How to Escape Casual Dating

We live in a culture of casual dating.

When swiping through the apps, you see all the men with “looking for something casual” in their profiles. 🤮

Or after investing weeks or months into getting to know someone and you finally ask what they are looking for in a relationship, and they answer “I don’t know yet, I’m not ready for a relationship right now.” 😵‍💫

This is SO discouraging when you are looking to create a real relationship and build a future with someone.

There are a couple things I see women doing to navigate this —

1) You make your intentions very clear upfront. You ask men on the first date, or even beforehand “What are you looking for?” You don’t want to waste your time, so you cut straight to the chase.

2) You show him that being with you is even more amazing than being single.

You spend as much time as possible together, sleep together, and show how great of a girlfriend you would be. You hope he will see how amazing you are and decide on his own to leave the bachelor life behind.

❌ Neither of these approaches work. ❌

In the first approach, you are asking the person a question they may not yet know the answer to because they just met you.

Even if they do know they want a relationship, them telling you that does not qualify them as someone ready for a relationship with you.

Their words alone at this stage do not give you the information you need.

In the second approach, you will end up in casual relationship after casual relationship.

This is what I call “girlfriend privileges” (aka situationship-cityyyy). It’s when you end up in a relationship without the commitment of a relationship.

You give someone the rewards of a committed relationship, without them having made the decision to be in one.

Approaching dating in this way, you perpetuate the casual cycle.

You either shut down potential connections prematurely, or you never move the connection into the next phase of commitment & exclusivity.

So, let’s not do that, right?

👇👇 Here’s what to do instead. 👇👇

First, we need to understand the reality that all relationships start casual.

Serious, committed relationships start as two strangers meeting.

You need to learn how to build a connection from scratch. You start casual and then you both make small investments in the connection so it becomes more serious.

You do this by having fun, connecting deeply with this person, asking meaningful questions (all while staying connected to yourself in the process).

Once the connection is growing, you communicate with the person to move towards exclusivity.

In the moments along the way of building this relationship, you can see if your partner is on the same page by their investment into you and their willingness and excitement to take the next step with you.

❣️ The result of learning these skills is creating a loving and committed relationship.

You also enjoy the process of casual dating more because you don’t see it as “wrong.”

You see casual dating as the process to move towards a committed relationship.

💟 Ready to attract an emotionally available, committed partner? I can teach you how. Click here to join the waitlist for my coaching program, Radiant Relationship Academy.

💟 I have a podcast episode on how to have the “What are we?” conversation. You do NOT want to miss this one. Subscribe to Leah on Love here, and listen to The “What are we?” Conversation episode here.