In her second blog about awkward conversations and how to have them, Milly talks about dealing with that initial (sometimes scary) conversation in a new relationship…
 

What…Are…We?

 
Crucially this is one of those horrible moments in life where you must be really, brutally honest with yourself. If what is on offer in a ‘relationship’ is more casual than you would like, it’s better to make that clear before feelings get hurt. I’m talking, predominantly, about your feelings here. You know, the most important ones that we quite often ignore? Yeah those.
 

 
Whilst it’s really tempting to write people off as f***boys/gals’ (let’s not discriminate here), if you lie to yourself about what you want, how can you expect the other person to know that you aren’t happy? They’re giving you what you’ve agreed to, right?
 
I once caught feelings for a guy I was seeing very casually. As my feelings intensified, I wanted more from him and our relationship; but instead of behaving like an adult and telling him that, I just continued as we had been, but cried every other day about it to my very patient friends. And, when he didn’t alter his behaviour to meet my new expectations, I decided to walk away. This sounds dignified, but it also involved ten bottles of wine in a beer garden and an extremely misspelled text that read somewhere along the lines of “I blurrry laike you but you BAD FOR ME and now I cry”
 
I know guys. I don’t know why I’m single either.
 
Whilst me being a freak isn’t really anything out of the ordinary, I mention this particular incident because I bumped into him a year later, awkwardly on the street. When I apologised for being a social hand grenade and sending him such an intensely weird text he said:
 
‘The thing is I did really like you. I just thought you wanted it to be casual. You never gave me a chance to rise to the occasion’.
 
Had I sat down and calmly discussed the situation, things might have turned out differently. 🙄
 
The problem here is that there is a massive temptation to bury one’s head in the sand. To believe that if you just keep quiet and carry on, maybe they’ll suddenly decide they’re in love with you.
 
Tis never the case.
 
You have to communicate in order to get what you want. No one is a mind reader and, if the example above has taught us anything, neither are you. Let your gentleman/lady friend know what you want, and be prepared to hear what they have to say. Whether you like the outcome or not.
 
Remember – there’s a 50% chance you’ll get exactly what you want. There’s also a 50% chance you won’t but, as my dear old dad used to say: ‘If they don’t want you they’re quite frankly bonkers and you didn’t want them anyway.’ Say this out loud to yourself, delete their number and head to the pub forthwith. 🍻
 
 

Read the first in Milly’s three part series here:

Awkward Conversations: I Want A Pay Rise
 
 

Next blog on Wednesday:

Awkward Conversations: I Just Can’t Afford It
When you’re broke and just about surviving!
 
 

Milly Edgerley

Milly is a writer living in London.

‘I write in many places, but you can always find me writing about my tragic life at Broke London Blog’

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