So he says he doesn’t want anything serious. What does he really mean?

tips

babe  • 

So he says he doesn’t want anything serious. What does he really mean?

Hint: he’s probably just not that into you

You meet the perfect guy and every sign indicates that he's into you. He always texts back in under an hour, he likes all of your Instagram photos within a few minutes of posting, and he actually listens when you tell him about your day — in other words, he's straight up boyfriend material. You're convinced that he's going to pop the "want to be exclusive?" question any day now.

But then he suddenly hits you with the, "I'm not really looking for anything serious." Uhh, what? This is, without a doubt, the most perplexing statement in the history of the universe. What does it mean? Is this an invitation to try again a few months later, or drop the whole thing entirely? Let's run through some of the possible meanings behind this mysterious sentence.

Get advice from real girls in real time

Join the babe community for $2.99 a month

He just got out of a long-term relationship and he's not ready yet

Was he just in a 5-year-long relationship with a girl who he literally considered his soulmate? Then yeah, it's pretty understandable that he's not ready to date anytime soon. While some people get over breakups by jumping into another relationship as soon as humanly possible, others recover by spending a lot of time alone — hanging out with friends, watching lots of Netflix, crying over a box of chocolates, the whole nine yards. He might be down to casually hook up every now and then (in fact, who among us HASN'T had a hoe phase immediately after a breakup?), but the idea of a serious relationship probably makes him shudder with disgust.

That being said, PLEASE do not use this an excuse to wait around for him. Of course, there's always the possibility that he actually intends on dating you and just needs a few months to himself before he can fully commit to you. But let's be real — that possibility is slim, and potentially nonexistent. So why waste your time on someone who might never make up his mind about you? If you're comfortable hanging out with him as a friend and casually hooking up with him, then go for it and keep an open mind. But deep down if you really, really want to call him your boyfriend, then it might be better to cut things off or at least start seeing other people so you don't get your hopes up too high.

He's in a transitional period of his life and he can't make any commitments yet

Life is all about transitions, but there are some that might make someone a little iffy about entering a committed relationship. For example, if he's about to leave your hometown to start college, he's probably not going to want to start dating you just to leave and not see you for six months at a time. The same is true if he's about to go to grad school, start a new job in a new city, or quit his job to go "find himself" or whatever in Bali. If he's at the point in his life where he's not sure if he'll be in Chicago or China this time next year, then he definitely won't know for sure if he'll be with you.

It might be easy to chalk this up to bad timing. If only the time was right, then everything would be perfect! It's tempting, therefore, to want to wait around for him or — even worse — think about moving closer to be with him. PLEASE do not do this, no matter how strong the temptation is! Life is all about transitions, but it's also all about compromises. And if you're more invested in making this work than he is, then surprise, surprise — it's never going to work out, and you're going to walk away from this experience burned. Breathe and don't do anything rash. Talk to him and gauge how interested he actually is. And unless he says something like, "I am 100% interested in dating you and I am willing to work hard to make this work, despite the distance" then you know that there's no way in hell this will actually work.

He's in the same friend group as you and he doesn't want to cause drama

Sure, tons of people end up dating someone they've known for years as a friend. So being in the same friend group as the guy you're interested in isn't necessarily a dealbreaker in any way. That being said, he might not want to pursue anything serious with you because he's worried that it'll fuck up the dynamics of the friend group. Casually hooking up is one thing, but dating is a lot more risky. What if you end up seriously dating for a few months and then have a really awful breakup? That'll make future pregames REALLY awkward, and if the breakup is particularly brutal, it might even force your friends to pick sides.

So what do you do? It's not like you can just leave your entire group of friends in the hope that he'll start dating you. Honestly, the answer is that there's not much you CAN do. It's not like you can make him fall in love with you — if you two are already friends, he already knows you pretty well and has determined whether or not he likes you enough to risk imploding the friend group. And If he really liked you that much, he'd take that risk, or at least consider taking that risk. After all, aren't YOU already thinking about taking that risk? You also know that if you two start dating and break up, there's the risk that half of your friends might stop talking to you! And yet here you are, wishing he were your boyfriend. Take this as a sign that he's not actually that interested in you, and move on.

He's just not that into you

This is, sadly, the most likely outcome. 99% of the time when a guy says that he doesn't want anything serious, what he really means is that he doesn't want anything serious with YOU. Even if all of the previous things were true — he just got out of a long-term relationship, he's moving to a different city next year, and he's in the same friend group as you — NONE of those things would matter in the slightest if he really, really wanted to be with you. Because if he actually wanted to be in a relationship with you, he would at least try to make it work.

Yeah, the truth hurts. And it's so, so tempting to believe that there's something you can do to make him fall in love with you, or some period of time you can wait before he's ready to commit to you. But that's just not the case most of the time. So if he says he doesn't want anything serious, then take him at his word. Stop wasting your time and start swiping on Tinder — because there's definitely a guy out there who DOES want something serious with you. You just have to find him.

@nian_hu