Latitude

LATITUDE, n.

“We’re not, like, seeing other people, right?” I asked. We were barely over the one-month mark, I believe.
You nodded.
“Excellent,” I said.
“But I have to tell you something,” you added - and my heart sank.
“What?”
“At first, I was seeing someone else. Only for the first week or two. Then I told him it wasn’t going to work.”
“Because of me?”
“Partly. And partly because it wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

I was glad I hadn’t known I was in contest; I don’t know if I could have handled that. But still, it was strange, to realize my version of those weeks was so far from yours.

What a strange phase - not seeing other people. As if it’s been constructed to be a lie. We see other people all the time. The question is what we do about it.

— David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary