Why You Should Cut Ties With All Your Back-Burner Guys and Never Look Back

I've spent most of my life maintaining a pretty sizable stable of people I liked to text when I didn't have a serious boyfriend or a super-compelling crush, or was just bored/lonely/felt like flirting with someone. At the time, I had no idea those were all "back-burner relationships." Before I heard that term, I just thought of them as dudes I engaged in a mutually apathetic flirtation with whenever it suited us. It wasn't horrible. It wasn't The Best. It just was. 

Looking back, having these kinds of interactions was mostly an outlet for loneliness that allowed me to tell myself, "It's OK that I haven't found anyone great to date. I still have people who are interested in me, giving me romantic attention, and that I can use as a surrogate boyfriends. And who knows! Maybe one day one of them will be my actual boyfriend!" Except I pretty much knew for a fact that they never would be, because if these guys could've been my boyfriends, they already would have been. ​So, after beating myself against the same dumb texting walls for far too long, I recently decided to stop texting those guys. 

While I still don't see anything wrong with having these kinds of back-burner relationships, I was back-burnt out (no regrets on that pun) and seriously needed to stop. Most of my back-burner relationships were guys I dated briefly, guys I'd always wanted to date but it didn't come together for some reason, or guys I wasn't that interested in, but they texted me nonstop anyway and sometimes I'd text back because who cares. ​

My friend, Kate, 24, says she only talks to her back-burner guys when she hasn't dated anyone in a while but isn't actively looking for someone to date. She says she rarely texts them first and responds only when "it's late at night and I feel lonely (or ugly, to be honest). It's like a texting-only booty call.​"

Kate also said she liked getting male attention "without the pressure of having to fulfill any romantic needs on either side," which was definitely one of the biggest perks for me of the back-burner life: getting to flirt and feel wanted without having to worry if they'd call or if they liked me as much as I liked them. But after a while, I realized that if I was going to be flirting with someone, it'd be cool if it would actually one day move beyond my iPhone. 

So I decided to cull my herd. I started with a guy I'll call Sean. Sean and I met online about a year ago and had an 85 percent great first date. We went rollerblading and held hands while I tried to get my balance and he revealed he was secretly really, really good at rollerblading. Later that night, I noticed he made corny jokes and said kind of dumb things, but the rollerblading part was so cute that I let it slide. And then let it slide again when all he did on our second date was complain about his exes being crazy, while also admitting he kind of liked women who treated him poorly and were unreliable. Add in a handful of other dates like that before him becoming flaky and weird and my saying, "Nope, I'm out," and that was that. Still, every few months, he would text me something like, "I'm in the most beautiful city. I wish you were here," or, "I'm thinking about you. I hope your day is wonderful," and I'd roll my eyes and ignore them. But as with all back-burner guys, when I was feeling sad or lonely or similarly less than ideal emotions, I'd text him even though I knew I deserved better. 

Cutting off back-burner Sean, even though I believed him to have the personality of cardboard on a rainy day, was no easy task. Not because he was ~*so great*~, but because he was a safety net. And because he was an itchy security blanket for me, I had to wait until he became a total and complete jerk before I felt ready to end it. And it didn't take much. One over-the-top rude text response was all I really needed to casually block him and move on with my life, as the whole point of my talking to him was that it was easy and low-pressure. 

After that, I realized I also had to end it with a long-time friend of mine who I'd casually "joke" with about us ending up together one day. I'll never end the friendship entirely, since I adore him, but the interactions consisting of "Haha. We're soul mates probably!" had "back-burner" written all over them. I told him we could still be friends, but all back-burner jokes/flirtation had to be immediately destroyed beyond recognition. He understood completely.

Next to go was the guy who would email me every few months to tell me I looked pretty in a photo he saw online and he hoped to see me soon, but would never actually make plans to do so. After him, I cut off the guy who occasionally texted me romantic things despite his having a live-in girlfriend (who he claimed it was over with but, dude, you share a bed.) I didn't necessarily say anything to these people to get them to go away; I just let go of my end of the rope and stopped reaching out, and also stopped texting back as anything more than a friend. Finally, I deleted a bunch of numbers from my phone belonging to people I needed to let go of for good. 

Not having a cute guy to text when I'm bored definitely feels bizarre. But then I remember how much worse I felt when I'd text some guy I didn't care about, pretending he was really incredible cheesecake when I knew he was a rice cake. And I really, really wanted cheesecake, but didn't feel like going to the store. While this metaphor obviously falls apart because I can't go to the store to find someone who bowls me over with how cool and emotionally available they are, I'm not going to die if I don't have cheesecake. Or if I don't have it until next year. But I will absolutely hate myself if I keep settling for something that's better than nothing, when I know for a fact that I (and you, if you want it) deserve everything. 

My friend Whitney, 28, puts her reasons for cutting off her back-burners succinctly. "While it was fun, it wasn't that fulfilling. I'm not sorry I did it, but I don't think I'll do it again.​" You don't hate yourself for having back-burner guys, but you don't feel like talking to them was an awesome way to spend your time either. ​

When I find that person who is everything, I won't have to sit them down and try to explain the 30 guys in my phone who can only be described via "it's complicated." Even though both Whitney and Kate said they'd never cut ties with their back-burners once they started seeing someone new because neither one of them was invested enough to care if the other person was taken, it still just seems like wasted space in my phone to me and I already use too much data anyway. 

By getting rid of all that romantic clutter, I finally have a clean slate to do whatever I want with. Read more, finally learn how to cook (LOL, this will never happen), or watch the same TV shows over and over again because I love it. 

Plus, if one day I do meet someone who is extra, super cool, I won't have to text 14 dudes that I can't talk right now because "he's in the room and you know why." That would be ideal.​

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