I    talk to my mom, my friend Tempe, the omelet cook at Clark, the guy I sit next to in sociology. Heck, I even talk to my plants. Am I romantically interested in any of them? No.

I am not the kind of person who has a pet peeve for every hour of the day, but one small thing that will make my eyes start to roll is the use of “talking” to describe some sort of limbo space in romantic involvements.

I remember being in some high school class right after coming back from summer break and hearing classmates asking one another if they were talking to someone.

Yes, I thought, I spoke to Ms. Finn just this morning.

Admittedly, I don’t have the most hip lingo around town. I probably Google “what does … mean?” at least twice a week. When I can’t find the answer, I’ll ask my much cooler friends. They will use some analogy to convey the message, and I’ll go along and try to insert my newly learned phrase into conversation.

Talking, though, that’s one that no one seems to be able to describe.

“You see,” the explainers will say, “it’s kind of like you are dating, but it’s not official.”

“So,” I’ll ask, “can you talk to several people at once, or is this exclusive?”

That will usually spin-off into an argument between the explainers about how exclusive a talking relationship is, and eventually everyone just gives up on a set definition and agrees that it varies depending on the people.

Okay, I can live without a set-in-stone definition of talking, but my next question is how that differs from good, old-fashioned dating.

When one is dating someone, does that not simply imply that one is going on dates with said person? When did dating someone become so exclusive? When did it become not okay to date more than one person at a time?

No, I’m not a swinger.

I just don’t see what the harm is in going on dates with more than one person. Have you never happened to meet two people around the same time who tickled your fancy? Going on dates with them is a simple way to see where your interest lies. It’s not the same as going steady with someone.

I’m pretty sure that’s how our society works anyway; we go to dinner with someone and then go on a walk with someone else. We just don’t like to call these events “dates” because then you become a two-timing son-of-a-gun.

Once you are ready to take that next big step, you can move beyond dating into a romantic relationship.

If we stick to terms we know, “dating” and “being in a relationship,” there really is no need for “talking.”

One of the reasons people in our generation like to use the term talking is because it serves as an up-in-the-air space that allots us an easy way to avoid discussing our emotions.

The issue with this is that it’s common for only one person to describe the situation as “talking;” meanwhile, the other person does not.

I’ve seen it happen countless times. Someone likes someone but doesn’t want to sound pushy and ask what is going on, so he or she settles for saying they are talking.

This is no way to treat your emotions.

Without an open line of communication, how can one expect to be in a healthy relationship?

That’s not to say that dating someone will lead to a happy relationship every time, but at least you will have a clear idea of where you stand.

“Talking,” to me, is just a coward’s way of saying, “I don’t know what I want and I can’t have a conversation about it, so I’ll keep doing this until an answer falls into my lap.”

It seems that talking boils down to whom you text the most and who your top friend on Snapchat is.

Even if it’s only for the sake of not having to differentiate between speaking-talking and dating-talking when you say you are talking to someone, please, stick to “dating” and “relationships.”