Today’s the day the country is celebrating the first 100 days of our new President. From my lofty perch, I think he’s doing an astonishingly good job. But be that as it may, 100 days is also the number of days it takes to assess a new boyfriend. Both assessments are incredibly important, as each they require wisdom and generosity.
My beloved mother, Goddess that she also was, used to say that the clues are all there from the beginning about a god or a man, but it takes one hundred days to really see the writing on the wall.
When you meet each other, a man may be mourning the loss of an old girlfriend. You may be ready to get married, to the right guy. He may want to take it slow; you may want to jump in. Or, it could be the reverse. A man may be deeply involved in jogging, working and playing poker with his buddies when you meet. You may be deeply involved in the same. Who knows? And by the time the two of you get beyond the knowledge that you hit it off, it could be a month. Then another month before it becomes clear whether what you see is what you get (a man who is completely busy all the time) or if he was completely busy all the time because he didn’t have you in his life. Has he made room for you? Vice versa?
It takes 100 days not to change what you see, but to understand that what you see is what you get. And whether what you’re getting is what you want. In three months Plus, you can see how you fit into a man’s emotional space. You can feel whether it’s a good fit. You can tell how he fits into your internal life. The readiness is all, of course-but it takes time to see if the readiness is right ….neither too soon, nor too far off in the distance, for both of you.
A man who wants what you want shows it by the end of the first trimester. He will make you feel important to him. He may talk about being afraid of commitment, and he may be shy and still wounded by an old relationship. But within all this his behavior will become clear. Does he call when he says he will? Does he check in, or tend to disappear? Does he change his mind, cancel dates, arrive late-or not at all? Has he become more respecttful, involved, responsive-or less? All this, like a season, becomes a clear pattern over the first 100 days.
And if you feel needy, clingy, deficient and somehow not yourself for an entire summer or fall or winter that you date him, believe me, he has failed 100-day test of love. (Similarly, if that’s how HE feels, you have failed the 100-day test in terms of loving him back.)By then it’s safe to say it’s time to make it or break it. That is, you can’t make him take you on, but you can cut your losses., get out, face the new season without someone who makes you feel bad or who you wish were dramatically different. By now you know he won’t be.
The questions to ask are: How do I feel so far? Am I having fun? Is this the way I want to live? Trust your answers. When you look back you’ll see that most of the answers were there from the beginning. But it took 100 days to really trust the writing on the Wall.
