Forget About BDE. Focus on BDB: Between-Date Behavior

Big dick energy only gets him so far. Find a fella who excels at connection in the in-between days. Ask me how I know.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

I knew I was halfway in love with Mason* when he washed my sugar bowl.

It was our first post-sleepover morning. Hair tousled, a bit bleary from the awkward delight of a first sleepover, we spilled down the stairs into my kitchen.

I’m a tea drinker, so the coffee beans were probably stale. I handed him oat milk — “sorry, no half-and-half” —  and my little white sugar bowl with the cat on it. It hadn’t been used in months, a fact made painfully clear when he opened it to find crusty, fossilized sugar clinging to the sides.

I blushed and rummaged for a new bag of sugar. He didn’t tease me. We sat on the patio with our mugs, breathing in the dawning summer day. His crinkly blue eyes grinned at me, his hand on mine, and for a moment, everything felt at peace, a strange sense of familiarity for someone so new.

After he left, I noticed the sugar bowl. Clean. Rinsed. Upside down on a dish towel to dry.

I looked at the little black cat on the bowl and teared up. I haven’t had an adult share household chores with me in many years.

He didn’t have to do that. It wasn’t performative or romantic. It was a small, quiet act of care.

And I thought, I could love this man — if he can show up for me in the spaces between.

A very big if.

But I’m an optimist. I refilled the bowl and placed it back on the ledge above the kettle — so it would be ready for his return. Whenever that might be.

I always root for sweetness.

---

And my early days with Mason were filled with it.

Our instant chemistry bloomed into exclusivity almost immediately. Ours was a new romance teeming with kindness and steamy with an innate desire I hadn’t felt in years. His hands on me both burned and soothed, desire and comfort co-mingled as he buried his head in my neck.

“This is good,” he muttered, nodding off behind me, his arm wrapped around me as he spooned my back, his lips muttering sleepily in my ear.

I sighed and smiled into the darkness of his room, my heart aglow as I slipped toward bleary unconsciousness.

It was so good.

So good that my heart ached for what I knew the morning would bring.

Our time was limited. We both have demanding jobs, two teen/tween-aged kids, and misaligned partnering schedules.

The nights we did spend together felt cut out of time itself.

But we didn’t spend many nights together, and even when we did, he often needed to bolt off to his job site or his children.

I knew this from the onset. Over brunch on our second date, he’d led the conversation. “Want to share big truths to each other?” he asked. I’m not one to linger on the emotional periphery, so I was delighted. “Sure,” I answered eagerly.

“The mother of my kids has terminal cancer. I will be a single father soon,” he said.

My heart skipped a beat, but I don’t think I missed one. “Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re not going to run?” he asked.

I could feel my heart settling into the sweetness of his face and knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m a sucker for vulnerability. Surely he was telling me because he really liked me.

I retold the story to my bestie Sunny Hong later that day. “Or maybe he’s warning you he’s not going to be emotionally available,” she said dryly.

He took me out to my favorite French restaurant for one of our next dates. Too nervous to eat much, my Old Fashioned only heightened the sparks and tension, as well as my desire to assure this man that I wasn’t scared off by his circumstances.

I leaned in.

“I know what this could mean,” I blurted, the bourbon fueling my heart to tumble out of my mouth. “Like if this were to really happen, you and me, then one day I’ll be the partner of a single dad with two bereaved children. I get it. And I’m okay with it.”

I kissed him, probably too insistently in a crowded restaurant but I didn’t care; I had a point to make.

“I’m going to be with them a lot,” he told me. “She’s getting sicker.”

I nodded. “I’m never going to tell you not to be there for your kids.”

He looked humbled and grateful. “You really are a remarkable communicator,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “And I’m not going to run.”

I meant it.

Then he kissed me again and my world whirled.

I was entranced. He exuded a warm charisma, a confidence in our connection, and whoa — chemistry galore. In spite of his humility about his family’s circumstances, he had what the kids call BDE: big-dick energy.

---

“Big-dick energy” isn’t referring to his member — though as a reliable narrator I must interject here with an oh my god, yes here too — but rather about his swagger. BDE speaks to a man’s attitude, presence, that hard-to-explain-but-impossible-to-ignore spark a man rocks when he knows he’s got the goods to deliver.

And he had it. Or we had it.

Either way, I was aflame, every part of me flipped on for this man.

I’d been seeking that spark for many years, and now that I’d found it, I rushed in, like a fool.

I took him home. I let that man into my heart, and everywhere else, really. He left early in the morning, and texted me when he got home. “Thank you for a wonderful night. I hated to have to leave so soon,” he wrote.

“I can still smell you next to me,” I replied, beaming.

I meant it.

Then that message sat on read all day, unanswered.

I told myself he was busy, that he was with his kids. But the quiet felt cavernous.

I got my first lesson in how I’d have to brace myself for the silence that followed the magic.

---

Dates are amazing. It’s easy to shine when the object of your affection is right there in the room.

Our dates were amazing — dinner and drinks, a late swim, even a porn film festival (yes, for real). Our nights in were even better. We cooked, played with my dog, talked about everything. And the chemistry — not just the sex, though that too — was electric and peaceful all at once. Being with him felt like exhaling. I wanted to curl up against his back and stay there, forever.

But what about when he wasn’t there?

That’s the question midlife dating keeps asking us, when our lives are full of work, kids, aging parents, the usual obligations.

How does someone show up — when they can’t actually show up?

---

Texting is weird.

It’s a strangely intimate form of communication: sent directly from your brain through your fingertips, disembodied but immediate as it travels instantly into the mind of its recipient. I’ve fallen in love through my thumbs. I’ve burned for men through their written words, sight unseen. The brain is erogenous and sometimes the best way to touch it is virtually, guards down, with time and space to storytell.

But for GenX, texting can create a communication chasm in dating. In my experience, some men, like me, are texting natives. We send a consistent stream of words —  some functional, some observational, some funny, some sexy and sweet — throughout our days. Others are more “old school” and see text as more utilitarian. They’d rather talk on the phone, or meet in person, as texting doesn’t feel natural.

That’s fine when there’s time for phone calls — but texting builds habits and trust when there isn’t.

It’s not only what’s said but also how frequently and with what predictability. Texting establishes presence and care at times when we can’t be there in person.

As a parent who shares custody of my kids, I have a pattern to my life and am only free three nights per week. So my iPhone has long been a portal to gain romantic trust and intimacy due to my lack of literal availability.

We’re not carefree 20-somethings; we have jobs and kids and lives and schedules and burdens.

And Mason had all that and more.

He spent many nights at his ex’s home, crashed on the sofa living out of a duffel bag, brushing his teeth with a toothbrush he kept in his car. Their parenting plan, abandoned, he responded to the needs and whims of his family, without a schedule or ability to make plans.

And he wasn’t a good texter.

At least, not with me.

---

We’d see each other on Thursday nights, almost always, usually.

And on Saturday nights, sometimes, except when we didn’t.

And even when he stayed, he always had to bolt early. I’d see his demeanor shift, the comfortable ease of our night together morphing as the stress of his reality hardened his features and shortened his stays. “I’m so sorry, I need to go,” he’d lament, his hug sincere but his bandwidth already out the door, preoccupied with his outsized burdens.

“I’ll never keep you from your family,” I replied.

And I meant it.

Caring for his daughters and even his ex-wife enough to show up like that? Those were green flags. As much as I disliked how limited our time was together, his willingness to show up and do the hard work to ensure his kids felt secure and his ex-wife, supported? That spoke volumes to me about his character.

But what about the way I needed him to show up for me?

I kissed him goodbye at the door. “Bye, babe,” I called. “Have your people contact my people later,” I joked, gesturing a phone to ear with my hand and trying to sound nonchalant.

But I wasn’t. I already had just cause to be most definitely “chalant” about him checking in.

It wasn’t that Mason blew me off for days when we weren’t together. I’d hear from him — but sometimes, not for over a day.

But in Mason’s circumstances, texting was huge for me, as I thrive on consistent, ongoing communication from a suitor. My nervous system relies on it. Without it, I assume disinterest or dishonesty.

And I wasn’t shy about communicating this. Mason and I talked about this issue. I explained my need to hear from him. In return, he asked about my attachment style. Was I just an anxious attachment style?

I turned, as I typically do, to my BFF Lawrence Winnerman. “I feel so destabilized,” I told him. “I’m like Pavlov’s girlfriend — waiting for the ping, always hungry for more. Is this my anxious attachment? Is it on me to manage?”

Lawrence sighed. “I mean, I think at this point all straight women have anxious attachment styles in dating because straight men are such assholes.”

“I’m not going to argue with that.”

“Dana, you stayed in your last relationship for years too long because it was so stabilizing. You crave partnership and stability. You just want a spark alongside a super stable presence. You’re a total stable attachment style.”

Bells rang in my cortisol-flooded brain. “You’re so right. I don’t have an anxious attachment style. I’m just anxious because he’s not listening to me when I tell him what I need.”

“Ding ding ding,” he replied, a bit exasperated. We’d been having this same conversation for months.

Mason tried — he really did. He’d call, or text, and sometimes even popped by to meet me for a quick 30 minutes during the first half of the week so we could reconnect. He’d met my friends. He spoke of me meeting his.

But then he’d slip up and go dark again.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Elation. Heartache. Anger.

My heart vacillated between exuberant joy and low-key panic. Was I overreacting? It was just texts. Why was I getting so bent over a text? My phone would vibrate and I’d feel my heart quicken and then crash when the text wasn’t from him.

My nervous system was a mess.

I accepted his limited time and bandwidth.

I accepted the long grieving road he and his daughters had ahead of them.

I could not accept being ignored. Not so early, and not when my expectation for his attention was so small.

My head, heart, and guts were caught in a pugilistic cycle, each trying to regulate the joy and lust and hope alongside the despair.

The transition from warmth to near silence had become a weekly whiplash.

Our Thursday night dates would leave me aglow, gushing with desire, giddy with expectations, and unsure of the weekend ahead. Would he make time for me, or not?

I was in a tailspin, exploring my internal question: Was he disinterested, or just drowning in his own drama?

And in the end, does it matter? My nervous system didn’t know the difference.

---

One night when I wasn’t receiving a text, I was doomscrolling social media and found a Reel from one of my favorite content creators, Coach Anwar. He’s a gay Black man who’s a dating coach for Black and brown women. You know I’m neither (Black nor brown), but his advice is often spot-on, universal, and hilarious.

On this night, it was also exactly what I needed to hear.

He referred to a concept I’d never heard, as I believe he coined it: Between-Date Behavior.

He started the Reel with a scene from Sex and the City, featuring Carrie and Big. I love the shit out of that show, and I adore Anwar, so he had my attention.

Then he launched into how Carrie and Big were the consummate example of poor between-date energy. Carrie’s judgment was clouded by their amazing dates, but her nervous system flew off the charts when he went dark in between them.

“I don’t care what happens on the date,” Anwar said. “I want you to prioritize the BDB — what happens between the dates — because that’s what actually tells you if this guy’s going to be a great boyfriend or not.”

“When you’re in a relationship with a man, ninety percent of the time you won’t be in his physical presence, so you have to feel connected to him when you’re apart. That’s why the between-date behavior is so important.”

I felt all the stress hormones sparking through my system finally sigh as he said this — equal parts ache and relief.

I glanced at the Mylanta bottle on my nightstand. I’d taken to middle-of-the-night doses when I awoke with an acidic stomach ache. I hadn’t had gut troubles like this since grad school.

I loved our date nights, and our chemistry and connection. I could see the potential for us to grow into so much more.

I adored this man. But it wasn’t enough.

Sure, I wanted him to text me more. But it was never just about the texts. I wanted to know more of his life, his heart, his in-between days. And he didn’t have them to offer — not now, and not to me.

I felt the contrast between the rush of our fleeting connections and the steadiness I crave now, and I realized: I can’t do this anymore.

So I told him so. Over text.

And he left me on read.

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It’s been over a decade since I shared life’s minutiae with a partner.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever will again. Or if I still can.

I hope I can.

I want passion, someone who makes my heart sing. But it has to come paired with someone who steadies my nerves and never lets me doubt that he’s all in, too.

For me, love must start from heat. But love really happens in the in-between moments: texts, morning coffees, dish towels, and yes, filled sugar bowls.

Mine is still sitting on its little ledge, unused — waiting.

I’m hoping a future love awaits me, and takes his coffee like his relationships: strong and sweet.

*Name changed for privacy

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Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

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