What happened when I broke my cardinal dating rule
I broke one of my main three dating rules. I don’t mean bent a little or altered a bit. I broke it completely, like pulverized, demolished, stomped it into the ground.
I was never a girl who felt the need to follow dating rules: the “no kiss on the first date” rule, the “he-pays” rule, the “three date sleepover” rule. I thought it was all useless, an attempt by society to tell me what I can do and when I can do it. So I had my own set of rules. But my big three applied more to hookups: no coworkers, no roommates, and no close friends. It was a pretty simple caveat, one there to prevent awkwardness, compromised business or ruined friendships.
And I stuck to it for 25 full years of life.
But then something happened. I moved into a lovely shared apartment in a quant little beach town five minutes from my job. I settled in, and I soon found myself undeniably attracted to my roommate.
I suppose that’s what I get for moving into an apartment with a guy who was exactly my type, right? But I had lived with guys before and it had never been a problem. It had never even been a thought.
But one night, I broke my rule. The thing about roommates is that they aren’t friends and coworkers. They’re in your house, all the time. (I’m sure you’ve seen The Real World; I’m sure you know.)
Before I knew it, I was not only spending every night sleeping in bed with this roommate, I was in love with him. And he was in love with me too. It happened almost immediately. And I didn’t really have any idea what to do about it. I went from girl-who-never-has-a-boyfriend to girl-with-live-in-boyfriend.
In the beginning, that nagging voice in the back of my mind was still there, whispering to me about all the things I was doing wrong: “You can’t sleep with your roommate” and “Be on the lookout for another apartment when this falls to pieces spectacularly.” There was always that fear in the back of my mind of what would happen to me if it ended, and one of us did have to move out.
You know what? It did end. We did break up for a while. And I was sad, and I was lonely, and he moved out and I was heartbroken. And he hung out with other girls and I cried in public several times.
But then we got back together. And now, we’re moving into a new apartment in a much nicer city and planning an entire future together as partners. Not just roommates.
The whole thing made me realize that I had wasted a lot of years worrying about the end results of my relationships and what rules I had to follow and who was off limits, without enjoying the beauty of being in those relationships.
Abiding by “dating rules,” whether they are your own or society’s, might be tricking you out of one of the most incredible experiences you’ll ever have with a person you could really end up loving.
You make dating rules for a reason. But I’m here to tell you that those should be more like guidelines, and less like ironclad rules. If you have feelings for someone, no matter whether you live with them or not, you owe it to yourself to act on it. It might get messy, but at least you won’t have passed up something magical.
After all, rules were made to be blissfully ignored.
Laura Gesualdi is a 25-year-old Jersey girl who pretends to be Hermione Granger a lot. She likes reading, writing and kissing puppies. Follow her on twitter if you like pizza and sarcasm. https://twitter.com/LittleLauraKay
[Image via FOX]
