What is the difference between a lover and a boyfriend? You know a lot of women email me all the time asking me what the “rules” are in the context of having a lover versus a boyfriend.

They ask me things like this: “David, I don’t understand what I’m allowed to share with a man. I’m a sexual being. I really just want to go there and enjoy myself and find a lover, but what can I talk about with my lover in bed? Are we just talking about sex? Are we just talking about dirty texting each other? Are we just talking about the things we want? Sometimes I just want to share with my lover my day, or I want to share with my lover something that’s going on in my life.”

Here’s the difference between a lover and a relationship. I consider a lover to be somebody with whom you can get together to have fun. You get to share secrets with each other. You get to have a great time in bed. You share a wonderful evening together and experience what it’s like having this temporary relationship.

It’s just a relationship that temporarily satisfies you that night. When you and your lover leave the bed and you both go to work the next day, however, that conversation does not go further.

That conversation goes further in a relationship, because that’s what a relationship is all about. When you’re confessing things in bed in a relationship, you almost always the very next day want to send an email or have another conversation.

You want to take the conversation further, recap the prior night’s conversation or take that conversation to the next level. A relationship involves exposing the depth of who you are as a person.

You’re exposing that depth, and you’re going deeper and deeper into that relationship. You’re exploring each other more and more. So those confessions in the middle of the night when you’re in bed lead to more stimulating conversations the next day and lead to more personal discovery.

So when you find a lover, go ahead and confess away and talk about whatever you want. If you don’t want your lover to be a relationship, though, then don’t carry those conversations into the next day, because those kind of confessions are only for people with whom you want to have a relationship.

That’s the biggest difference. Trust your lover, and grow with your relationship.