Casual v. Serious Relationships

Well, how old are you now?

It seems like you comparing high school relationships to young-adult ones (even if they are more casual ones) and in that case the high school ones will probably always lose, especially if you were the kind of guy that tried to have serious business relationships.

So I guess I am saying maybe it isn't just the fact that your new relationship is casual that makes it better, but more the fact that you are both more mature. 

I'm also not saying you should instead go find a serious relationship....unless you know of someone that would be worth "finding out" if the relationship would work maybe....but it sounds like your relationship right now might be good for you at least ATM because you sound like both of you are happy and perhaps forming a better view of women and dating in general.  Like I said though, don't chalk that up as being completely because your high school ones were srs bsines 

I had a few girlfriends in high school too....they were all negative experiences you could say, and I was also like you where I for some reason was fixated on serious relationships.  After being burned multiple times I didn't have a girlfriend for a long time before my current one, and we have been going out a long time yet we still have fun together.  The relationship takes work at times but I don't consider it a drain, because I would say that overall I get more "recharged" over it than I am "drained".  How so?  I was talking with someone once, and they told me that the main reason people find a positive serious relationship where you can count on the other person is sort of like the ending to the movie "Fight Club" of all things.  Ya, I am serious, hear me out.  In the end of that movie, they are standing on the floor of that building watching shit exploding all around them and holding hands like everything is OK.  Well, thats the more accurate explanation I can give of the feeling I am thinking of....but it is a great feeling that even when everything in your life is hectic and the shit is hitting the fan and the future is uncertain, that when you are with your girlfriend/boyfriend that all of that seems OK.  The guy I mentioned I was talking to told me "Why do you think people get married?" and it actually kind of made sense to me that people do it afterwards, heh.  Long lasting relationships are definitely a lot of work, but this one reason is I think why a good one isn't a drain on you...and makes it worth it. 

Spoiler:

....plus it always helps when your girlfriend is a cute gamer chick I suppose

I'll stress again that this wasn't an advice thread Just wondering about you old farts and what you found throughout your lives.

LMD, I'll be 20 in a few months.

Spoiler:

Elena is a cutie fo sho, just not a gamer going to work on that one

That is also true Tak, I totally forgot to mention that heh.  Having to pretend you are someone you are not is a HUGE drain.

I didn't mean to give you advice or anything, just my thoughts on the subject. 

Let me rephrase, I think her control over my life was cause more through her pressuring me to spend all my waking moments with her and me accepting those terms rather than the second relationship where I did it knowingly and willingly.

Ok let's go this way.

[b]WHICH IS BETTER: CASUAL DATING OR SUPER SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS?

I think the best way to start a relationship is to not force it into a longterm. If you go in thinking i want a long term relationship so this one HAS to work out then you just dig yourself into a hole. Take the begining of a relationship like what it is A Begining. Let thing flow and turn out how they will instead of forcing it. If your lucky that sort of lose lets have what will happen happen attitude will lead to the long serious relationships =]

I used to believe that Casual Dating was much better than Super Serious Relationship due to it being sex and hanging out without the true emotional attachment.

I've been "seeing" a girl since New Years. We hang out, and whenever we do, we hook up. I like her in the sense of more than a friend to the point of hooking up, but not to the point of an actual true and blue relationship. She really likes me, and actually wants a relationship. I'm been very honest with her: I've explained that I do not do relationships, and don't like her, in that way, enough to go out with her anyways. She understands and accepts this, yet it doesn't mean she's happy with it.

All of my friends call me immature and a jackass for staying with it, and suggest I break things off. I get asked about her at least three times a day, and it often revolves around whether I've been acceptable to her or not. There was a huge issue with one of my best friends and her getting too close. And of course, there is the issue of her actually having unreturned feelings for me.

It's like a big shit fest, and all without any true emotional attachment. It's bullshit. I guess I need to wait for college before girls are just happy with being fuck buddies. Or I need to find sluttier girls.

I knew you would reply to that, and I knew you would take it the wrong way. I typed it as I was in the middle of installing drivers, so I was typing fast to avoid being cut off by the restart.

I knew the difference between casual dating, serious relationships, and having a fuck buddy. Or as you call it, 'being an asshole'. Essentially, we do have what you described: going on dates, spending time together, having fun without necessarily committing to a full blown exclusive relationship. Being a horny teenager, I find the biggest perk of the relationship to be the hooking up. I still like her as a friend, appreciate and even enjoy her company, but really the whole situation revolves around sex. Of course it doesn't make me a great guy to be doing this, even as far as to make me an asshole, but I've explained my feelings and my views 100% to her. And I don't hook up with other girls.

No, I fully understand the situation. I know why people say what they say, I know how she feels, and I know I'm not the greatest guy in the world for doing it. I'm not asking for advice or your personal viewpoints on it, with your decades upon decades of love experience that makes you leaps and bounds ahead of me. I found this topic amusing in the sense that it discusses relationships, casual dating, and the problems that seem to revolve around them. With my whole situation being a relationship without the emotional attachment to avoid problems, only to cause more problems, all happening within the past few weeks seemed too coincidental to not bring up.

If I had to guess, I think he would say the problem with your situation is that despite the agreement, the girl you are with is still being hurt because she has feelings that are not returned.  She is now probably now only continuing the relationship because she is being blinded by a vain hope that you will start to return her feelings.  Whether or not it was unintentional, that relationship is now hurting somebody.  Casual sex relationships, like any relationship really, stop being OK the second somebody is getting hurt by it, even if it is not you, and no matter how it got to that point.  The best thing to do at this point would probably be to end the pseudo-relationship.

I am not really sure, to be honest. I've never really done something like this before, as I've always just told the girl up front that it would be a one time deal and I had no feelings attached to it. They would agree and it wouldn't happen again. It definitely isn't anywhere near ideal to be in the type of relationship I am in (if you would call it that) and not have feelings for the other person. It gets tiring having to commit to something that you really shouldn't be involved in in the first place, and quite frankly, I was to hook up with other girls.

I guess I was just naive and thought we both wouldn't see sex as something more. In the end it seems to create more problems than benefits, and really should just be avoided completely when the girl does have some sort of emotional attachment. It's just difficult to end, just because every opportunity I have to end it always coincides with a time where I can reap the benefits of the whole ordeal.

Uhuh. Well, thanks for the advice bud! Thanks for taking my post the wrong way, and coming to your own false conclusions. Re-read my post; I may not have been 100% clear, but I'm pretty sure I get the point across that I'm not "using" her. I wasn't asking for advice. I was merely going with the trend of the thread by sharing a tale.

I said it makes things difficult to end, not impossible. And when I say difficult, I mean I am far passed drunk, to the point where I don't even remember my name and wake up with "CALL ME (insert number)" scribbled across my forearm. To be more specific, I was referring to last Sunday, where I was planning on breaking things off with her, but then found out she was also invited to a party I was going to. I got completely smashed, she comes, and in the morning I am informed I did X amount of things with her.

I was planning on breaking things off on Tuesday, but finals start the next day (she's really stressed out by them). I figured I'll wait until after finals, let her know the casual hooking up needs to stop, and that'll be that. Willpower is a joke when it comes to this.

I was never asking whether I am an asshole or not. I am quite capable of seeing when a line is crossed, and even if not, it's not like I'd be in denial considering I refer to myself as one anyway.