This is a guy who wants flexibility and is playing both sides to his benefit.

He plants the seed in your mind that he is open to a committed relationship, while giving himself a get-out-of-jail-free card, so that he never has to take full responsibility in the event it doesn’t work out.

This is a slippery slope for a girl who is intent on a committed relationship.

It’s too convenient for the guy, and the girl is sucked into an abyss.

As she works towards a committed relationship, she is investing her precious time and emotions.

The longer it takes, the greater her emotional investment.

Meanwhile, the guy is getting the benefits of a boyfriend, thanks to his supposed “openness” to a committed relationship.

The hapless girl keeps working on it, believing that this has to end in a committed relationship, given how hard she is exerting herself.

Too bad.

He has a get-out-of-jail-free card and the moment she asks him about whether they are in a committed relationship, he baulks, giving her a vague response.

He hopes to keep her at it, so he makes it seem like he is getting there and she needs to be patient.

Though disappointed, she takes him at his word, and keeps up the work to get to a committed relationship.

She gives him the benefits of a boyfriend, whether it be with regular sex, emotional support, affection, someone to talk to, going to events with him, etc.

Erroneously, she believes that in doing this, she is showing him how amazing of a girlfriend she would be.

The error with that line of thinking is that he was never ready nor intent on having a committed relationship with her.

He was biding his time, wanting the benefits that come with being a boyfriend, without the responsibility.

When a guy tells you that he doesn’t think he is ready for a committed relationship but is open to it, it isn’t that difficult to tell whether he is genuinely open to it or not.

Instead of giving him every benefit that comes with being your boyfriend, handle him as you do a new friend that you are getting to know better over time.

That erases intimacy of any kind.

You are working on a friendship first.

This keeps you from establishing a premature emotional investment in a guy who isn’t ready to have a committed relationship.

Stop giving him the benefits a boyfriend receives from a girlfriend.

As you downgrade the relationship to one of friendship, go out on romantic dates with other guys.

This is how you keep yourself from falling into the trap of waiting on this one guy to come around to wanting a committed relationship.

Nothing clears up a guy’s perspective more than competition from other guys and a denial of romantic and intimate privileges he once had in a relationship.

A nonchalant and uncaring reaction from him is an indication that he was never open to a committed relationship.

A guy who is open to a committed relationship doesn’t take too kindly to the idea that you are dating other guys nor does he like his new reality of no longer having access to his boyfriend privileges.

This is where he quits on you and leaves, which is fine.

This saves you from wasting any further time and energy on him.

Or, he vies to regain your favor through courting you properly, with him doing the lion’s share of the work.

You aren’t making it easy on him either.

After all, you have got other guys to see on dates.

He knows that he has to put the work in just to get you to go out on a single date with him.

Having taken you for granted before, that isn’t feasible anymore.

Should he do that, he loses you to one of those other guys forever and his boyfriend privileges never return.

As long as you don’t elevate him from friend to lover too prematurely, he is blazing a trail to a committed relationship with you and there is no ambiguity about it.