Just not too sure

[wierdmunky]

I've been dating a guy for a year next month, and I'm starting to wonder when do I start thinking if he's the one for me or not. Not "the one" exactly, but maybe potentially the one for me, now that I actually write that, that seems like too huge a step. What are the steps in dating? I think bringing people into the family circle is a huge step, but the person I'm dating has pretty much brought every girl he's dated around his family, so I'm a little confused.

[JohnnyBlaze]

The answer to your first (implied) question is easy: once the newness of the relationship is long worn off and all of your friends have accepted the two of you as a single entity, if you still get that warm, cozy feeling every time you're around him, he can be added to the list of contenders for "the one".

 

As to the steps, that's more complicated. Girls generally have more steps than guys do. Girls have this whole hierarchy of dating, seeing, being boyfriend/girlfriend, being in a relation, and being in a serious relationship with a guy. For guys, we keep it simple. If it's the first date or two, we're going out on a date with a girl. After that, we're going out with the girl. "Going out with" a girl pretty much encompasses everything from Date #2 to the engagement party. We know you'll bring up the boyfriend/girlfriend talk anyway, so we don't sweat about when to start calling you "the girlfriend". The problem is that so many things occur during this stage that (by female standards) would evolve the relation, but because it's all part of the same stage for us, we don't really care about what order things are done in.

 

Some guys don't think twice about bringing any girl around to meet his folks, so don't use that as a gauge. The more accurate one with guys is how often we bring you around to hang out with our friends. Friends tend to be less polite than family, and have more condemning war stories. Before a guy brings a chick around to meet his crew, he'd better make sure she's into him enough to be able to hear some pretty funky things about him and still want to call him the next day, in spite of it.