Dating does not allow for normal getting to know, which is possible when you spend time with someone at work or in long conversations or while managing business or whatever. This all the more when you’re expected to make your decision regarding your “relationship status” by the third date (with a heretefore complete stranger to boot). You probably wouldn’t begin to trust an insurance dealer within such a timeframe. The product is people not knowing each other much when they marry.
At the same time dating, while more on the formal side than casual hooking up, does not really respect good old manners all that much. It establishes a low-level, nascent romantic relationship between two strangers. When you ask someone for a date, the word “date” conveys the dinner and movie and some kissing thereafter unless things go bad. That sits ill with me, I cannot accept the idea of conveying such a suggestion to a stranger (it feels irreverent). Call me a wet blanket. I generally believe that dating is insufficient in its respect for women. At any rate, it fails to provide a solid structure with a moral highground, it just enjoys some respect due to its longevity, reaching back to the fifties, which gives six decades of tradition.
Finally, there’s the whole deal with exclusive vs non-exclusive dating, wherein “exclusive dating” often means two mid-teens acting like married, and “non-exclusive dating” tends to mean kissing a different boy or girl every day of the week, sometimes actually openly having two boyfriends or girlfriends (whether also in name or not). A healthy ground in between is something I’d love to see but don’t often. At least not in CAF threads (more so in real life, though).
Make no mistake, I’m no big fan of Victorian reconstruction either (good morals is one thing, good manners is another, resurrecting a dead bourgeois lifestyle from a past historical period is a completely different cup of tea). I believe people fail to appreciate polite social exchange as between a lady and a gentleman (which does not need to hurry to affirm or disavow any potential future romantic twitterpations from the very get-go). Just meeting people respectfully and talking, without enacting any sort of a script and without an artificial framework of milestones sounds like a better idea to me.
Apologies for the tongue-in-cheek language if anyone feels offended. I probably should edit it out.
