Edit: thanks for the responses, it seems mostly like everyone agrees it’s testing compatibility before nakedness happens.

Title basically, but feel free to add how many stages of succession in dating and what they’re called. This shit seems needlessly complicated to me.

20 comments

  2. Its not a thing. She’s either dining on your dong like a Holocaust survivor at a Szechuan buffet, or she’s a stranger.

  3. I certainly hope you talk to someone that you date the whole ass time you know them.

    This obsession with stages and relationship progression doesn’t make any sense and it’s just something that hens came up with to facilitate gossip.

  4. You have gone on some dates, hung out, etc., but it is too early to define the relationship.

  5. Meeting, talking, hanging out, dating, then either breaking up or proposing eventually for most people, some are ok just being in the dating phase indefinitely though

  6. The stage where you’re talking and not involved in intimacy or have an exclusivity agreement.

  7. We’re texting/messaging back and forth, getting to know each other, and deciding if there’s enough mutual interest to go out on a proper date.

  8. Talking stage is just old fashioned dating and getting to know each other. It’s going out and doing things and not getting physical. You move beyond “talking” when it gets physical.

  9. I don’t think it’s a meaningful designation, save in hindsight once you’re together. When you’re just talking, nothing has happened and there is no relationship to speak of yet.

  10. I think it’s anything between you first interacting romantically and the 2nd/3rd date.

    After that, you’re dating and I’d argue that you should be exclusive.

    I think the labels put on stages of dating are getting stupidly complex and basically set you up for failure by ensuring that you’re always stuck in that talking stage with multiple people at once.

  11. There are actual psychological theories about stages in relationships, separate from whatever ideas people come up with online.

    Murstein proposed a 3 stage model derived from the theory of assortative mating and homogamy – that we are attracted to those similar to us.

    It starts in the stimulus phase. We are attracted based on appearance.

    It moves into the values phase. We are attracted based on shared values, interests, etc. Is this what people mean by the “talking phase”?

    If a relationship passes those first 2 stages then it moves into the roles phase. If the couple have compatible ideas about how relationships work and what their respective roles are, then the relationship dynamic tends to work. Otherwise it doesn’t and the relationship is likely to end.

  12. Like everyone else, talking is just teasing compatibility but you’re exclusive… i feel like it shouldn’t be that way but where I’m from it’s like an unspoken rule that you shouldn’t be “talking” to anyone else which makes no sense and I’ve never understood. I remember trying to explain it to my mom when i was in high school years ago and she was so confused, she said “sooo it’s just exclusively dating but you’re not boyfriend and girlfriend” and at the time i got so frustrated with her but it really doesn’t make sense

  15. That’s not a term I would use. It sounds symptomatic of an excessively rigid approach to a highly flexible situation.

  16. If you’re at a point where labels matter to you, it’s time to determine what the other party wants and communicate with them on an appropriate label, boundaries, and appropriate next steps.

  18. Maybe I’m too old, but I wouldn’t engage with this. If someone told me, “we’re only in the talking stage” I would stop talking to them.

  19. For me, I’d say it’s talking stage until you’re exclusive, because at that point you have the option to be talking to others

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like