The Stupidest Games You’ll Have To Play If You Date Nowadays!

#1 Should I be concerned or am I being paranoid?

Because of vague anti-labels like "talking" instead of being "in a relationship," it becomes tricky to figure out what's acceptable and what's not especially when you're involved with a person who communicates in a particular way with other people that makes you uncertain of and uncomfortable with the situation. Some people do this because they enjoy being flirtatious with the masses and they might say it's harmless, but you'll be left trying to figure out if you should legitimately be worried, or if you're just being jealous. The lack of a definitive label might make you feel as if you're not in a position to inquire, which only builds on the discomfort and inspires your imagination to cook up unpleasant thoughts.

#2 Deciphering if they're playing hard to get or if they're just uninterested

Giving more doesn't result in an increase of affection from the apple of your eye, but how much should you put yourself out there? Is it interest and just busy or indifference. Trying to convince someone that you are worthy of their time and affection is futile. It may work for a moment, but usually no more than that. Because people's feelings change often, and curiosity can be mistaken for genuine interest, it may be difficult to determine if someone is worth doting over or not.

#3 The "purposefully taking longer to text back to mask interest" game

No matter how badly you want to dial his digits or reply to his e-mails, you're better off curbing your enthusiasm when you're first dating. Absence creates anticipation and a feeling of "If I don't see them now, I'll die."

#4 Showing interest without being creepy

The key to this game is first learning if the other person is interested, because that's really the only difference between your actions being embraced and your actions being screencapped and shamed. Whether sliding into someone's DMs or mentioning that you remember a detail about them, you must tread lightly if you aren't fairly certain how they feel about you.

#5 Searching for a label through the foggy vagueness

Many daters try to avoid the "What are we?" conversation, which can often lead to confusion on precisely what the relationship is. People don't know what the level of commitment is, and after all these years, people still don't know what "we're talking" truly means. The uncertainty makes for a heck of a time searching for something definitive.

#6 Purposely losing the emotional race

When it comes to two people putting themselves out there, the ideal way that this happens is simultaneously, with both people naturally taking the plunge together. Unfortunately some people who've been wronged in the past or have whatever reasons for proceeding with caution will keep their walls up and leave it wholly on the other individual to open up and be responsible for closeness.

#7 Veiled social media communication

You know you've done it. You've posted a song you like so that someone else would see it and "like" it. There's that picture of you out doing some sort of interesting and cool hobby that just so happens to be up someone's alley. Then they actually do like it.... so you do it again and they do it again. You got caught in the social web flirting net.

#8 Guessing what “I’m fine” actually means

When you're doing something separate from the person you're dating like, say, a night out with friends, it's not unusual for them to say "have fun." However, as most of us know, what someone says and what they mean are sometimes two entirely different things. Perhaps they do actually hope that you enjoy the duration of your time doing whatever you're doing, but don't be surprised if they actually mean "I'm so angry at you and if you actually go I'm going to be cold and rude until you figure out that I don't want you to have any of the fun."

This of course leads to the "I'm fine" debate. What do they actually mean when they say something? After all, understanding how people communicate isn't just about what that person says. It's also about what that person INTENDS to say.