Hello Meredith,

I’ve been dating a man for about three and a half months now, and things have been going wonderfully – until he dropped a kicker on me last night. I casually mentioned that I wanted him to accompany me to a future party to make it clear that I was not single, as a colleague of mine who is quite interested in me continues to attempt to ask me out, even after I told him I have a boyfriend. At that statement, he turned to me and asked, “Did you just call me your boyfriend?” I nodded, adding, “You have introduced me as your girlfriend to your friends before, so wouldn’t that make you my boyfriend?” He laughed and replied, “Just because you’re my girlfriend doesn’t mean I’m your boyfriend.”

I panicked, but pretended to laugh it off. Later that night I sent him a text asking if he was indeed joking about his statement, as I was feeling anxious that he was implying that he was seeing other people (we’ve already had the exclusivity talk and both agreed to stop seeing other people). He replied that he wasn’t seeing anyone else but titles freak him out and he’d prefer to take things slow. He also added “don’t panic” … but I am panicking. What do you think about this mixed message?

– Panicking