Expiration dating is when you start a relationship that has a defined end date. People don’t really realize that the majority of dating they do is actually expiration dating. Most people don’t really want to know that. Most of us want to believe that any fucking asshole we’re going bowling with could be ‘the one’. We are one brainwashed culture.
I’ve only really knowingly expiration dated one person. I was moving in six months and she knew that. We broke up halfway through those six months before the move because she was getting too invested and didn’t want to get hurt. Then we started meeting up with each other at the local gay bar. Then we started making out in her car. Then we started sleeping together again. And then we were basically dating until I left. Well, until three days before she left and we talked about the fact that I was moving across the country and she brought up the possibility of a long-distance relationship and I gently declined and so we broke up and later that night I got an email from her best friend (this little catholic gay boy) who basically threatened to find me and slit my throat which was both horrifying and kind of hilarious because I towered over him about at least a foot and I could probably have sat on him and crushed him instantly cause he was so skinny and I so wasn’t.
But, yeah. Knowingly going into an expiration dating situation is not always the best idea. Sometimes it’s fun if both people can really keep their feelings in check and are okay with letting the other person go when the time comes, but most people think they can handle it and then find themselves in situations where they really can’t. And, of course, by then it’s too late and they’re heart broken and they kind of hate the other person but they really hate themselves more because they knew what they were getting into, at least they thought they did, and it’s just really hard to untangle yourself from someone even if that person is someone you knew wouldn’t be yours for very much longer.
I guess this would be a stellar time to mention that we are not anyone’s possession or thing or object. We cannot be owned and we cannot be bought, unless we desire it and even then we’re still acting with free will and choice. We have to choose every day to be in the relationships we’re in, and that includes romantic relationships and friendships. And, as Dan Savage always says, every relationship you are ever in is going to fail…until one doesn’t. So enjoy the present. Don’t think too hard about expiration dates. Sooner or later the present always becomes the future.
1. Our relationship totally has an expiration date. We’re expiration dating. Like two milk cartons totally hooking up.
2. We were expiration dating. I didn’t know she had no interest in pumping out my babies. Slut.
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