about how I'm going to publicize my book when it comes out in December. (I'm not proud of this, but I'm just going to call a spade a spade and hire a publicist. If publicity were my thing, at least insofar as publicity is different from seduction on a grand scale, I'd have written a book on publicity instead of seduction.) So anytime I utter the words "I'm not looking for anything serious," even though by society's standards this is absolutely true, I kind of feel like I'm selling myself short.

Why must the word "serious," as it applies to relationships, seem to define only the kind of relationships that our parents' generation considered serious? Why are we discrediting our own levels of involvement simply because they often suit our lifestyles better than those in years past? I feel the same way about the word "commitment." My lack of need for any spurious guarantees about the future with a given partner has no bearing on how committed I am to making things work in the present moment. If anything, I think it's an even more honest and committed way to live -- if I'm not resting on the laurels of any promises we've made to each other, then I'm even more dedicated to making sure we're both happy on a day-to-day basis, because what's keeping us together is not any sense of obligation but rather the choice we make every day to spend our time with one another once again.

My point here is that I think we need a new relationship lexicon. The old vocabulary doesn't seem to do well by us anymore.

A few months ago my literary agent and I were having dinner and she mentioned having just sold the publishing rights to a book called "The New Monogamy." It's a book about how the present generation's version of serious, committed relationships doesn't necessarily equate to a partnership of two people who only ever have sex with each other. I was ecstatic -- this seemed so timely and progressive! Then she told me she was persuading them to retitle it "The New Erotic Couple." My face fell. Really? This is not at all the same thing, nor is it a title that would make me pick up the book. She said she felt the first title was too dry and wouldn't catch people's attention. But this is exemplary of the problem with our current romantic lexicon. Eroticism is not by definition linked to either monogamy or lack thereof. I have had erotic relationships of both the monogamous and non-monogamous variety. The other problem here is that no one has really been able to use the word "erotic" with a straight face since Madonna in the 80s. I'm even trying to bring back the word "lover" from its exile following that Saturday Night Live hot tub sketch, because "boyfriend" has too many monogamous undertones, "playmate" is too BDSM-specific, "fuckbuddy" is devoid of romance, "friend" is simply disingenuous, "partner" is too future-oriented, and "paramour" is both too antiquated as well as homophonic with the name of my favorite band. There is no word out there yet that means "person I am currently most frequently having sex with but don't worry you may also be able to have sex with me too if you want." I actually introduced the person I'm most frequently seeing and sleeping with with as my "unboyfriend" the other night.

See what I mean?

Either we need a new relationship vocabulary entirely or we simply need to stop being afraid of words like "relationship" and "serious" and "boyfriend" and start allowing them to work for us instead of against us. We need to allow them to evolve, like all language does, and start having attached meanings that are useful to our current lifestyles. I'm at a point in my life where I don't really care what people want to call things -- I believe that my involvements will come to define themselves naturally through their interactions and that any labels are only secondary affirmations of what's already there -- but it gets frustrating when I'm trying to communicate and there is no language for the things I want to say. And it's this same lack of language that causes my agent to think of a non-(traditionally)-monogamous pairing as an "erotic couple." We are struggling to normatize the relationship structures that work for us, but at the same time we don't want our relationships to be mistaken for the old normative structures that have been in place for so long. We want our own relationships on our own terms, but we neither want to have them mistaken for relationships they're not, nor do we want to have to use language that marginalizes them.

What do we do about this? I'm not sure exactly, except perhaps that until a new language is established or our old language evolves, I think it's a good idea not to care too much about what everything means. We live in a world where every social media site wants us to define our relationships with whatever labels and checkboxes they have available: "in a relationship," "single," "in an open relationship," "it's complicated," etc. It would be great if all our relationships fit into these neat little boxes, but they don't. Even when checked, they're merely hints at what is actually going on. I've started leaving mine blank entirely. Whether a box is checked is really irrelevant in comparison to the quality of time I'm spending and sex I'm having with any given person, and social validation is a really relatively minuscule part of what a relationship is actually about.

But I think we're discrediting ourselves and our partners by confining words like "serious" to relationships that have a picket fence in their future. I'm serious about every seduction I undertake. I mean, obviously. If I didn't feel serious about someone, they wouldn't be worth my time to seduce in the first place.

photo by Monty Leman

Comments

[CaptainScorpio]

How about "gentleman companion"?

There being, of course, a continuum for "gentleman".

[Arden Leigh]

Youre right. Im going to start calling anyone I date a gentleman caller. :D
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[jadagul]

I had to deal with this issue a lot earlier in the year--I was dating someone who'd been burned by previous relationships, so the word made her nervous and for months she was really aggressively clear that we were _not_ dating. When she wasn't in the room I described her to my friends as "my not-girlfriend."

I like a solution an old friend of mine came up with better, though: "umfriend." As in, "he's my...um..._friend_". I don't think I could ever use it seriously, though.

(aside: love your blog, wish you blogged more. Found it through a link Monty Leman put up on a forum we both post in).

[CaptainScorpio]

I've always liked "ladyfriend" in place of girlfriend. It both indicates that there is an importance to the gender component, and give a connotation of maturity and refinement. Both of which are, I think, key to what you're looking for in this article.

[Arden Leigh]

@jadagul - Yeah, I've been there. My bio-dad tells a funny story about his work in financial planning: whenever one of his clients has to go through probate, they usually complain that it seems stressful and arduous. So my dad says, "Well, what if we didn't call it probate? What if we called it skippy? Would you be nervous about going through skippy?" "Oh, well, skippy sounds like it would be okay."

[relationships advice]

Love fails if your relationship lacks communication, it may lead to misunderstanding and misunderstanding may lead to arguments and arguments may lead to break- ups.

[Laine]

I think you are correct in this.... also, if you can bring back the word 'lover', that would be great, because I think that describes 'fuck buddy' pretty well but sounds more classy.

[Kelly]

You're obviously financially independent and I think that is the ideal situation. Unfortunately, the fact that living in NYC in your very own apartment is nearly impossible for most and health insurance is unaffordable for those who don't have traditional jobs, people's lives are more comfortable as a couple sharing financial burdens. So I believe it is primarily for financial reasons that most couples decide to be serious. It's not a natural state! Men and woman need to stop blaming themselves and start blaming the absurd cost of living.

[LK]

The above person is correct. I got married because I needed health insurance. I know many people who have gotten married for financial benefits.

[Arden Leigh]

You guys both have good points. Unfortunately I do feel your pain- I dont have health insurance either, and while my living situation is comfortable, I do choose to live with my female best friend as its more financially reasonable that way. I dont know your individual situations so I cant make any value judgments on whether getting romantically serious for financial security reasons was a good choice or not; all I can say is that everyone should weigh his or her options and do what they feel is best for them. I will also say that I have seen this trend, the topic of the blog, independent of financial issues - of course there will be exceptions to any rule and extenuating circumstances. And yes, the cost of living in NY and the situation of US healthcare are both atrocious. For me personally, I know getting married for health insurance wouldnt be the right choice, but then, not having insurance is a big risk I take (I shelled out $120 today for a mere sore throat and I often dread what would happen in a more serious incident). So, do whats right for you. And in the meantime I do think the main topic of the post bore addressing, and hopefully you got something out of it.

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[Andrea]

Well, what's "boyfriend", "fuckbudy" or "lover"... further than labels: love, sex, erotics.

[Arden Leigh]

I would posit that even the labels you name dont always correlate that way for every person.

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