TLDR: I asked for advice from other men about who should ask for exclusivity, the guy or the girl. The women said the guy should ask. The men said don't do it and wait for her to say something about it/ask. The men were right.
About 6 months ago I (36M) started seeing my now GF (36F). It started out a bit slow but was steadily progressing towards the presently full-blown and very happy relationship. After about a month of seeing her I came on here and *specifically asked other men's advice* on whether I should be the one to bring up / ask for exclusivity or wait for her to do it.
And of course there was a flood of comments from women with an overwhelming majority saying they want the guy to ask. Then the overwhelming majority of the men's comments were all some variation of "don't do it," or "never ends well." Which matched up with my own experiences also. That is to say litterally 100% of the time I asked for a relationship it ended badly, usually with her blindsidng me with a breakup.
I really liked her and was really hoping to end up dating her officially (which I am now) but I went with the men's advice. Had to fight the urge with every fibre of my being but I did it. I held out and eventually she starded sharring cute couple reels on insta – which I reciprocated – and people at social gatherings started assuming we were together and I simply did not contest this assumption and neither did she. Fast forward about a month later and she used the word relationship in a conversation where we were joking around about her leaving a certain piece of clothing at my place one night. And again I made no issue of it. Fast forward to today and the relationship continues to be fun and awesome.
So fellas, if you really like a girl and want her to be your GF, wait for it to come from her. If you jump the gun on it you'll scare her off. Trust that if y'all spend enough time together and keep having fun it will be inevitable that she'll decide she can't live without you.
And if you don't really feel it, do her a favour and end things before she's emotionally in too deep. Don't lead her on by letting her think y'all have a future together that's actually never gonna happen. I've had a girl do that to me once and it fuckin' wrecked me for a good long while.