The Text I Finally Sent: How I Learned to Say What I Want

I had rewritten the text four times.

Version one was too apologetic.

Version two sounded like it had been approved by HR.

Version three somehow included the phrase “just to manage expectations”, which is not something a man should ever send before a date unless he is also attaching a quarterly report.

So I deleted the lot and typed what I actually meant.

“I definitely want to see you. I just want to take things a bit slower than I probably made it sound.”

Fourteen words.

You would have thought I was negotiating an international peace treaty.

I put my phone face-down on the table in the coffee shop and immediately became extremely interested in the foam on my flat white.

This was, apparently, progress.

I thought being easy-going made me easier to like:

When I first started dating men for the first time, I was very committed to seeming relaxed.

Painfully relaxed.

“What do you fancy doing?”

“Anything.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Just seeing what happens.”

“Do you want to come back to mine after?”

“Yeah, maybe, whatever works.”

I thought I was being spontaneous.

Sometimes I was.

Other times, “I’m easy” actually meant: I don’t want to say the wrong thing and give you a reason not to like me.

That was harder to admit.

Being newly out made me feel like everybody else knew something I didn’t. Like the men I was dating had all received some handbook at 18 and I’d turned up ten years late asking where the registration desk was.

So I compensated.

I tried not to be difficult. I tried not to seem inexperienced. I tried not to ask too many questions.

I wanted to feel fun, not frantic.

The problem was that being agreeable all the time didn’t actually make me feel relaxed. It made me hyper-aware of whether I was performing relaxed convincingly enough.

Very chill behaviour.

Saying what I wanted meant working out what I wanted:

This was the slightly inconvenient bit.

You can’t communicate what you want if you never stop long enough to ask yourself.

I’d spent years being quite good at adapting. In relationships, friendships, work, even choosing where to eat. I could usually tell you what everyone else preferred before I’d worked out my own answer.

Dating exposed that very quickly.

Before meeting someone, I started asking myself embarrassingly basic questions.

Do I actually want something casual?

Would I be comfortable going back to his place?

Do I want to see him again, or do I just want him to want to see me again?

Is there anything I’m not ready for?

What would make tonight feel good rather than merely successful?

That last one changed quite a lot for me.

I’d been approaching dates like there was somehow a correct outcome.

There isn’t.

A good date can end with another date booked.

It can end with a kiss.

It can end with a night bus and a packet of crisps.

It can also end with you thinking, lovely bloke, absolutely not.

All useful information.

A boundary isn’t only something you announce when another person crosses a line. Sometimes it’s simply knowing where your own line is before you get there.

Then I actually sent the text:

The message was about someone I liked.

Which made everything worse.

It’s much easier to practise boundaries when you’re not particularly bothered about the outcome. Suddenly add attraction and your brain starts producing some nonsense.

What if he thinks I’m boring?

What if I’ve made it weird?

What if he assumes I’m not interested?

What if this is the exact moment he discovers there are approximately eight million other men on the apps?

My notes app has seen things.

I sent it anyway.

His reply came a few minutes later.

“Yeah, course. No pressure. Still want that drink?”

That was it.

No dramatic discussion.

No interrogation.

No sudden withdrawal of affection.

Just a normal response to a normal piece of information.

And I realised I had spent years imagining that honesty would create awkwardness when, quite often, dishonesty was the thing creating it.

There is something deeply reassuring about discovering that healthy communication can be incredibly boring.

I’d been treating boundaries like rejection:

I think this was one of the bigger things I had to unlearn.

If someone said, “I don’t want that,” a small part of me heard, “I don’t want you.”

And when I wanted to say no to something myself, I worried the other person would hear the same thing.

But those are completely different sentences.

You can really like someone and still not want to do everything they want to do.

You can be attracted to somebody and want to slow down.

You can be having a brilliant time and still change your mind.

You can also hear somebody else set a boundary without treating it as a personal injury.

That part matters.

Communication isn’t just about getting brave enough to tell somebody my limits. It’s about being somebody who can hear theirs without sulking, bargaining or making them manage my feelings.

Consent is hot. I don’t make the rules.

And casual doesn’t mean careless.

If anything, the more I’ve dated, the more attractive I find someone who can say what they mean kindly.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Not yet.”

“I’d rather do this.”

“Can we slow down?”

Beautiful sentences, all of them.

Things I actually say now:

I used to think good communication meant having some perfectly worded, mature conversation where everybody maintained intense eye contact and behaved like they were appearing in an educational video.

Thankfully, no.

Most of it is much simpler.

When I want to slow things down, I say:

“I’m into this, I just want to take it a bit slower.”

If I’m interested but unsure:

“I’m curious, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet.”

If something simply isn’t for me:

“That’s not really my thing.”

I have learned that a three-page supporting statement is not required.

If plans are starting to move faster than I want:

“I’d rather just do the drink and see how we feel.”

And if I change my mind:

“I know I said yes earlier, but I’m not feeling it now.”

That one took some practice.

I used to think changing your mind was rude.

It isn’t.

Agreeing to something earlier does not mean you’ve signed a contract.

I don’t need the perfect label or the perfect answer:

A few months ago, I wrote about how I’d stopped treating the question of whether I was bi, gay or queer like a final exam.

I wanted certainty.

I wanted the correct word.

I wanted to know what I would call myself forever so I could finally relax.

Eventually I realised I didn’t actually need that.

I needed enough honesty to say what felt true at the time.

I’m trying to apply the same logic to dating.

I don’t need to know what I’ll want six months from now.

I don’t need to know whether the person opposite me is going to become a boyfriend, a friend, someone I see casually, or a man whose surname I forget by Christmas.

I just need to know what I want now.

And if that changes?

I can say that too.

Labels are tools, not tests.

Apparently preferences are allowed to work the same way.

The least dramatic text of my life:

Nothing particularly cinematic happened after I sent that message.

We still went for the drink.

I stopped analysing every notification.

I had a nice evening.

The important part wasn’t whether he liked me more because I’d been honest.

It was that I liked myself more for being honest.

That distinction is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting in my life at the moment.

I used to think confidence meant knowing exactly what I wanted.

Now I think it might be trusting myself enough to say what I know so far.

Sometimes that’s yes.

Sometimes it’s no.

Sometimes it’s “I really fancy you, but can we slow down?”

And occasionally it’s just choosing the pub instead of saying “I don’t mind” for the seven-thousandth time.

Anyway. Growth.

If you’re figuring this out too, you don’t need the perfect script.

You just need words that are true.

You’re allowed to take your time.