Label Maker!

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Tobin Low** (0:42)
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Tobin Low sitting in for Ira Glass.
The story of Sara and Ethan's relationship starts with heartbreak. She had just gotten out of a 12 year relationship. He was separated after 13 years of marriage. Neither of them were particularly interested in jumping into something new too fast.
But their mutual friends thought, hey, they have that in common. They're both in their 40s, both a little wobbly from their last relationships. They should date. Here's Ethan.

**Ethan** (1:12)
I think they saw us both as like people who didn't know what they were doing and thought, maybe these two can figure it out together.

**Tobin Low** (1:20)
That's both like sweet and maybe a little insulting.

**Ethan** (1:24)
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to take it as sweet.

**Tobin Low** (1:26)
They hit it off, kept seeing each other, doing datey stuff, dinners, museums, walks in the park, and as weeks and then months went by, they advanced to the stage of hanging out with no particular plans. At one point, a big thing happened. A friend of Sara's died. Ethan knew how hard she was taking it, so he asked her, you want to go to a ballgame? Take your mind off things? And it felt nice to let him take care of her in that way. It's now been 10 months. So you're in contact pretty much every day. You see each other regularly. You're not seeing anybody else.
Is he your boyfriend then?
Obviously, this is Sara. What do you refer to him as?

**Sara** (2:15)
I guess I use his name.

**Tobin Low** (2:19)
Okay.

**Sara** (2:21)
And I will often say he's the person I'm sort of seeing.

**Tobin Low** (2:29)
The sort of feels crucial there.

**Sara** (2:31)
Or kind of.
Or I guess I'm. There's always a bit of a qualifier.

**Ethan** (2:38)
Gosh. I think both of us have sort of avoid using the boyfriend-girlfriend terms.

**Tobin Low** (2:45)
In fact, a couple of weeks ago, they had a conversation about whether it was time to have the What Are We conversation. And they decided to put it off. Ethan and Sara are your classic example of, let's not put a label on it.
You know couples like this. And I understand that people do this. But I'm always a little like, why are you doing this dance? Like if it looks like a boyfriend duck and it quacks like a boyfriend duck, it's just a boyfriend duck, right?

**Sara** (3:12)
Some of my friends will refer to him as my boyfriend, but.

**Tobin Low** (3:18)
You're making a face.

**Sara** (3:20)
I'm not very comfortable with it.

**Tobin Low** (3:23)
Why do you think that is? What does it bring up for you? What is the feeling?

**Sara** (3:28)
It feels like if we put a label on it, gosh, we're going into the tunnel again. Like it feels like it could last a long time, and that's a little scary.
And if I'm someone's girlfriend, I want to be prioritized in a certain way, and I'm going to be reciprocal in that, is not something that I'm comfortable with right now.

**Tobin Low** (3:53)
There are other considerations they're thinking about, like Ethan's daughter, who is 10 and still doesn't really know about Sara. He's thought a lot about what putting a label on this thing with Sara would trigger.

**Ethan** (4:05)
If dad had a girlfriend, I think that that would feel very significant to her. Yeah, I think that that would feel like a big deal to a 10-year-old.

**Tobin Low** (4:16)
When I was hearing this described to me at first, I was like, to be honest, I was like, this sounds very like teenager-y, immature. We don't want to call it anything. Now the more that I've talked to you, it's like, oh, it's a very mature and being honest with yourself about what you want and what comes with putting a label on it.

**Sara** (4:45)
Oh yeah, absolutely. Because there's expectations and having no expectations is so much nicer right now.