Yours, Mine, and Not Ours

Is it wrong to get freaked out by the words "we" and "us" when used by someone you're seeing or dating? To avoid confusion or any guessing games, this hasn't happened to me recently, but it has happened to me before. In high school, while waiting for a ride back home, I mentioned to an old boyfriend that he would have cute kids if he ever had any, and he agreed with a "yea, our kids would be cute." Our kids. Our kids?? OUR KIDS?! First of all, I don't understand why my high school self would even suggest, let alone talk about someone spawning mini versions of themselves; I blame teenage hormones. Secondly, did the word "our" scare you, too? Because it sure did for me, even as a high school sophomore. I think I covered up my horror with a half-hearted smile, which he probably assumed was a mutual approval for the possibility of "us" breeding mini "us"es.

Regina Spektor's "Us" 

I remember dating a guy who would often start sentences with "we" as in "We should go to the..." or "We need to..." You should probably know that that he did this within the first two weeks of meeting me. When did you and I become a "we," when did we become a couple, a unit, Siamese twins joined at the hip? Also, why was I not informed about this? I didn't get the latest "we" newsletter that announced our "we"hood. That's another problem I've had with men before. Some of them don't think it's important enough to consult me before announcing our couplehood to other people (way to jump the gun, boys!). If there's an "us," then maybe communication is in order about this new commitment called "us." It's like this one song my friends in middle school used to listen to all the time called U + Me = Us by 2gether. Sure, grammatically you and I would have to equate to "we" or "us" but notice that there's that conjunction + (plus or and). The conjunction there signifies some kind of mutual agreement or acknowledgment that a certain couplehood exists and commitment most likely fits somewhere in that equation as well. I apologize if I sound completely adverse to the idea of relationships because I really am not. It's funny because men often complain about how confusing or complicated women are, but it's the same thing the other way around; as a woman who's had experience with men, I still find myself wanting a translator for what men say or do. It would be wonderful to find a guy who has the balls to be direct and not torture me by saying something like, "I like you. Let's go steady."