Do People still Date?

[phil_at_dayboro]

I find once my Step Daughter or anyone else for that matter meet a new sweetheart,
(( My 29 year old youngest son included ))
They go straight to the bedroom., there just doesn’t seem to be anyone that brings around Flowers anymore,Go Bowling in a Group,or any other Group activity,
No one seems to go Dateing as I understand the word of Dateing,
No more of,I’ll pick you up at your house at 7 etc and be home by whatever ,
Plus I don’t really think this Generation is any more Permissive than any other,
What are your thoughts ?

 

[Gertabelle]

Well, I don’t know everyone, so I cannot answer definitively

My friends who are 20-30 year old women do date. They are devout Catholics and unwilling to “go to the bedroom” until after marriage.

Of course, there are also those who sleep around, hoping that giving in so quickly will somehow magically lead to a man saying, “hey, you’re easy, let’s get married.” :sad_yes:

My older friends and myself – we don’t date much. There aren’t as many single men our age and some seem to want women 10-20 years younger than themselves. You know, because every women is just thrilled with the idea of being seen as an object and then spending the last 10-20 years of her life as a widow! And sadly, middle-aged single men often seem to have an expectation of sex.

But I definitely know men and women who still date – no hanky panky – just taking the time to get to know one another, sometimes even with flowers, and definitely with “I’ll pick you up at…”

Yes, yes, yes. It absolutely still happens, thanks be to God! And their example encourages others to do the same.

 

[Naskor]

I find once my Step Daughter or anyone else for that matter meet a new sweetheart,
(( My 29 year old youngest son included ))
They go straight to the bedroom., there just doesn’t seem to be anyone that brings around Flowers anymore,Go Bowling in a Group,or any other Group activity,
No one seems to go Dateing as I understand the word of Dateing,
No more of,I’ll pick you up at your house at 7 etc and be home by whatever ,
Plus I don’t really think this Generation is any more Permissive than any other,
What are your thoughts ?

Dating didn’t exist in my culture until this generation. We date but not “still date”.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I am 46 and 25 years ago rarely did people date then. I think that with single young people living out on their own on no parents to make rules, singles can come and go as they please. And to a single Catholic woman, I admit, it makes it all the more easier to NOT date. And I actually like it that way.

I would feel tremendous pressure if a man pick me up and I HAD to get into HIS car. I would prefer to make my own way there and have the freedom to leave when I wanted.

 

[ClearWater]

The dating process seems very much shortened. What used to take months, or years, can occur within days or weeks.

 

[Sarcelle]

Thanks to the sexual revolution, sex or engaging in sex, was nothing more than scratching an itch. Nothing sacred about it.

 

[E_7]

I find once my Step Daughter or anyone else for that matter meet a new sweetheart,
(( My 29 year old youngest son included ))
They go straight to the bedroom., there just doesn’t seem to be anyone that brings around Flowers anymore,Go Bowling in a Group,or any other Group activity,
No one seems to go Dateing as I understand the word of Dateing,
No more of,I’ll pick you up at your house at 7 etc and be home by whatever ,
Plus I don’t really think this Generation is any more Permissive than any other,
What are your thoughts ?

I think it has to do with laziness and getting out of the comfort zone.

Personally, when I was courting my now husband, I had to pull him out and lead him to places when he was living in Singapore and I was visiting. I guess I played the role of the conqueror in the most part of our courtship.

I read Japanese graphic novels ( shoujo and josei mangas) and the boyfriend and girlfriend make date plans to meet at some outdoor place and eat and play somewhere else, and the day ends with a kiss but not always. And I think I tried to live one of many manga scenes with my now hubby, but I don’t remember.

 

[on_the_hill]

Not me. I haven’t dated since I got married.

Honestly, I don’t know. My eldest child doesn’t date because she’s not particularly social. But at 17 she’s old enough if she wants to. My middle child (age 13) went on two “dates,” but it’s not a priority with her. Before anyone gets their nappy in a bind over her age, the dates were school dances and all the parents were fully on board.

My son is 10. He has frequent dates with Minecraft, Plants vs Zombies, Wizard 101…

In other words, I don’t know what young people are doing. My daughters use the words “dating” when they’re referring to friends who are “dating.”

Everyone else I know is either married or living with a romantic partner.

Do people still “date,” by which you mean spend time together that isn’t a sexual event…I think so. I think they do.

 

[on_the_hill]

I would feel tremendous pressure if a man pick me up and I HAD to get into HIS car. I would prefer to make my own way there and have the freedom to leave when I wanted.

I think that’s not as uncommon as you think. I think young women today are very much tuned in to dangers. Maybe they’re not making decisions based on morality, but I’d bet a lot of them are making “chaste” decisions based on personal safety.

Before my wife and I started dating (25 years ago) she found out everything she could about me before we went to that first movie together. She was having conversations about me with people I didn’t even know I knew.

 

[Xantippe]

Not me. I haven’t dated since I got married.

Honestly, I don’t know. My eldest child doesn’t date because she’s not particularly social. But at 17 she’s old enough if she wants to. My middle child (age 13) went on two “dates,” but it’s not a priority with her. Before anyone gets their nappy in a bind over her age, the dates were school dances and all the parents were fully on board.

My son is 10. He has frequent dates with Minecraft, Plants vs Zombies, Wizard 101…

In other words, I don’t know what young people are doing. My daughters use the words “dating” when they’re referring to friends who are “dating.”

Everyone else I know is either married or living with a romantic partner.

Do people still “date,” by which you mean spend time together that isn’t a sexual event…I think so. I think they do.

Funny!

My feeling is that there isn’t a lot of dating at most colleges (with some exceptions) but that dating reappears in the early/mid-20s.

 

[Xantippe]

I think that’s not as uncommon as you think. I think young women today are very much tuned in to dangers. Maybe they’re not making decisions based on morality, but I’d bet a lot of them are making “chaste” decisions based on personal safety.

Right.

My mom has a story of going out with a date with a guy who asked her if she’d brought her “mad money.” (This would have been the late 1960s, but on a conservative Protestant college campus where female students had only recently won the right to wear pants.)

My mom didn’t know what mad money was. Her date explained that it’s the money a woman takes with her on a date so that if she gets mad at the guy, she can just leave.

An excellent idea, I think.

 

[EasterJoy]

Right.

My mom has a story of going out with a date with a guy who asked her if she’d brought her “mad money.” (This would have been the late 1960s, but on a conservative Protestant college campus where female students had only recently won the right to wear pants.)

My mom didn’t know what mad money was. Her date explained that it’s the money a woman takes with her on a date so that if she gets mad at the guy, she can just leave.

An excellent idea, I think.

Adults–meaning anyone old enough to go out on their own–should always have a realistic contingency plan for getting home safely if they are separated from their personal mode of transportation or their social companions. It happens for all sorts of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with anger.

To answer the original question: yes, couples still go on dates where one person provides transportation for the couple with no plan for sharing the same bed later. That is not to say that people never wind up in the same bed when they didn’t intend to, but they do still “go on dates.” They do not go straight from “I don’t know you well enough to let you drive me anywhere” to “I can’t imagine having a social outing with you that doesn’t end in sex.”

I think group outings are perhaps a little more popular than they once were, though, based on the people I see in restaurants who don’t seem to be married to each other. Maybe people are beginning to realize how important it is to see if your hand-picked “significant other” gets along with your friends, who are less besotted with your find than you are.

Really, the big problems are that a) people don’t believe that they can survive a period of continence without suffering some kind of a mental breakdown and b) people are very afraid of divorce.

 

[EasterJoy]

Funny!

My feeling is that there isn’t a lot of dating at most colleges (with some exceptions) but that dating reappears in the early/mid-20s.

I see far less dating at my sons’ high school than what went on when I was in high school and more group socializing. They drink a lot less alcohol, too. I think that is a very good thing. There were some things about the “old days” before Mothers Against Drunk Drivers that were worse than things are now, rather than better.

 

[Midwest88]

Yes, but today’s modern time is that dating - when people say “we’re dating” - it’s assumed that sex is involved by most outside parties (I don’t think this way, but if you subscribe to “dating = sex” then yea), if not in the first few months then at least later within the relationship in the first year. Sex is seen as par for the course.

I was on youtube last night reading through the comment section of a video that listed 15 things to do before you graduate college. One of the 15 was “having a one night stand … And not having any regrets/shame.” A poster said she didn’t know why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing. The responses that followed weren’t so surprising at it was plain disgusting.

Here’s one response to the poster –

So many people in this comment section are just plain out awful people. Stop pretending that just because you have a one night stand that you’re a slut, or that you’ll get an STD, or that it makes you less of a person. Because it doesn’t. I respect that some people don’t want to have them, but that doesn’t mean the people who do have them are sluts, or are irresponsible.

Another response was from a male saying that since she didn’t have one night stands that she was boring and that one night stands were good since they, in his mind, made people mature. That one night stands were okay since being selfish, just using each other for sex and sex alone, was in this case okay.

 

[Xantippe]

I see far less dating at my sons’ high school than what went on when I was in high school and more group socializing. They drink a lot less alcohol, too. I think that is a very good thing. There were some things about the “old days” before Mothers Against Drunk Drivers that were worse than things are now, rather than better.

When I was in junior high and high school, it was serial monogamy. There was no “dating” (going for particular outings with different people and then talking about exclusivity)–exclusivity was assumed from the get go. I think doing thing in groups in high school would definitely be an improvement.

I like this guy’s way of thinking:

thomasumstattd.com/2014/08/courtship-fundamentally-flawed/

 

[E_7]

Wait , what? Dating is not exclusive? I always thought it was. Hmm…good to know. Now that I have a son, I need to know those things to teach him properly. I’m 24 and I was taught that I could never be in a romantic relationship unless it is going to be towards marriage. I want my son to be one of those gentlemen that believe in exclusive relationships.

 

[Xantippe]

Wait , what? Dating is not exclusive? I always thought it was. Hmm…good to know. Now that I have a son, I need to know those things to teach him properly. I’m 24 and I was taught that I could never be in a romantic relationship unless it is going to be towards marriage. I want my son to be one of those gentlemen that believe in exclusive relationships.

I have to confess that this isn’t how I did it, but I have become convinced that the assumption of instant exclusivity is not a good idea, because it may give unsuitable couples’ relationships a sort of momentum that those relationships do not merit. I think Mr. Umstattd is right to encourage seeing a variety of different people before mutually deciding to become exclusive. As he points out, that’s a more old-fashioned style of dating.

(The guys were not beating down my door, so I dated each one one at a time.)

 

[EasterJoy]

When I was in junior high and high school, it was serial monogamy. There was no “dating” (going for particular outings with different people and then talking about exclusivity)–exclusivity was assumed from the get go. I think doing thing in groups in high school would definitely be an improvement.

I like this guy’s way of thinking:

thomasumstattd.com/2014/08/courtship-fundamentally-flawed/

Junior high? Not being allowed to go on dates at least until high school and usually not until 16 was more the norm when I was in high school. But yes, I’d say there were relatively few who had the courage to ask someone on dates or to accept an invitation to go on a date unless they were fairly sure they wanted something monogamous. I think they were afraid of being turned down or having to refuse some guy after a date or two. It was a small school and there was a big fear of the gossip.

 

[Xantippe]

Junior high? Not being allowed to go on dates at least until high school and usually not until 16 was more the norm when I was in high school. But yes, I’d say there were relatively few who had the courage to ask someone on dates or to accept an invitation to go on a date unless they were fairly sure they wanted something monogamous. I think they were afraid of being turned down or having to refuse some guy after a date or two. It was a small school and there was a big fear of the gossip.

In my hometown, “going out” referred to a relationship status rather than actually going out anywhere. Nobody ever went out anywhere on official dates, because there wasn’t really anywhere to go.

My hometown had some peculiarities with regard to romantic relationships when I was a kid 25-30 years ago. For instance, there was a 14-year-old classmate of mine with a 24-year-old boyfriend, and nobody batted an eye at that. Now and again, there’d be a relationship between a 6th or 7th grader and a high school boy.

It was all very dysfunctional.

 

[E_7]

I have to confess that this isn’t how I did it, but I have become convinced that the assumption of instant exclusivity is not a good idea, because it may give unsuitable couples’ relationships a sort of momentum that those relationships do not merit.

Oh you are right!