How Long Does the Talking Stage Last?
The question arrives at the counter in the same words every time: how long does the talking stage last. The Bureau's position is two (2) to eight (8) weeks, measured from the first sustained contact rather than the first message. Past that point the matter is no longer a stage, and the file is referred for classification.
How long does the talking stage last?
Two (2) to eight (8) weeks. That is the range the Bureau publishes, and the working figure inside it is six (6) weeks.
The term does not begin at the first message. It begins at the first sustained contact: the point at which the parties are speaking most days and at least one evening a week has been given over to the matter. Everything before that is preliminary and does not count towards the clock. Inside eight (8) weeks, a talking stage is doing what a talking stage is for. Two people are establishing whether there is enough here to name. Nothing is owed, nothing is settled, and either party may withdraw without notice, which is not an injustice, however it feels at the hour it happens.
The range is wide because three conditions move it. Distance moves it, and parties in two suburbs resolve faster than parties in two cities. Frequency moves it, and how often the parties actually meet in person is the largest single variable on the file. And prior matters move it: a party still holding an open file from a previous arrangement will take the long end of the range, or exceed it.
When does the talking stage become a situationship?
At eight (8) weeks, or at the point where the arrangement acquires a routine without acquiring an agreement, whichever arrives first.
The distinction the Bureau draws is not duration but direction. A talking stage is provisional and expects to resolve. Both parties understand it as temporary, and both, in their own way, are deciding. A situationship has stopped deciding. It has the shape of a relationship, the standing Tuesday, the shorthand, the toothbrush, and none of the agreement. The absence of a decision has become the decision. Three markers apply, and any two of them are sufficient for referral. The arrangement has a routine you could describe to a stranger. The matter has been raised at least once and left where it fell. You could not say with confidence how the other party would describe you to their friends.
Where two apply past the eight (8) week mark, the matter is no longer a stage and is properly a matter for classification. A further limit sits beyond that one: an arrangement still undefined after two (2) seasons, approximately six (6) months, attracts offence code RG-02. The code carries no penalty. It is recorded, and the record is generally sufficient.
What makes a talking stage run past eight weeks?
How often the parties meet in person. That is the lever, and it is very nearly the only one.
Weekly in-person contact resolves a talking stage in four (4) to six (6) weeks, because there is not a great deal of ambiguity left after six evenings. Fortnightly contact stretches the same arrangement to eight (8) weeks or beyond, because the interval is long enough that each meeting spends its first hour re-establishing what the last meeting established. Contact that is exclusively textual does not resolve at any duration. The Registrar's taxonomy holds a heading for it, Textually Active, Physically Theoretical, and receives a steady volume.
The second indicator is the count of unresolved attempts. Where the question of what this is has been raised twice and deflected twice, a third raising rarely returns a different result, and the Bureau does not recommend a fourth. The third indicator is direction of travel. An arrangement that is working looks like plans made further ahead each week. An arrangement that has stopped working looks identical to the one recorded three (3) weeks earlier. Volume of correspondence is not progress. The Bureau has processed arrangements of exceptional correspondence that were going nowhere whatsoever.
What should you do when the talking stage has run past its term?
Ask once, plainly, and not in writing if it can be avoided. The Bureau's preferred form is a statement rather than an audit. Say what you would like this to be, and then stop speaking. A question inviting the other party to define the arrangement can be answered vaguely, and usually is. A stated position cannot be. It can only be met or not met.
Set a date for yourself and do not announce it. Thirty (30) days is the standard interval. If the position has not been met by then, it has been answered. A party who cannot say what they want after ten (10) weeks of daily contact is not withholding an answer. They have given one, in the only form available to them. None of which makes week nine a failure. Talking stages convert into relationships routinely, and a slow one is not a finding against you; some people are considerably slower with a decision than they are with a telephone. What the Bureau asks is that an arrangement not be allowed to run indefinitely without a name, because the party who comes off worst in an unnamed arrangement is reliably the one who wanted it named.
The Bureau is a fiction and holds no jurisdiction over anybody's telephone. The eight (8) week figure is offered in earnest regardless.
Common questions
How long is too long for the talking stage?
- Past eight (8) weeks. The normal range is two (2) to eight (8) weeks, with six (6) weeks as the working figure. Beyond eight weeks, an arrangement that has never been defined is generally not a talking stage running late; it is a situationship, and it should be assessed as one. Duration alone is not the whole test, since direction matters more, but eight weeks is the point at which the question is worth asking out loud.
Is a three month talking stage normal?
- It is common, and it is no longer a talking stage. At three (3) months an arrangement has had ample opportunity to be named and has not been. The Bureau treats that as a situationship: the routine of a relationship without the agreement. This is not a catastrophe and it can still convert, but it will convert because somebody said something, not because further time passed.
What is the difference between the talking stage and a situationship?
- Duration and direction. The talking stage is early, provisional and expected to resolve, usually within two (2) to eight (8) weeks, and both parties understand it as temporary. A situationship has passed that point: it has the shape and routine of a relationship, none of the agreement, and it is no longer moving toward a decision. The talking stage is still deciding. The situationship has stopped.
How do you end the talking stage?
- State your position rather than requesting theirs, and do it in person or by voice where possible. Say what you would like this to be, then stop. If you would prefer to end it instead, one clear message is sufficient, and no explanation is owed beyond the fact of the decision. A talking stage carries no obligations and requires no formal exit. Fading is permitted by custom, and is noted.
Can the talking stage turn into a relationship?
- Regularly. Most relationships begin as a talking stage that resolved, usually inside eight (8) weeks. What converts it is not additional time but a stated intention from one party that the other meets. An arrangement drifting past two (2) months without that statement can still convert, though the odds improve markedly when somebody names it rather than waiting for the situation to name itself.
Should you text every day during the talking stage?
- Daily contact is normal in a talking stage and is not, by itself, a signal of anything. The Bureau weights plans above messages: an arrangement with daily texting and no scheduled in-person meeting is textually active and physically theoretical, and it resolves nowhere. If the correspondence is heavy and the diary is empty, the diary is the more accurate document.