Is dating really a game?

I don't understand casual dating.

A bit of background on my past relationships:

I had my first boyfriend (let's call him No-Flowers since, despite many obvious hints, he never gifted one to me) about a month before I turned 18 and we lasted for almost a year and a half together.  We never went on casual dates before making ourselves "official" since we first started out as friends.  Basically, after we both confessed our feelings for each other, we had immediately become a couple without any of that confusing "Are we exclusive?" and "Are we official?" mumbo jumbo.  

As great as things were, we had to unfortunately break it off and go our separate ways.  No hard feelings, No-Flowers.

7 months later, I met someone new who made me feel like I was living in a fairy tale, therefore let's refer to him as Pseudo-Prince.  Our encounter, the butterflies he gave me, his sweet words, everything just made me float on cloud 9.  It was perfect.  We hit it off when we met and continued hitting it off when we spoke online, chatting for hours on end.  

Since we hadn't started out as friends, I figured I had to conform to certain unspoken rules about dating.  Now, mind you, I had no idea how to date, I was just following what I had picked up on by sheer observation of my friends and the media.  I had absorbed all this information from the TV shows I had watched and numerous online articles I had read for fun and tried to apply all of it to my own life.

I knew that asking if we were exclusive and asking to be official too early into the dating game could scare people off.  ...But how could I keep all these questions and wants to myself for the next few dates when I had a burning need to claim this amazing guy as my own right from the get-go?  

Long story short, I ended up (smoothly) asking if we were exclusive about 3 dates in or something (I may be aware of the rules but that doesn't mean I'm able to control my urges) and to my surprise, Pseudo-Prince actually told me, "I thought you already knew what we were." I basically started a relationship without even knowing I had entered one.  This second relationship definitely did not include any casual dating at all.

As fine and dandy as that second relationship was, it had to end.  Needless to say, I was devastated and a huge wreck.  

Fast forward to when I finally collected myself and pulled myself together.

Casual Dating

Part 1

I met someone really sweet who told me I looked pretty every time we saw each other.  He paid for my dinner and treated me like a princess, which included buying me sanitary pads when I unfortunately got my period at his place.  With that in mind, let's call this guy Maxi-Man.  My time with Maxi-Man was cherished but I still couldn't shake off my urges to ask if we were exclusive.  

If you like someone and share intimate moments with them (even if it's just kissing), I would think that you'd want to be exclusive with them.  At least, for me, if I had a crush on someone, there would only be that one person who would make my heart beat faster.  

This was different.  I finally learned what it meant to be unsure about someone and unsure about what you wanted with someone.  Did this mean I didn't really like them?  Maybe.  I knew I enjoyed this new guy's company but I couldn't see so far into the future and decide whether I wanted to spend Christmas with him.  Still, my "traditional" values would overpower my new-found insights and I was preparing myself to jump into a potentially serious relationship with Maxi-Man.

He had already arranged to go away for the summer to work as a camp counselor in another country before meeting me and as much as he didn't want to leave, he did.  Before doing so, I had "the talk" with him and asked him if we were exclusive.  He told me that since he was going away, asking to be exclusive wouldn't be fair to me but he wasn't planning on looking for someone while he was away.  That made me feel better.  However, when I asked what we were and what he referred to me as, he informed me that "we [were] a couple of dates away from [him] calling [me his] girlfriend." 

So that was that.  I had a taste of what casual dating was with the perks of someone treating me like his girlfriend except that I wasn't his girlfriend.  It's all a little confusing.  

Part 2

Now I'm currently experiencing something that I can only describe as the most casual kind of dating I have yet encountered but bonus: he is hella fine.  Let's call this fourth guy Dat-Bod-Doe because he is definitely a sight to see.

My thoughts are all over the place about this "relationship".  What do you even call what you have with someone who isn't your boyfriend?  Can you even say you're seeing someone?  Is that term even "too exclusive" for the two of you to share?  I'm so confused.

We've been on 4 dates within the last two-ish months since his schedule is pretty busy and we hardly talk online.  Scratch that, we don't talk.  I don't even think we've ever had an intellectual conversation together online.  We may have had a couple of small conversations in person in-between our make-out sessions but if I'm going to be completely honest here, I'm going to have to admit that our "relationship" is pretty much purely physical.  I don't know what he thinks of me and I don't think he has any sort of emotional attachment to me.  

It's so hard to tell if Dat-Bod-Doe really likes me or if he's really just the type of person to not show it as much.  He tells me he's not one to start conversations and that he's not much of a talker...but I mean...I don't think I can stand that.  I need to be stimulated and talked to.  I really wonder if we'd talk more if we were in a serious relationship later in the future.  

He looks at me lovingly, holds my hand, and tells me how attractive I am.  He's letting me take our physical "relationship" at my own pace (spoiler alert: I'm a virgin!) and is very understanding with me.  His friends know about me, so that's a good thing, I think.  

I love baking him things and complimenting him with the cheesiest lines ever.  I like the way he holds me and I like how calm and peaceful things feel when we cuddle.  I also like how he talks about future outings.  At least I know he still plans to see me in the near future, so I've got that going for me.

It's crazy to think that since you're not exclusive with someone, that someone could be sharing the same things with someone else and these thoughts could be swarming that someone else's mind as well.  

It's crazy to know that even though you're thinking about someone all the time, that same someone doesn't like you as much as you do them.

Casual dating really isn't for me, I get too attached too easily, too soon, and too much.
(But stupid little me is going to stick with what I have for now because why listen to common sense and rationale when you can get some)