How to Use the 90-Day Dating Rule to Vet a Relationship
Why you should keep your options open in the first 90 days of dating.
Updated May 23, 2026 | Reviewed by Kaja Perina
If you buy something from Target, Walmart, or Home Depot, you typically have 90 days to try it out before returning it. Should the same then apply to people whom you are dating? No, not dropping your dates off at the closest big box store to get refunds in exchange, but keeping your options open and staying away from any kind of commitment to anyone until 90 days have elapsed. Because that's what the 90-day dating rule essentially says.
There are variations of the 90-day dating rule out there circulating on social media and the rest of the Internet. Some say that you should not go exclusive until you are past three months of dating. Others are even stricter, telling you to refrain from even any type of intimacy , such as sex, before this “vetting period” has passed. Regardless, the commonality is telling you not to allow a relationship to get significantly closer before the 90-day threshold.
So does maintaining such a break point make sense? Should you then put the brakes on before reaching this 90-day threshold? Well, let's break it all down.
Having A Vetting Period Does Make Sense
It does make sense to have at least some kind of vetting period in general. No matter how many times you may have watched Jack and Rose essentially become like husband and wife during one boat ride in the movie Titanic , you've got to realize that falling for someone too quickly can lead to, well, a titanic disaster. After all, hormones can really cloud judgment, leaving you with seemingly a lot fewer lifeboats to readily leave on once you are deeply intertwined with someone.
No matter how perceptive you think you may be, it does take plenty of time together to tell what a person is really like. For example, someone can insist that he or she is kind and even an empath . But until you actually see such qualities in action under a wide enough range of different circumstances, such words are basically meaningless. Plus, many times people will wear masks early on in getting to know each other—not real masks unless you are into that kind of thing, but false personas that don't represent who they really are.
Is 90 Days The Right Length of Time?
The question, though, is whether 90 days is the right length of time for such a vetting period. Well, 90 days is a commonly used threshold for lots of different decision-making . In addition to the aforementioned big box store return policies, there's that TLC reality TV show 90 Day Fiancé, where foreign fiancés of American citizens enter the U.S. via a K-1 visa with a requirement to get married within 90 days. Many workplaces use 90 days as the probationary period for new employees as well. Then there are all those 90-day programs to establish and solidify a new habit or lifestyle change.
In each of these cases, it's not as if something magical happens between days 89 and 90. It's just that many people feel that 90 days may be needed to accumulate enough observations to see trends—sustainable trends, that is—in someone's behavior. It's a balance between taking enough time to observe and not taking so much time that you end up wasting time and missing opportunities. Sure, more time will give you more information. But telling your date, "I'm going to need about 3650 days to determine whether we should go exclusive," might be kind of off-putting. Plus, presumably, you won't want to waste your time as well, either staying in the wrong thing for too long or not moving forward with the right thing soon enough.
Use The 90 Day Dating Rule As A Loose Rule
Ultimately, the time it takes to really get to know someone can vary quite significantly, based on your experience and perceptiveness and the other person. For example, the virginal version of you might be enamored by anyone willing to—gasp—touch you whereas the older yeah-whatever version of you may be a lot more discerning a lot faster. It can also depend heavily on what you two happen to experience during that time frame. On the one hand, some kind of crisis can really accelerate your getting to know each other. On the flip side, couples have gone through like 40-plus years of marriage before being shocked by who each other really is.
Therefore, like so many so-called dating "rules" being popularized, use the 90-day dating rule loosely rather than strictly. In this case, loose refers to how you apply it rather than a moral or sexual thing. View the first 90 days or so as more "The Honeymoon Period" than the "Yeah, I know this person already and we're going to get married" period. It's certainly a bad idea to be on a real marriage honeymoon or in some other locked-in-for-a-long-time situation during the first 90 days. Instead, use this time to stay curious and continue to learn about each other.
What You Should and Shouldn't Do Before the 90-Day Dating Milestone
So, what specifically should you not do before getting past this 90-day mark? Well, that depends heavily on your past. If you've had a tendency to lose your sense of judgment after having sex with someone, then maybe hold off on being too intimate before really knowing the other person. If you've found it very hard to break up with someone after you've gone exclusive, regardless of how wrong that person is for you, then err on the side of delaying exclusivity. In all cases, it is important to communicate frankly and actively with the other person throughout so that he or she fully understands your thinking and motivation .
In general, think of the 90-day dating rule as more of a reminder than a rule. It's a reminder that during the first 90 days, you could still be in a daze—a daze where you don't quite yet know who that other person is, what you are thinking and feeling, and whether the two of you truly should be together till the end of days or even until next Monday.
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Bruce Y. Lee, M.D., M.B.A., is a writer, journalist, professor, systems modeler, computational and digital health expert, physician, avocado-eater, and entrepreneur, not always in that order.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.