Ah, the dreaded label discussion. If only it was as easy as slapping a label on your undies for a summer at camp.

Is “where do we stand?” really the most dreaded question out there for a girl to utter to a boy, as every movie and every book we’ve ever read tells us never to do? Well, going by a very unscientific study among my 20-something girlfriends, it may remain a much debated territory within the dating landscape.

What perfect timing to explore this question, with a certain significant day in February just behind us, as well as the release of the must-see dating flick He’s Just Not That Into You.

One of my girls said the movie actually inspired her to send a ‘where do we stand?’ email after she saw it! But note, as of post time for this piece, she hadn’t heard back…

Half of those ‘surveyed’ felt that us girls shouldn’t wait for the guy to bring it up, or else we’ll never know where we stand. I tend to fall on this side of the debate; however given I have a few discussions of this nature under my belt and remain single, maybe I should pay more attention to the other half of my sage girlfriends. These girls adamantly stated that you’ll just ‘know’ when you’re at the next level, and there is no need to bring it up. The words ‘needy’ and ‘insecure’ were associated with the latter behaviour by these girls. Yikes. One unanimous response? No one has ever dated a guy who brought up the big ‘L’ himself…the Label.

Essentially that leaves us with two options. 1) If you’re impatient and need to know, ask…but some say, at your own risk (or just change your facebook status to ‘in a relationship with X’….I JOKE! This is NOT a good idea ladies), or 2) you can wait until it’s so obvious there is no point in even asking anymore. For example, when my friend and her guy took a romantic getaway to Paris together, she figured they were probably exclusive. This required patience and confidence on her part, but now the two are living in Paris happily-ever-after-a-lack-of-Label discussion.

Responses from the opposite sex for the purpose of this article were not considered valid due to the fact that upon reading the subject heading ‘When to have the Label discussion’ male respondents suffered from an involuntary twitch that deleted the email immediately.

by Megan Matthews