DTR (DEFINING THE RELATIONSHIP)

Dating in the 21st century can feel a little like the Wild West. Or like you’re hacking your way through a jungle, miles from civilization.

Thanks to today’s hyper-online dating climate, where swiping, sexting and hookups have all but replaced concepts like dinner dates, going steady, and, hell, monogamy itself, it can sometimes feel like there are no rules.

Conscious that they can be replaced before they’ve even unfriended you on Facebook. People end up stifling their real feelings so as not to scare the other person off.

The upshot of that is that people get mired in weeks- or months-long interactions that aren’t quite relationships. Instead, you have situationships, textlationships, nonlationships, but whatever you want to call them, they’re exhausting.

All of this uncertainty (“Does she like me like me?” “Is he seeing other people?” “Could we make this work as a couple or am I kidding myself?”) has given rise to another concept: the DTR conversation, short for “defining the relationship,” a DTR conversation is between two people who start dating about what the relationship can and should look like going forward.

In most cases, this conversation refers to when two people decide to stop seeing other people and enter into a monogamous relationship, this happens at different times for different couples, but it’s widely considered the time when you’re supposed to stop dating [others], being on dating apps, etc.

The end result doesn’t necessarily need to be exclusivity, though. “You can also have these conversations (and should) when clearly defining a casual hookup or friends with benefits relationships.”