Dating Rule: No Sex For 90 Days?

Pardon the photo, but I had to find something that made the point of this post. And don’t get carried away by the gender implication, the ideas apply to both genders. Someone told me that a contemporary dating rule out there in the single world reads ‘no sex for 90 days’ when you start dating someone new. Vaguely sounds like the intro to a 12 step program, right? But will it work to weed out people who aren’t serious about love?

Maybe. Let’s talk about the pros and cons, and how we might strengthen the objective to find out if a dating partner is serious about having a love relationship. The problem is, some people are really only looking for sex. Sex for sex sake. Nothing more, nothing less. And as I said this is not a gender specific problem. It might not even be a problem at all as long as a person looking for sex finds a person looking for sex. The problem comes in when the person looking for a committed relationship finds a person looking for sex who doesn’t say he or she is just looking for sex.

So there is a degree of deception involved at the beginning. This is one of the most common ways a person can get his or her heart broken, believing that a lover is looking for love rather than sex. In fact the word ‘believing’ is the most important word in the sentence. Unfortunately, in the love-life world it’s easy to see, hear, and feel what you want to see, hear, and feel. But why 90 days? The idea is three months of dating someone on a regular basis is going to tell you what the person is really there for.

If you encounter anger, impatience, manipulation, or any kind of attempt to force or control you for sex, you can be pretty sure that you’re with someone who is not with you for a long-term relationship. People who are motivated just by sex characteristically get bent out of shape (easily frustrated) when they cannot control the person they want to have sex with. You could say their frustration tolerance is pretty low.

Let’s assume the 90 days is meant to be a long enough time to test a person’s ability to relate for other reasons besides sex. Like relating to a lover for intimacy. Intimacy being the extent to which you are trying to open up to another person and let yourself be known while trying to get to know the other person. This a psychological and emotional experience. Certainly a very powerful way of getting inside someone beyond the physical act of love making.

Years ago, women would commonly require a suitor to court them to marriage before sex. The idea being, you want something so how much are you willing to give to get it? Of course this can’t be the whole story because plenty of people waited and did whatever was required to get into bed. After that, the motivation to remain married began to slowly wane. Common story.

The point is, if you are considering someone for a love relationship, knowing whether or not he or she is with you for sex or something bigger is the first place you start. Beyond that, you should be looking for evidence of commitment problems, mistreatment of you, disrespect, aggressiveness, and a developed ability to give and receive love. If you find evidence for at least one of the first four, think twice. If you find plenty of evidence for an ability to give and receive love, you just might have the real thing. The only problem is, whether or not all of this can be done in 90 days. Dr. T. Jordan

 

 

 

 

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Dr. Jordan

Dr. Thomas Jordan is a clinical psychologist, certified interpersonal psychoanalyst, author, professor, and love life researcher.

1 Comment

  1. Visit Finland on July 24, 2012 at 9:43 am

    This has been the age old debate and shortening of the modern world relationship
    The older you get,the more less interestted in sex for gratification and immediate pleasure becomes
    At 50 now,i RATHER BEFREIND FEMALES FIRST THEN IF IT DEVELOPS ALL THE BETTER
    tHERE ARE TO MANY YOUNG KIDS ONLY SEARCHING LOVE NOW.People need to be mature enough to not only handle their own emotions but others.
    Do as Finnish women do:Travel,study for a career and enjoy life with few commitments
    Most Finnish women do not even think of settling down till their 30`s

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