Benching, a symptom of fragile love

In uncertainty, the other is kept "on the bench", suspended, without committing too much and taking responsibility.

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bench

ll bench (literally "benchmarking") is a behavior in relationships where one person maintains a "suspended" interest in the other, without truly committing or going further, to the point of assuming responsibility. A way of being there, but only halfway, still, like when we're sitting on a bench.

It starts from an advanced friendship, a flirt, a relationship that would need to grow and consolidate into a shared challenge, and instead who does bench It puts the brakes on: there's a sporadic, almost superficial attention to the other; an intermittence of feelings, interest, and even contact, which we could roughly translate like this: "I like you, but I'm not convinced and I don't want to lose you completely."

Uncertainty, especially in the final phase, has always been part of the game of love, and it has also been an integral part of the entire preliminary phase of courtship. Not everyone is lucky (or unlucky?) enough to fall in love with the classic, sudden lightning strikeBut the new fact is the widespread diffusion of a dilatory attitude, whereby benching has become a sort of main channel of sentimental relationships. Symptom unmistakable of liquid, sulphurous love, of the fear of commitment, of a now endemic difficulty in creating solid and stable relationships, in the mare magnum of stories that are born and grow through social media and dating. Technology, applied so pervasively to feelings, creates an uncertainty symmetrical to the speed with which a relationship is born and evaporates.

The first problem of the bench It creates unfounded expectations, leaving the other person in a state of expectation and uncertainty. This is not a good starting point for a long-term relationship. Behind the fear of commitment, typical of an era marked by male crisis, there is all the fragility of human relationships immersed in an eternal present without the impetus towards the future and the roots in memory. The benching It's the apparent and cunning solution to something inextricably linked to the rollercoaster of love: the pathos of the unknown. There comes a moment when the time for asking is up, and we must try to give, without ifs or buts, betting on ourselves and each other to navigate together the uncertainties of a life where we are no longer alone, but at least together. Removing this ingredient from love weakens it, squandering it in a banal game of couples, where from the bench there's the risk of moving on to the locker room (ejected) or never getting up at all.

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