Relationship milestones have always come in advice-form from the culture around us. Kiss after a few dates. Sex after “we talked about it.” Marriage after you found a person and a stable income at the same time, which already sounds like historical fiction.
A new YouGov survey asked Americans how long couples should wait before the big steps, and the answers sound casual about early milestones and careful about expensive ones.
Americans keep the early stuff pretty loose. Sixty-five percent say the minimum time before a first kiss is a month or less, including 31 percent who say under a week. Sex gets more caution. The most common answer, 31 percent, says couples should wait two to seven months. Another 22 percent says a week to a month. “I love you” lands in the slow lane, too. Forty-three percent say two to seven months, and 20 percent say eight months or longer.
Then the commitment milestones start pulling away. Engagement gets a full year from most people. Fifty-three percent say couples should be together at least a year before getting engaged, and 11 percent set the minimum at three years. Marriage takes even longer. Seventy percent say couples should be together at least a year before getting married, and 21 percent say three years or more.
Here’s How Long Americans Think Couples Should Wait Before Having Sex
Buying a home together and having a child sit in the “years, please” category. Forty-eight percent say a couple should be together at least two years before buying a home, with 18 percent saying four years or more. For having a child, 53 percent say two years minimum, and 18 percent say four years or more.
The survey also asked where certain milestones “belong” in the marriage timeline, and Americans get conservative with the expensive stuff. Only 7 percent say buying a home should happen before marriage. Sixty-seven percent prefer after marriage. Nineteen percent say it doesn’t matter. For kids, 2 percent say before marriage, 70 percent say after, and 23 percent say it doesn’t matter.
The funniest part is that Americans can be flexible about sex and cohabitation while still wanting a traditional order for mortgages and babies. Romance stays situational. Financial entanglement makes people reach for guardrails, and given the price of housing, that might be the most realistic thing anyone says all day.
The post This Is How Long Americans Think Couples Should Wait Before Having Sex appeared first on VICE.
