I really believe assuming exclusivity is a very dangerous thing, because you just don't know until you have the conversations with somebody.

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The key word being there naturally leads to commitment because sex can be the precursor to commitment. There's no rule that says having sex early means that you won't end up in a relationship with this person, but assuming that just because you are regularly being physically intimate with this person, they come over a few times a week or whatever and you sleep together.

Assuming that that then means there is a real future plan here.

Yeah, well that extends even to thinking that even before commitment, thinking that having sex with someone is going to create more of a bond is an assumption because there is no guarantee that it will create a bond for the other person.

There's no guarantee that sex means the same thing to them as it does to you.

Absolutely, and that's why you have to be, you know, it's fine if you have a standard that you're fine being physically intimate with someone because you like them and you don't necessarily expect that to go somewhere that's fine.

But if for your own protection, you know I will get emotionally attached. I will feel like I want this to be something more because I'm sleeping with some regularly. If you know that, it does be who you to be careful in, you know, just falling into that trap of like we're sleeping together and I'm just going to assume and get closer and closer to this person and assume that it's going to lead somewhere serious.

What's mistake number three?

Mistake number three is assuming that sharing emotional intimacy means he has long term intentions and this can, you know, this is going to apply to men and women.

So it's not, it's not gender specific, but just because you have phone calls, long talks into the night or you're sharing loads of deep staff over texting or whatever.

Again, that people can enjoy the fact that they have someone they can actually just come home at the end of the day and talk about how work was, why they're stressed with their boss, why they're pissed, what, you know, what's not going their way, what they want, people can enjoy that feeling and that comfort, the comfort traps or relationship without necessarily meaning that like they exclusively have eyes for that person or just that,

they may still feel like, yeah, but I don't want to like go the full way, but I really enjoy this, you know, this like special friendship we have.

To me, there's something that's jumping out, which is the elephant in the room, right? You know, it's all well and good to say to people, watch out for these things and, you know, these mistakes and that you make in assuming all these different things in early dating, but there's a lot of people out there.

A lot of men out there who kind of just want the girlfriend experience and they're quite happy to use people. They're happy to use you physically, emotionally.

They're happy to love bomb you in a way of, you know, just messaging you all day long and inviting you out to things and creating this false sense of security and intimacy.

Meanwhile, because they've never actually articulated the words that they are committed to you, they're always in the clear.

As you have said multiple times, Matt, you know, we have to take responsibility to protect ourselves because a lot of people, if you let them, will just take advantage of those things.

And just because you're standard for how you treat people is a certain way does not mean somebody else will have the same standard as you and you just have to be very mindful of those things.

That's the thing, right? I'm not saying someone's wrong for assuming those things means something and I'm not, it's not good that people do lead people on in these ways.

So it's definitely me not blaming someone for assuming it means more than it does. It's like it's just that until you know there's intent until you're actually having some kind of conversation about it or it's part of the dialogue you have, you cannot just go, you cannot just say, well, these things are happening.

So I assume that we're going to have a future together.

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