Dating for a Couple Months vs Dating for a Couple Years

I have been happily dating my boyfriend for four years now; in fact, our anniversary is actually tomorrow on Halloween! I would say we’re pretty happy and I couldn’t really imagine my life without him. Actually, maybe I could. It probably would be a lot less stressful. And a little more glamorous. For those of you who have been in a relationship longer than a year, you probably are well aware that as your relationship grows it changes in ways that are both welcome and unwelcome. Here are some aspects of what occurs when you first enter a relationship vs. when you’ve been dating for a very very very long time. (I mean, honestly, sometimes it feels like an eternity, right?)

1. Bathroom decorum becomes virtually non-existent. Ah, the good old days. There was a time when my boyfriend would actually go to the lobby when we were on vacation to use the bathroom, either to be polite or because he was embarrassed to do so in front of me. Now, when I am minding my own business carrying on with daily activities, I get a text about the bowel movement he just had and what’s worse—a description! I’m not sure what traumatizing event happened to me in my childhood, but any time someone mentions going to the bathroom to me I immediately get embarrassed—and he takes advantage of this to the fullest extent. In fact, even writing the word “pooping” right now is making me blush. Moving on.

2. “We can have sex if you want but I’m not doing anything.” This is a sentence that indisputably all couples across the globe have uttered to each other at one point or another. Long gone are the days of nightly intercourse or sexual trysts multiple times a day. As the years go on if both of you are actually in the mood to have sex at the same time (a modern-day miracle) either one or the other has had a long, taxing day and are too tired to put forth the effort required to have an orgasm. Go figure.

3. The art of comfortable silence. There once was a time, probably in the few months you started dating your significant other, that you stayed up all night into the wee hours of the morning talking. You were dying to uncover every minute detail about this person who you regard as the greatest person in the universe, and things as small and insignificant as their favorite color feel like one of the seven wonders of the world. Now, as I sit here typing away on my laptop and watching my boyfriend play his sixth consecutive game of FIFA, I actually can not remember the last thing that was said. I think an hour ago he asked me when the Chinese food was supposed to get here. And you know what? That’s okay with me. Long-term relationships are about learning to enjoy being together quietly and peacefully.

4. What’s a date night? I suppose he was just trying to impress me or woo me or get me into bed, whatever you want to call it really. But, in the first few months of dating I honestly thought that my boyfriend was the most sophisticated man I had ever met. He would take me to lavish dinners at upscale restaurants and order expensive bottles of wine, and I specifically remember scoffing at the days of pizza and a movie on $6 Movie Tuesdays that I had been treated to by my high school boyfriends. Oh, how times have changed. Once you’ve been together long enough there is minimal need to go out to glamorous dinners multiple times a week that neither of you can really afford. Instead, my boyfriend and I commonly order takeout if one of us musters up enough strength to get out of bed and pick it up. And what’s more is I don't know if he really cut into his savings those few months of dating, but I’ve now more often than not become the one who pays!