A client once began a session by showing me a text they’d just received from someone they’d been dating for a couple of months:

I like you very much and want to continue seeing you. I’m just not ready for a relationship.

They looked at me.

“When we first met, they said they wanted a relationship. They even told me they were ready to settle down. What the fuck?”

Fair question.

Had something changed? Were they afraid? Had the relationship become more serious than they’d expected? Was there someone else? Did they like my client but have trouble with commitment?

Maybe.

But there was one piece of information we didn’t have to speculate about:

They had just said they didn’t want a relationship.

Sometimes the difficult part isn’t getting an answer. It’s believing the answer when it isn’t the one we wanted.

The First Half Gives You Hope

What makes a message like this particularly confusing is that both parts may be completely sincere.

I like you very much.

And:

I don’t want a relationship.

We tend to treat those statements as contradictory. If someone likes me, enjoys being with me, is attracted to me, calls me, sleeps with me and wants to continue seeing me, surely all of that is moving toward something.

Maybe it is.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Someone can genuinely like you and still not want the relationship you want with them.

When we’re emotionally invested, the first half of the message supplies hope while the second supplies information.

And hope has a way of getting promoted.

Listen for the Word You Added

Someone says:

“I’m not ready for a relationship.”

And sometimes what we hear is:

“I’m not ready for a relationship yet.”

That’s a very different sentence.

Yet creates a future. It gives us something to wait for, work toward, or perhaps even help bring about.

Maybe they need more time.

Maybe they’ve been hurt.

Maybe they’re afraid.

Maybe if I don’t pressure them.

Maybe once they trust me.

Maybe if they see how good we are together.

The difficulty is that none of those possibilities changes what the person is offering you now.

You may even be right that their feelings will eventually change.

But you’re still making a decision about your life based on something they haven’t actually offered.

Ambivalence Isn’t Always a Puzzle to Solve

It’s tempting to treat another person’s uncertainty as a psychological problem requiring interpretation.

Perhaps they’re afraid of intimacy. Perhaps they’re protecting themselves from rejection. Perhaps they’re conflicted about commitment.

Or perhaps they like you.

Just not enough to choose the relationship.

Ambiguity can be easier to live with than rejection because ambiguity leaves room for something to change. If someone is afraid, perhaps they can become less afraid. If they’re uncertain, perhaps they can become certain.

But you don’t need to diagnose someone before deciding what to do.

You need to know what they’re available for.

I don’t want anything serious.

I’m not ready to be exclusive.

I don’t know what I want.

I like what we have and don’t want to change it.

There may be complicated reasons behind those statements.

But they’re also information.

People Aren’t Always Good at Saying No

Of course, people aren’t always particularly good at delivering that information.

Rejecting someone is uncomfortable. We know the other person may be hurt. We may feel guilty. We may genuinely like them and hate the idea of losing them altogether.

So we soften things.

The timing is bad.

I’m just not ready.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Sometimes those statements are completely true. Sometimes they’re attempts to make a painful message less painful.

Either way, they can create enough ambiguity for someone to keep searching for the yes hidden inside the no.

There may not be one.

You Don’t Have to Convince Someone to Choose You

Interpreting uncertainty as potential can also quietly turn dating into an audition.

You become a little more patient. You don’t bring up what you want because you don’t want to pressure the other person. You make allowances you might not otherwise make. You try to become sufficiently appealing that eventually they’ll recognize what the two of you could have.

At that point, something important has shifted.

Instead of two people finding out whether they want to build a relationship together, one person is trying to become convincing enough for the other to choose it.

That’s a lousy job.

Believe Them—and Then Decide for Yourself

Believing someone who says they don’t want a relationship doesn’t mean storming away or deciding they never cared about you.

They may care very much.

It simply means taking their stated limits seriously.

You can ask for clarification. You can say what you want. You can make sure you’ve understood each other correctly.

And then you have your own decision to make.

Perhaps you’re genuinely comfortable continuing to see them without a relationship.

Perhaps you’re not.

Perhaps what they’re offering would be perfectly enjoyable for someone who wanted the same thing, but painful for you because you don’t.

That’s not an ultimatum.

It’s information too.

Be prepared to believe what someone is telling you, despite the lure of ambiguity.

You don’t have to know whether they’ll feel differently six months from now.

You only have to decide what you want to do with what they’re telling you today.

Yep. That’s the one. It moves now. And I particularly like that the old article’s most interesting sentence—“despite the lure of ambiguity”—survived the purge and became the ending. That came straight out of the original.