Casual vs. Serious

[Malaga]

I suppose casual relationships are more of the in-the-moment kind of thing, the person you're with may not be husband/wife material or anything, but it's about the perks you get from a day to day fun with them. It's hard to talk about daily perks in a LDR when most of us suffer when apart, and live for some future moment - next visit, closing the distance etc. It's hard to get the same kind of gratification on a day-to-day basis that would make a casual LDR worth it, like the casual CDR would be worth it.

I've had casual relationships when I was younger and my frame of mind was different. There were always monogamy and feelings involved, but when I was 16 or 18, I didn't spend any time thinking about living together, marriage or kids. The furthest we did our planning was where to go for the next summer holidays. Now that my priorities have shifted, I couldn't find that kind of relationship fulfilling enough - definitely not a LDR.

[kiara_silver]

For me I grew up with certain beliefs. My parents always told me that im to save myself for marriage, that when you find that one special person, you take your time to get to know, and then become life partners. That love is serious, and that i need to be careful not to take it lightly and be out there and get hurt and make less of myself by giving to many pieces of my heart away. That being said I always had the thought of "boy and girl meet, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl get married, have family grow old together" ect ect.
So coming into my relationship with my SO, i (and my family lol) had asked him if he wants to get married, if he wants children if he wants all the long term. I wasn't saying I want to get married now or be engaged in the next year, but that if we get serious, that he is in it for the long haul. I don't think you have to go into a relationship with marriage on your mind for it to be serious. I just think some things need to be made clear. Are you with someone who's just going with the flow or having fun, or someone who is willing to put up with the struggles, your flaws, fights, distance. Someone who is giving 100% I couldn't feel good about being in a relationship with a man who said he doesn't know if he wants to start a life together with me, that he can't say just yet, I would like him to have the thought in his head that im the one.
Course im not saying you have to know this straight away, it takes time to talk and get to know a person and fall for them, but I just feel at a certain point some things have to be made clear. That old question of where are we going? Just want to know that the relationship is always moving forward.

[floridaellen]

I don't see serious v.s casual in terms of marriage or no marriage. For me, a serious relationship means that you don't decide your future by yourself, you are making choices together. For some people, this means marriage, for some people it doesn't. My idea of casual relationship is that you aren't really devoted to the person or people you are dating. You could be dating other people, but you really aren't considering the other person in BIG choices about your future. It has nothing to do with marriage.

This is exactly how I feel. That is why I am inclined to believe that Eclaire's last relationship was serious as well, even though marriage was not a goal.

[Haley53]

I'm finding all of these opinions very, very interesting! And I certainly appreciate everyone taking the time to share them with me.

With everyone's further explanations, it seems more and more like there's more of a mix than I originally thought (which shouldn't surprise me, really) and it's actually looking like a lot of it is boiling down to different definitions of what constitutes a casual relationship more than it does to the definitions of a serious one, which is what I'd originally assumed. Seems whereas some people find a relationship with no intention/possibility of marriage "casual," some people define a casual relationship the way that I would - dating for fun, to have fun, without any real form of commitment to one another or the relationship, something with no strings attached, in ways - and this therefore alters what they mean when they use the terms "serious" and "casual." Though I'm not responding to everyone individually, I do want to say, again, that I really do appreciate everyone's input!