Jillian and Aiden met through a local dive shop when he sidled up next to her, making a comment about her wetsuit choice that would have seriously skeeved out any other girl. But, luckily for Aiden, Jillian was the type of girl who could give as good as she gets, and replied with an equally snarky comment without hesitation. A shared smile turned into a conversation, which turned into exchanged numbers, which turned into a dinner invitation. Before they knew it, Aiden introduced Jillian to his entire family, and it became the unspoken norm that they spend every single weekend together. The sight of a pink toothbrush next to his blue one in his bathroom brought a smile to her face every time she caught a glimpse of it. 

A couple months passed by with the normal ups and downs of a relationship and Aiden and Jillian seemed to make each other happy. But, there was one crucial problem that neither wanted to address. 

They had never had “the talk.”

You know, the one where someone asks, “So, what are we?” and the situation becomes inevitably awkward until it gets exponentially better or worse. But Jillian considered herself a progressive, drama-free girl, and she was content continuing whatever they were doing, label or no. That’s not to say that she didn’t want the label. But things were fine as they were. 

Imagine her surprise when she asked Aiden if she could leave a bottle of conditioner at his place and his reaction was disproportionately outraged. From that simple request, the conversation devolved into a massive argument in which Jillian revealed that she would be open to making their relationship official and Aiden staunchly refused. Even when she assured him that nothing would have to change besides semantics. He did, however, want the two of them to continue seeing each other casually. 

At this point, Jillian realized that no matter how progressive she considered herself, the fact that Aiden was so reluctant to be her boyfriend triggered a red flag. This situation wasn’t enough anymore, as it was missing a single, crucial word. If Jillian couldn’t be his girlfriend, she needed to move on.