If you and your partner practice frequent, non-sexual consent, your relationship will be healthier and easier.
“Are you comfortable with me ranting about my day for a few minutes?”
“Oh, this is your poetry? Would it be okay if I read it?”
“Do you mind if I use your phone for a few minutes?”
“Wow, your meal looks awesome. Could I try some?”
It will save a lot of grief, especially in a developing relationship. Eventually, with consistent “yes’s” and “no’s” you can figure out more permanent boundaries and guidelines.
“I need to ask before ranting about my day or taking their food, but my partner is okay with me using their phone whenever. However, my partner does not like me reading their poetry unless they offer first.”
And this goes for friendships too! Even just stuff like “do you mind if I leave this door open?”
…I never fully realized it before but this is a big part of why my relationship with my husband is so conflict-free. Both because him doing this all the time made it easy to trust him, back when we were a new item, and because it helped ME break out of the toxic idea that you should never ask about a partner’s preferences because if you Really Loved Them you should be able to intuit what they want, all the time, about anything.
