When it comes to relationship advice articles, there’s nothing worse than those damn, “Fifty’leven Ways Love Was Better For Our Grandparents Than It Is Today” pieces that insist on comparing different generations without any of the substantive nuance or context. These articles sadly proclaim the impossibility of finding a quality mate in 2016, while acting like everything was nice and easy back when dudes were rocking zoot suits and conks, as if divorce, cheating and general unhappiness didn’t exist.

But, as much as I’m against comparing how love impacts different generations, there’s one thing I will give the people who cling to the assertion that dating is more difficult now. We definitely have more stages of dating than any previous generation. From chilling, to getting to know each other, to seeing each other, to talking to each other, we’ve inundated ourselves with a plethora of different steps we must achieve before we can finally just say we’re together in a committed relationship.

Basically, most of us are in complicated relationships, not because anything is wrong, but because it just seems to take longer to “graduate” to monogamy.

With that said, there’s one problematic belief that I see too many dudes pushing on social media that far too many women are easily falling for. And it’s the idea that a woman must be loyal during the “talking” stage in order to prove that she’s loyal enough to take it to the next level.

While cowardly dudes push this cheap ploy to extract unearned exclusivity, many women are flocking to this idea as being gospel when it’s complete and utter crap.

Ladies, let me keep it completely real with you. When you’re seeing a mature, honest, grown ass man during the early parts of the “getting to know each other stage,” we really don’t want your monogamy. Now, that doesn’t mean that we won’t want it later on down the line, but it definitely means that if we’re not officially together, we’re single. And non-cowardly adult males love the idea of being single, because it means we can do whatever the hell we want, with whomever the hell we want.

So, with that in mind, why in the world would I want a woman to be uniquely loyal to me, especially when I’m damn sure not providing that favour to her? I’ve had that happen to me in the past, and all it did was create problems, because she expected me to treat her like my woman. And it broke her heart when I told her, “I never wanted your loyalty” because she thought I meant she wasn’t good enough for me, but that wasn’t the case at all.

What I meant was that relationship-minded single women should never settle for the BS ideology that the minimal title of “girlfriend” must be exhaustively auditioned for during an undefined situationship. The idea that a woman should give a man her loyalty, her trust, her body, her soul and her spirit to a dude in order to gauge whether or not she “deserves” to receive monogamy is disrespectful. No woman should be out here “trying out” to become a man’s woman, giving all of herself to a guy who doesn’t have the courage or conviction to commit to her in the most basic way.

The truth is, the dudes who proclaim the delayed benefits for women who do the most while waiting out the “talking” stage, are mostly men who just want to sleep with as many women as possible while knowing that the woman they’re with is not out there doing the same. I know this because I’ve done it. It’s a selfish and weak ploy that men use to discourage women from weighing multiple options at once, because if that happened, she might realize that she doesn’t have to stand for the garbage ol’ boy is putting her through. I mean damn, what happens if she meets a guy who falls for her and actually decides she’s worth the title of girlfriend? That will completely mess up my rotation.

Look ladies, if you want to give a man the world to prove to him that you deserve to be his girl, do you. But, just know that we men intensely pursue the women that we really want in our lives. We don’t make them jump through hoops or complete arbitrary potential-girlfriend assessments. When we see her and like her, we commit. So, the next time you hear a dude tell you that you need to prove your worth as his future significant other during the “Netflix and chilling with no title” stage, please understand that just because he wants to be in you, doesn’t mean that he’s into you.

Lincoln Anthony Blades blogs daily on his site, ThisIsYourConscious.com. He’s author of the book, “You’re Not A Victim, You’re A Volunteer.” He can be reached on Twitter @lincolnablades and on Facebook at Lincoln Anthony Blades.