Exclusivity - The Fork In The Road

There’s a really important moment when you’re dating someone when it’s time to have the exclusivity conversation.

The way I like to describe it, it’s like you're going on a hike. Sometimes you run into somebody nice and you start doing the hike together for a little while.

You turn around a bend and you notice that off in the distance, there's a fork in the road. You start to feel this little bit of tension.

You really like this person and want to keep walking with them. You know you have to go right, but you don’t know if they’re going right or left.

When we feel that nervousness about that impending decision of potentially parting ways, we start to slow down.

Maybe we stop walking and sit on a park bench for a while because we're avoiding that fork in the road.

In dating that can look like not acknowledging that we do want to be exclusive and pretending casual is cool.

We avoid acknowledging that we really do want commitment.

The other way this shows up is that we have the exclusivity conversation with someone, but without the readiness to walk away. 

You need to be ready to say, “I'm heading right, and I'm willing to head right even if you're heading left. So we might be parting ways.”

There's a lot of vulnerability around this decision point.

This came up for one of my clients after dating someone for a few months. Things were going great and all five elements were there.

Then the topic of exclusivity started to come up and they came to the fork in the road.

They had that exclusivity conversation, and the guy stated that there were just a few things that he wanted to iron out in his life before he was ready to take that step.

And my client’s version of avoiding the fork in the road was saying,” Oh, I totally understand. I'm cool with that. We can wait.”

But in our session we noticed that she really did want to be exclusive, even before all of the factors in her life were perfect. She just wanted to date him and she wanted him to just date her.

That's what she felt comfortable with.

And once you know what you actually want, then you know which direction you're going and you're able to communicate it to the other person. 

When we know that we really want to be exclusive and we continue dating someone who says that they're not ready or they don't want to, they start to lose respect for us.

We are valuing them over ourselves and our true desires.

A lot of people think if they go down the left path with him, he’ll change his mind. 

They don't realize that things in the dynamic shift when they’re doing that.

So the way to do it is to meet a hiker on the road, start walking together, and enjoy each other's company.

Then when you really love the way that that person's showing up, walk up to the fork in the road.

Have a conversation about whether you're headed in the same direction.

And if you're not headed in the same direction, choose yourself over that person that you just met.

There is more to exclusivity than just this, but it is really important to not avoid that conversation or go down the wrong path.