What It’s Really Like Keeping A Relationship A Secret
Bigstockphoto.com/The warmth of your hands. Delighted cheerful happy African American couple sitting in the cafe and holding hands while expressing tenderness and looking at each other
You may be thinking, “I would never keep my relationship a secret! I’m proud of everything I do and everyone I choose to date!” but there are a few scenarios you may not have thought about. For example, what if you’re dating your best friends long-time ex (like from high school) and you know that under normal circumstances she wouldn’t care, but circumstances aren’t normal right now because she is going through a divorce and is incredibly fragile? Then there are more obvious ones, like dating someone of a religion your parents wouldn’t approve of or dating your superior at work. Or privately seeing if things could work out with your ex, but not wanting to get everybody’s hopes up until you’re certain. See; it can happen. Now here are the realities of having to keep your relationship a secret.
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Your ego will interfere
If your mother or friends are hounding you about the fact that you haven’t been on a date in months, it will be very hard not to yell, “I’m seeing somebody, actually!” But you can’t. You just need to withstand the harassment.
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You have to hide it when you fight
You can’t call your friend or your sister to vent or cry when you’re in a fight with your secret boyfriend. This is incredibly painful because you just have to sit with these feelings all on your own.
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You can’t get your friend’s input
You also don’t get the fun experience of grabbing lunch with your girlfriends, swapping relationship stories, and analyzing your fellas.
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You’re left out of couples outings
Your friends, who are all in committed relationships, do a lot of fun things together as couples but don’t invite you because they don’t want you to be a 5th wheel. And you just have to miss out because you can’t very well tell them you have a boyfriend.
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You have to be so careful on social media
You have to go out of your way to keep your boo out of your photos. When you go with him to special events, you have to take photos of yourself, alone, to commemorate these times. (You take some together too, but those go in a private album…for now.)
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You’ll have to go on fake dates
You’ll have to bring someone other than the person you are seeing to plus-one events. Then, you’ll have to make up some story to your friends and family about why that relationship didn’t work out.
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You’ll lead your fake dates on
You can’t tell your fake date that you’re just using them so you can cover up the fact that you’re dating someone else. So, instead, you just have to lead somebody on.
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He has to go on fake dates
You have to see the person you like (or love!) go on dates with other people to cover up your relationship and that is an awful feeling.
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These fake dates spur fights
If one of you does a little too good of a job pretending to actually like their fake date, this spurs a fight. Then you both end up feeling foolish because you did this to yourselves.
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You never know when you can text
You can’t just text sweet nothings any time you want because the other person’s phone may be face-up, on the table, at their family dinner. Likewise, he can’t text you anytime he wants.
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This causes text fights
You know the ones; the “Why haven’t I heard from you all day” and “Are you having second thoughts about this?” If your boo has to spend the entire day helping his dad clean out the garage, he won’t be able to call or text you to check in, and this will cause insecurity.
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You need to clean your apartment thoroughly
If someone comes over, you need to turn your place upside down, making sure your boyfriend didn’t leave so much as a gas station receipt with his name on it on the top of your bathroom trashcan.
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If people try to set you up…
If your friends or family try to set you up, things get weird. You can only come up with excuses and turn down their offers for so long before they become offended, or suspect that something is up.
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There’s never a good time to come clean
Every time you and your partner want to come out to the world about your relationship, something comes up. Maybe good friends of yours break up, or a relative gets sick. There is never a good time to come clean.
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You argue about when to come clean
You get to a point where you think your partner is being too picky about when to come clean—you think his excuses aren’t good enough and begin to wonder if he’s embarrassed by the relationship. Oh, and that paranoia goes both ways.
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