It was only after she realized that “it’s ok” meant, “it’s ok to decide not to on your own.”

That line has been rolling around in my head for weeks. I’ve written it in notebooks, typed it into my phone, said it out loud, and scribbled it on my hand. I don’t know what it comes from, and I’m not entirely sure what it refers too in my life, but it won’t go away.

I think it has something to do with commitment. That it’s in some way related to how someone may not want commitment, but they want you to make all the decisions that speak to commitment independent of reciprocation. “It’s ok to do what you want” is, after all, a hard promise to follow through on when you care about someone.

Everyone I’ve talked to lately wants to be ‘progressive’ when it comes to dating. Eventually, they do want monogamy, but in the early stages of a relationship they would rather have the freedom to test the waters without setting down roots. It is, for whomever is doing it, a pretty ok setup. You date the person you want, you can continue to see other people, and perhaps that lack of pressure on the primary relationship will encourage it to flourish all the better…that’s a big ‘perhaps’ though.

Because while it might be easy for a person to be fluid and flexible, it can be much harder to watch someone else do the same thing. As you stack dates on a summer weekend, you start to squirm at them doing swiping through Tinder for a Friday night friend. You remind yourself that it isn’t fair, that this was what you wanted, but the ‘progressive’ 21^st century-dater mindset isn’t as easy as you thought it would be.

This was supposed to be fun, but now it’s just stressful.

It’s around that time that “it’s ok” becomes “it’s ok to decide not to on your own.” Before you are ready to make a real commitment, but well after you would like your partner to have sworn fealty to you and only you. You aren’t ‘official’ yet, so you can’t demand it, but you start to feel bitter. When they say they are busy on a Thursday night, you have the overwhelming urge to compulsively refresh Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram until something goes up to show you where and, more importantly, with whom they are spending what is supposed to be your evening with your person.

That Sunday, over eggs benedict and an over-meloned fruit salad, they ask you if you’re ok with how things are going. You don’t want to mess it up. You don’t want to scare your person away. So you answer, “it’s ok” when what you really mean is, “it’s ok to decide not to on your own.”