QPR Questions

[stormhunter]

Hi,

 

I am 29 I have identified as ace for years, never really interested in sex. I had crushes here and there but as most seemed one sided I never really dated anyone. A few months ago I started video chatting with a fellow ace. We had a really great time on our weekly video calls, talked most of the night during New Years and hope to meet up after the pandemic situation improves. We have been getting along quite well, but due to personal baggage I did not put a lot of hopes on a new friendship or more. Their profile said they were looking for friends with the option to date if there is a connection. Since we talked for several months now without any talk of dating I figured dating wasn’t on the table. Then to my biggest surprise they asked me out during our call on Valentines. It made me happy and I sad yes. However as I am just processing what being qprs really mean I realized I am really lost on what dating involves, especially now with the pandemic that we are limited to virtual hangouts as work and family obligations allow. (Both of us have rented flats but moved home to parents for more safety at the time being. Neither of us are out and can’t really count on any understanding from family.).

So my question is, what does in your experience change once you go from just friends to partners? I was thinking of asking for more activities such as watching movies, and more time spent together generally but since they do freelance their work hours are a bit more hectic than mine. I sometimes make an effort to join their discord friends for among us playnights but I don’t really care for the game myself. Tried to ask them to join me in League mobile but they said they don’t do well with complicated games.

 

Tldr; I need advice on how relationships work bc I have zero experience 

[AspieAlly613]

I've never dated, but here's my best guess:

 

It's not that the activities themselves change that much.  The key difference is the expectations and responsibilities you may have toward each other.

 

That being said, romance means different things to different people, so you may want to talk about your shared perceptions of how your friendship changed last week.

[stormhunter]

On 2/17/2021 at 1:39 AM, AspieAlly613 said:

I've never dated, but here's my best guess:

 

It's not that the activities themselves change that much.  The key difference is the expectations and responsibilities you may have toward each other.

 

That being said, romance means different things to different people, so you may want to talk about your shared perceptions of how your friendship changed last week.

Thanks for the advice, I think you found the key words here, expectations and responsibilities. I am a bit afraid to talk about these  things.

[nanogretchen4]

One date does not make a serious committed relationship. You don't necessarily need to set up a lot of expectations and responsibilities right now. Right now you are in the stage of figuring out how to make time for each other and whether you can find enough common interests to enjoy spending more time together. You might not be partners yet unless you have both actually said so to each other.

[Armylarkus]

I was friends with my partner for years before we got together. The funny thing is, in some contexts it still feels like we're "just friends" because we don't act any differently than we did at that time. But we definitely have picked up a romantic dynamic in other contexts/situations and that happened gradually over a few months. We didn't really make any conscious effort to do new activities now that we're dating, we just became more romantically connected naturally. You don't have to do anything different activity-wise, it's about exploring the connection you have with them and then maybe your activities will naturally shift based on what makes you guys feel the most connected to each other.