When did it go from casual to serious?

[Gaze]

How do or did you decide that a relationship was no longer just casual or dating but was something more serious? Did physical intimacy play an important role in the decision making?

How did your feelings change, if they did? Or was the relationship serious from the beginning?

What did you see or feel about your partner in that moment or over a period of time which made you say, "yes, this is the person I'd like to have a long term relationship with, maybe even marry"?

Add any other thoughts you'd like to contribute about this topic. thx.

 

[Gaze]

I'm really interested in responses to this because everyone is different and won't see casual and serious in the say light.

 

[Jana]

I am wrong person for answering. It bothers me as well. I don't know about physical, for me there is no physical if I don't feel "emotional higher" level. I don't know. Maybe when some voice in me says: Go for it, that person is worth it!

 

[PeaceSeeker]

Some people who have really good chemistry can start a serious relationship from the moment they meet (no casual dating for them). So like Jana said, it's a feeling/voice inside of you that let's you know that THIS is right choice.

 

[Relm]

How do or did you decide that a relationship was no longer just casual or dating but was something more serious? Did physical intimacy play an important role in the decision making?

The relationship was never "I'm dating you for fun" ... very much "We're seeing if we are compatible" ....as the answer became more clearly YES with each successive date, we were naturally moved to spend more and more time with one another. At a point a couple months into dating, we were moved to start saying we were officially boyfriend/girlfriend (also: we chatted on and off online for the better part of a year before we had a first date) Physical intimacy didn't come until a while later and that too by degrees. (As this was my first relationship period, he had a lot of ground to cover with me =)

How did your feelings change, if they did? Or was the relationship serious from the beginning?

There was he/she is attractive attraction from the beginning, but things got more "serious" at a gradual rate... The funny thing was that our physical attraction for each other has increased phenomenally as our emotional/mental attraction (and comfort level) does.

What did you see or feel about your partner in that moment or over a period of time which made you say, "yes, this is the person I'd like to have a long term relationship with, maybe even marry"?

One morning, a few dates (and many wall-of-text e-mails/phone calls) into the relationship, I was taking a meditation type morning walk and it hit me that I NEEDED to tell him that I loved him (we were both very careful with the L word and had not used it yet). An e-mail followed to which he made an immediate trip down to visit (he then lived two hours away)... the result being the sentiment returned in-kind and a first kiss -The funny thing was as he was (in person) telling me he loved me too, I literally saw an "overlay" in my vision of him proposing to me (which came to pass two years later).

Add any other thoughts you'd like to contribute about this topic. thx.

It is safe to say that, at the point I said "I love you" I just knew. In many ways what followed was a leap of faith based on that one strong intuition. =)

 

[aeon]

How do or did you decide that a relationship was no longer just casual or dating but was something more serious?

I think it was the feeling, or perhaps better said, experience I had the very first time we actually engaged with one another. That said, that’s in retrospect — I didn’t “know” that then.

On the other hand, one day she said she wasn’t going to be around as much online, and after having read that I cried so hard in the shower that I suffered a nosebleed and just stood there, defeated, watching my blood drip and go down the drain. I thought to myself that I had to tell her that — that I had to let her know that her being around less would mean my life would be less — that I had to do it because not doing so would mean a life lived with regret.

Did physical intimacy play an important role in the decision making?

No, because I had never met her, or for that matter, seen her.

How did your feelings change, if they did? Or was the relationship serious from the beginning?

My best sense is that it was serious from the beginning, even if I didn’t know just how much so or in what way back then.

What did you see or feel about your partner in that moment or over a period of time which made you say, "yes, this is the person I'd like to have a long term relationship with, maybe even marry"?

Beauty.

Add any other thoughts you'd like to contribute about this topic. thx.

I don’t know if there is a such thing as a casual (or for that matter serious) relationship. Each relationship is its own thing, each with a different degree of engagement and development. In a way, to me they are all serious and they are all as light as air.


cheers,
Ian

 

[sassafras]

How do or did you decide that a relationship was no longer just casual or dating but was something more serious?

We changed our facebook status from "single" to "in a relationship"

I'm kidding.

Did physical intimacy play an important role in the decision making?

Yes, but not really. Part of the physical intimacy changed with time-- it became a lot more meaningful and connected, if I can throw some abstract concepts at you-- but that alone didn't decide 'serious' versus 'casual.'

How did your feelings change, if they did? Or was the relationship serious from the beginning?

My relationships are never serious from the beginning. Quite frankly, I don't understand how any relationship can be. In the beginning, you're busy getting to know this person on this whole new level. You don't know enough about them to truly and genuinely decide 'this is the person I want to spend an considerable amount of my life with,' let alone figure you could marry the person.

But then again, I don't believe in love at first sight or till death to us part in two months. My heart and libido are a tag-team of idiots.

What did you see or feel about your partner in that moment or over a period of time which made you say, "yes, this is the person I'd like to have a long term relationship with, maybe even marry"?

I don't know. I can never make heads or tails of my own feelings. For each of my long-term relationships, I literally woke up one morning and thought: damn, I'm in love with this person. How'd that happen?

For my last boyfriend, part of the realization came when we were slow-dancing in his room one night after I came home from a really, really stressful day. It was a combination of the song (which was a song he always played for me), and the fact that I was sharing it with him that kind of cinched it all together; that we were there for each other through thick n' thin. I could trust him to have my back.