How long should a talking stage be before a relationship?

The most useful signal in a talking stage is not how often she texts but whether the texting leads anywhere. A person who is interested will eventually attach a day and a time to the conversation. A person who is keeping options open will stay in the zone of maybes and someday. Count how many times you have actually seen her in the last month and compare that to how many days you have talked. If the ratio is wildly lopsided, the texting is doing a job that meeting should be doing.

Also notice what she brings up herself. Someone building toward something will mention her friends, her week, things she is looking forward to, and will sometimes ask about your plans for the weekend in a way that includes you. Someone who is not invested will answer questions, ask a few back, and let the thread die. Neither pattern is a verdict, but together they tell you whether to propose a concrete next step or to have a more direct conversation.

A talking stage can last forever if neither person names it. That is comfortable for a while and corrosive after a few months, because each week of ambiguity makes the eventual conversation feel higher stakes. If you are clear you want something exclusive or at least something more defined, say it in plain words and keep it short. The message is not a proposal. It is information: you want to see her regularly and you would like to know whether she is in the same place.

The shape of this conversation is the same whether you are asking to date or deciding to step back. State your position, ask for hers, and then accept what she says without trying to win the answer. If she is unsure, a reasonable next step is a specific plan for the next two weeks, not an open-ended stretch of waiting.

Push for clarity once you have had at least three or four meetings and the texting has been consistent for a few weeks. Before that, you probably do not have enough shared history for a define-the-relationship conversation to mean anything. After that, every additional week without a conversation is a week spent guessing. If she responds with warmth and a plan, keep going. If she responds with vagueness twice in a row, read it as her answer even if she never says no.

Walking away is not a tactic. If you have asked directly and the answer is that she is not ready, or she is seeing other people and not interested in changing that, the respectful move is to let her know you are not going to keep texting indefinitely in the same way. You can do that in one message, without sarcasm, and then stop chasing.