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"  I&amp;#039;ve been seeing someone for a few months. We text daily. When we hang out there&amp;#039;s always a sober sleepover involved. We&amp;#039;ve met (and like) each other&amp;#039;s friends. We know each other&amp;#039;s middle names. We haven&amp;#039;t decided whether or not we should be exclusive with one another, but there&amp;#039;s a level of intimacy and romance there that&amp;#039;s hard to find in the New York dating scene. We&amp;#039;ve entered a phase I like to call &amp;quot;Relationship Lite.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s that nebulous stage when you&amp;#039;re spending so much time together that other prospects start to fade away, deeper feelings start to develop, and you may have a toothbrush at his place. However, you&amp;#039;re probably both still having sex with other people.  In February, Helen Fisher, PhD, biological anthropologist and author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, conducted an annual study called &amp;quot;Singles in America&amp;quot; in partnership with Match.com. Based on a representative sample of the American public, 45 percent of people said that a casual, friends-with-benefits scenario had developed into a long-term partnership.  Related: 10 May-December Relationships But when does that shift occur? Are people still having &amp;quot;the talk?&amp;quot; My guy and I did\u2014partially because I felt like I was supposed to, and partially because a newlywed friend thought I would get hurt if I didn&amp;#039;t. Nothing really came out of it. For us, all the talking in the world wouldn&amp;#039;t change the inopportune timing. He&amp;#039;s still emotionally unavailable; I&amp;#039;m still flip-flopping between not wanting a boyfriend and wanting more. Let&amp;#039;s just say we&amp;#039;re still straight-up Relationship Lite.  I used to think people&amp;#039;s fear of commitment stemmed from too many options\u2014that pesky idea that someone more attractive, smarter, richer, or better in bed was just around the corner. Most single people I know date and sleep with multiple people at once, and I suppose they do it mostly because they can. In a city like New York, you can have your regular thing in Greenpoint and side fling in TriBeCa\u2014those two probably won&amp;#039;t cross paths. Sexual exclusivity is often used as a metaphor for a relationship without having to discuss actual feelings. But by blindly agreeing to it, you might really be entering into a slightly more serious subset of Relationship Lite. It&amp;#039;s a strategic movethat still allows for small print: I won&amp;#039;t shag anyone else, but you&amp;#039;re not invited home for Thanksgiving. &amp;quot;We became exclusive because we didn&amp;#039;t want to use condoms anymore,&amp;quot; one friend told me, her rationale echoing that of so many others I spoke to. &amp;quot;But it was two more months before he called me his girlfriend.&amp;quot; Related: Addicted to the Thrill of Sleeping with Married Women The breaking point is different for everyone. Perhaps it&amp;#039;s the realization that he&amp;#039;s still sleeping with someone else, you didn&amp;#039;t get invited on a group vacation, or he still introduces you as his &amp;quot;friend&amp;quot;\u2014even though you&amp;#039;ve been seeing each other for months. And just because you talked a few weeks ago and were cool being exclusive-but-casual or consistent-but-non-exclusive, or whatever, doesn&amp;#039;t mean you should bite your tongue when suddenly that is no longer enough for you. Personally, I&amp;#039;m coasting in Relationship Lite because I don&amp;#039;t know what role I want this guy to play in my life, and that&amp;#039;s something I need to consider before making even the most basic level of commitment. All the honesty and analyzing in the world isn&amp;#039;t the antidote to uncertainty. Relationship Lite allows you to explore\u2014or just simply enjoy\u2014someone when you aren&amp;#039;t exactly sure where they fit in.  So I&amp;#039;m going to embrace it until, perhaps as soon as next week, I&amp;#039;m ready for Relationship Heavy. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a14107/how-do-relationships-progress-in-a-casual-dating-world/?click=hprc>