How to Approach Serious Topics In Relationships

My modus operandi in many of my previous romantic relationships has always been to get serious pretty fast. Not necessarily in the committed sense, but I tended to ask serious questions and bring up serious topics pretty early on. I would ask about deal breakers, future plans, previous relationships, value systems, etc. as early as the second date.

My rationale was that it was better to get as much of this information as possible, as soon as possible, rather than wait and have it potentially ruin the relationship later down the line when I’ve already invested more time, energy, and emotions. I was consistently trying to run a cost/benefit analysis on my beginning stage relationships. I thought I could prevent heartache down the road by trying to get everything out in the open right from the get go.

But recently I’ve noticed that I don’t do this as much. I wait longer and longer to bring up serious topics, and now I forgo some questions altogether. Part of this is due to my use of the 5 why rule that I talked about a few weeks back, and part of this is simply my effort to be more intentional.

I used to ask questions to confirm my own thoughts or to test the other person’s response, which was a little shady looking back. Now, when a serious question starts to form, I put it through its paces before asking it. I ask myself why I want to ask the question - is it really just curiosity or is it stemming from something else? I ask myself what I will get out of the answer. Is the information truly something I need to know, is it possible it might make me feel worse? And lastly, I make sure I’m truly prepared to hear their answer rather than project myself onto their response. Now I ask with the intent to learn and to connect rather than to check a box on a potential relationship. 

I also started to learn that there is a limit to what you can find out via point blank questions. They are useful for simple information like favorites and for blatant deal breakers like whether someone wants kids or not, but beyond those, I would usually end up running up against a wall.

When you ask someone a larger, serious question - like about a past relationship or about a specific value - you will only ever get a piece of the puzzle. So much of their answer will depend on their more recent experiences, their present frame of mind, and how comfortable they currently are with you. Many people also haven’t done a lot of introspection and might not even have a robust answer to provide when put on the spot. The whole story, or their true standing, will take more time to reveal itself. You may have to ask more than once, and in multiple different ways. And while asking may be able to give you a general idea of these things, memories are fluid and you might not be able to get a good handle on someone’s past through questions alone. 

Additionally,  it is only through actions that you can truly start to judge their character. I could ask someone point blank if they would like to go on a trip, and they might say yes, but until they actually do it, I can’t truly plan on them being the type of person who follows through on making future plans. People have their own life tempo, and they change all the time, so it will only be through repeated patterns of action that you will be able to form an idea of their personality, not necessarily through point-in-time questioning. 

I didn’t stop asking serious questions altogether, I still want to collect information about a person’s past and their thoughts, but I wait longer so I can adjust them to best suit the interaction through the lens of more than one or two experiences with them. By spending a little more time with them, I can find out things like if they hate being put on the spot, or if there are topics that make them uncomfortable and I should find a sensitive way to approach those. Some answers reveal themselves on their own just through a little more time, some end up rendered irrelevant, and some are best left to marinate until the proper moment.

In any case, I have had enough interactions now to know that no matter how much information I try and collect, people will always surprise me. I do still enjoy asking questions, it’s a valuable conversation tactic, but I don’t put as much stock into the answers anymore. I’m starting to enjoy the process of discovering someone slowly through a combination of conversation, activities, and most importantly - time. 

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