Do People still Date?

[EasterJoy]

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.

It sounds as if the borderline between philia and eros was naively and unwisely ignored. No, that “system” would never function well.

 

[marymary1975]

That us the hook up culture that exists thanks to the sexual revolution, that we can thank for the declining in marriage and for a good amount of divorces, and unfortunately is very prevalent in colleges. Many young people have lost the idea of establishing a relationship looking forward to marriage and is just about hooking up. Very unfortunate and.The base for the family crisis that we see now a.days. and what is even.worst, people.that do not engage in that are ridiculed for it and have a very hard time trying to.find a.suitable.person.to.date.

 

[EasterJoy]

That us the hook up culture that exists thanks to the sexual revolution, that we can thank for the declining in marriage and for a good amount of divorces, and unfortunately is very prevalent in colleges. Many young people have lost the idea of establishing a relationship looking forward to marriage and is just about hooking up. Very unfortunate and.The base for the family crisis that we see now a.days. and what is even.worst, people.that do not engage in that are ridiculed for it and have a very hard time trying to.find a.suitable.person.to.date.

I think that both the sexual revolution and the prevalence of divorce can be traced to a rejection of self-denial in favor of putting the self at the center of all decision-making. The sexual revolution did not result in a nation of thoughtful lovers, even though it promised as much. Because it is rooted in radical individualism and self-reliance, it resulted in a nation of people petrified that they may miss out on some of the gratifications that life has to offer. We are not being told to concern ourselves with the “actualization” of anyone other than our own individual selves, are we?

Likewise, on the topic of dating: I think people now rush into physical intimacy out of a fear of “missing out” and because even the Christians among us often believe they own their own bodies and are entitled to all the pleasures of the body.

 

[chevalier]

I’ve never really dated.

My background is different from that of the typical native speaker of English, especially the typical American. I just can’t digest the idea of:

The guy saying something to the ultimate effect, through inference, of ‘let’s have a coffee/dinner/movie with some kissing in the moonlight’…

… and the woman granting that sort of request.

Which is not to say I absolutely can’t imagine myself approach a relative stranger with something like that, but in the typical dating context, this is way too casual and way too forward of an invitation and acceptance — even though I’m far more liberal with just hanging out than most well-bred Westerners are, I think.

Actually, I’ve done things no typical American would ever do, and I’m hardly ill-at-ease chatting up the ladies, and I’m even capable of being direct in speech about most subjects (probably more than the average polite Westerner), but this implicit ‘how about some kissing in the moonlight if the movie isn’t bad and both of us manage to avoid passing winds or belching in the cafeteria’ is already too explicit for me. And something I possibly might never grow to consider fully acceptable, despite being a rather well-travelled person.

Some of the people who do date, date ‘nonexclusively’. And that means having a bunch of concurrent kissing relationships, i.e. a bunch of kinda-boyfriend-and-girlfriend-but-not-really relationships, which I believe to be a form of polyamory, which is unnatural and offputting, no matter that I know how it feels to be attracted to several people at the same time, and I certainly know how it feels to converse and hang out with different women in order to compare (just not kiss etc.).

Things being as they are, and pretty much always having been so, I just don’t date. I think I’ve never been on a date, which doesn’t mean I haven’t spent time with the ladies on a one-on-one basis with some prospects of a romantic relationship.

I probably wouldn’t go on a date if the counterparty asked, either. I just have coffee, go to the cinema, have a drink etc. in polite, female company. Well, the present tense is not exactly justified here, but let’s say I used to.

I think more and more people abstain from formal dating in favour of ‘hanging out’ these days and somehow proceed from hanging out to having a relationship if they both have what it takes, which it usually doesn’t but which takes some time to discover.

A lot probably even have some sort of friends-with-benefits relationships before they even examine the emotional side in much detail, which kinda looks like sleeping with a gal or guy as a prelude to even considering if becoming a boyfriend and girlfriend would be a good idea. This means that in the general populace old reference patterns such as formal dating from just after WW2 may be out-of-date reference.

However, there is an opposite trend at play, with younger people becoming more conservative than their most recent ancestors. And that will mean less informal sex and more formal something romantic or social or whatever.

Actually, I think two technical exceptions may apply. I think a then-girlfriend and I insisted on actually calling it a date when we went to have some drinks one, in order to actually ever have had one. Once or twice words like, ‘okay, it’s a date,’ may have been exchanged with someone somewhere, mostly in jest or a dare, which could probably make it technically a date, I guess.

 

[chevalier]

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.)

The unmerited momentum is definitely a realistic possibility, but it’s not like nonexclusivity is a real cure.

To some extent nonexclusivity has the potential to condition people to not overrate the implications of the existence of a small degree of romantic or even physiological tension between friends, colleagues, passers-by etc. It probably produces a lot of comparison material, too, which enables people the better to learn and feel the difference between a more friendly interest and a more romantic one.

It’s even somewhat healthy to just find out what kind of people you prefer.

However, polyamory is still unnatural. At least equally unnatural as ‘serial dating’ is, I would say even more than that. (Hanging out without the PDA and explicit romance while probing the waters and comparing is more consistent with human nature and human dignity, in my opinion.)

I just don’t consider my gut sense to be fully reliable due to some damage inflicted by modernity in my formative years. Thus, I wouldn’t count on myself being corruption-free enough to form a corruption-free judgement.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’ve never really dated.

My background is different from that of the typical native speaker of English, especially the typical American. I just can’t digest the idea of:

The guy saying something to the ultimate effect, through inference, of ‘let’s have a coffee/dinner/movie with some kissing in the moonlight’…

… and the woman granting that sort of request.

Which is not to say I absolutely can’t imagine myself approach a relative stranger with something like that, but in the typical dating context, this is way too casual and way too forward of an invitation and acceptance — even though I’m far more liberal with just hanging out than most well-bred Westerners are, I think.

Actually, I’ve done things no typical American would ever do, and I’m hardly ill-at-ease chatting up the ladies, and I’m even capable of being direct in speech about most subjects (probably more than the average polite Westerner), but this implicit ‘how about some kissing in the moonlight if the movie isn’t bad and both of us manage to avoid passing winds or belching in the cafeteria’ is already too explicit for me. And something I possibly might never grow to consider fully acceptable, despite being a rather well-travelled person.

Some of the people who do date, date ‘nonexclusively’. And that means having a bunch of concurrent kissing relationships, i.e. a bunch of kinda-boyfriend-and-girlfriend-but-not-really relationships, which I believe to be a form of polyamory, which is unnatural and offputting, no matter that I know how it feels to be attracted to several people at the same time, and I certainly know how it feels to converse and hang out with different women in order to compare (just not kiss etc.).

Things being as they are, and pretty much always having been so, I just don’t date. I think I’ve never been on a date, which doesn’t mean I haven’t spent time with the ladies on a one-on-one basis with some prospects of a romantic relationship.

I probably wouldn’t go on a date if the counterparty asked, either. I just have coffee, go to the cinema, have a drink etc. in polite, female company. Well, the present tense is not exactly justified here, but let’s say I used to.

I think more and more people abstain from formal dating in favour of ‘hanging out’ these days and somehow proceed from hanging out to having a relationship if they both have what it takes, which it usually doesn’t but which takes some time to discover.

A lot probably even have some sort of friends-with-benefits relationships before they even examine the emotional side in much detail, which kinda looks like sleeping with a gal or guy as a prelude to even considering if becoming a boyfriend and girlfriend would be a good idea. This means that in the general populace old reference patterns such as formal dating from just after WW2 may be out-of-date reference.

However, there is an opposite trend at play, with younger people becoming more conservative than their most recent ancestors. And that will mean less informal sex and more formal something romantic or social or whatever.

Actually, I think two technical exceptions may apply. I think a then-girlfriend and I insisted on actually calling it a date when we went to have some drinks one, in order to actually ever have had one. Once or twice words like, ‘okay, it’s a date,’ may have been exchanged with someone somewhere, mostly in jest or a dare, which could probably make it technically a date, I guess.

I am not at all sure how you define a “date.”

Whatever your definition, it needs to include a blind date, in which you agree to go out on some private social outing in order to become acquainted with a total stranger. Obviously, there are no moonlight intimacies promised there, not even so much as holding hands. It really ought to include a double date, in which two couples go on a date together. It also needs to include married-couple “date night,” which I hate to tell you does not always conclude with sexual intimacy either, married couples being exhausted so much of the time. If you arrive and leave on separate transportation, it is still a date.

I’d say a date is a social outing between persons of the opposite sex who are married, free to marry, or pretending that they are which has the primary purpose of paying attention to each other, rather than conducting business or simply getting nourishment or seeing entertainment without having to sit alone. That mutual attention is of a courting nature, rather than strictly a matter of philia.

A “bad date” is one in which one or both parties obviously reject the possibility of a courtship before the date is over. If it is going to be a good date, there has to at least be the pretense of a courtship interest being possible.

 

[Xantippe]

It also needs to include married-couple “date night,” which I hate to tell you does not always conclude with sexual intimacy either, married couples being exhausted so much of the time.

Funny!

 

[EasterJoy]

Funny!

Because a good marriage requires a sense of humor!!

 

[chevalier]

I am not at all sure how you define a “date.”

Usually by the word ‘date’ being used, which kinda makes all the difference. I usually don’t fall shy of hanging out some time or having a something or other or perhaps even asking out, but the noun ‘date’ by default connotes some sort of the aforementioned sitting in a tree kissing. Which is not the end of the world to do but an end of the world to explicitly propose to a stranger for sure! eek

Whatever your definition, it needs to include a blind date, in which you agree to go out to dinner in order to become acquainted with a total stranger.

Wouldn’t be unlike me per se, but I wouldn’t tolerate any sort of obvious mental association with advanced PDA being an implicit contingent in the offer.

It also needs to include married-couple “date night,” which I hate to tell you does not always conclude with sexual intimacy either, married couples being exhausted so much of the time.

You still get to keep your Steam subscription though, right? And your daily pint or two?

Because a good marriage requires a sense of humor!!

You surely meant ‘horror’?

 

[Xantippe]

Usually by the word ‘date’ being used, which kinda makes all the difference. I usually don’t fall shy of hanging out some time or having a something or other or perhaps even asking out, but the noun ‘date’ by default connotes some sort of the aforementioned sitting in a tree kissing. Which is not the end of the world to do but an end of the world to explicitly propose to a stranger for sure! eek

Wouldn’t be unlike me per se, but I wouldn’t tolerate any sort of obvious mental association with advanced PDA being an implicit contingent in the offer.

I am beginning to suspect that your usage of the term “date” doesn’t much resemble the American usage.

A “date” in American usage is an opportunity to get to know somebody better, with the door being open to a romantic relationship developing, but with the understanding that there’s no guarantee. It’s the formality of having a date and time and activity that makes it a date rather than “just hanging out”. A date is just like any other form of normal hospitality–the host does some research, makes some arrangements, and makes an invitation for a specific time, place and activity, and the guest is able to accept or refuse.

There’s no assumption (at least not by nice people) that some degree of physical intimacy is going to take place, no matter how minor. “Would you like to go for coffee and go look at the cherry blossoms?” means “Would you like to go for coffee and go look at the cherry blossoms?”

 

[Xantippe]

I should have given a link:

cherryblossomwatch.com/

For our DC CAFers, that would be a very nice April outing!

 

[Bataar]

I’m 36 and don’t date. Never have and unfortunately I don’t see that changing.

 

[chevalier]

I am beginning to suspect that your usage of the term “date” doesn’t much resemble the American usage.

A “date” in American usage is an opportunity to get to know somebody better, with the door being open to a romantic relationship developing, but with the understanding that there’s no guarantee. It’s the formality of having a date and time and activity that makes it a date rather than “just hanging out”.

Yes, and that’s already too forward for my taste.

I can’t stomach the explicit mention of discernment of the other as a potential mate, and that’s just what a date means.

A date is just like any other form of normal hospitality–the host does some research, makes some arrangements, and makes an invitation for a specific time, place and activity, and the guest is able to accept or refuse.

Nah, that would mean having a pint or three with a bunch of hairy dudes a date, something I’d prefer not to consider. The ‘date’ always connotes romantic discernment. It irks me to see the latter acknowledged so casually and yet formally.

You can technically have a date with your accountant, as in an appointment, but that’s not the way the word is normally used, it’s not what it’s normally understood to mean.

There’s no assumption (at least not by nice people) that some degree of physical intimacy is going to take place, no matter how minor.

Technically yes, but the path lies open. Discernment is of the essence, in any case, so when the word ‘date’ is used, the discernment of the other person as a potential mate has just occurred, which is still, I would even say, shocking to me, even though few things really phase me any more in terms of social interaction.

“Would you like to go for coffee and go look at the cherry blossoms?” means “Would you like to go for coffee and go look at the cherry blossoms?”

But of course. Which is why I would suggest grabbing a coffee by the cherry blossoms and not a ‘date’. The fact that a lot of sizing-up will be going on is better left unsaid. It feels more elegant, more civilized that way, even though I can also concede that there is an element of austere but noble honesty in openly acknowledging it the way the word ‘date’ does.

 

[Xantippe]

But of course. Which is why I would suggest grabbing a coffee by the cherry blossoms and not a ‘date’. The fact that a lot of sizing-up will be going on is better left unsaid. It feels more elegant, more civilized that way, even though I can also concede that there is an element of austere but noble honesty in openly acknowledging it the way the word ‘date’ does.

Well, here’s where it gets a little tricky.

I think you can get away with not using the word date if that’s implicit in the situation (for instance, meeting somebody off of an online dating site or getting set up for a blind date by a friend).

However, if it’s a person that you know well already but just as a friend or acquaintance or classmate or former coworker, I think it’s important to emphasize that this is an actual date and you are taking them out. Otherwise, they might not understand that you were at all attracted to them. They might assume that it was supposed to be a minor platonic social event or even (heaven forbid!) professional networking. That’s one of the reasons why I think coffee by itself is kind of a terrible date idea for people that already know each other pretty well–coffee is just too platonic and prosaic and associated with the working day.

 

[pianistclare]

What’s that old saying? You’ll never score a basket if you don’t take a shot".
How in the world do single people think they are going to find a match if they don’t ask anyone out?
That’s a real puzzler. Most everything requires action on an interested persons part. That how it works.

 

[Xantippe]

What’s that old saying? You’ll never score a basket if you don’t take a shot".
How in the world do single people think they are going to find a match if they don’t ask anyone out?
That’s a real puzzler. Most everything requires action on an interested persons part. That how it works.

Right.

Also, if what you’re currently doing isn’t working for you, do something different.

 

[pianistclare]

Also, I disagree with the notion that you should only go out with a person you want to marry. Talk about pressure, not to mention settling “because this is your one chance!”
That’s disastrous advice for young people.
The Catholic teens around here go “out” in small groups, and eventually, some pair off for big events like Homecoming or Prom. But they tend to reserve serious dating for well into college. They just don’t have the time to invest, nor do they have a lot of cash for movies and concerts. But they do date random friends. That’s the key: good, reliable, Catholic friends first, if at all possible.
Save the “discerning marriage” for a serious relationship.

 

[Burt_Macklin]

Also, I disagree with the notion that you should only go out with a person you want to marry. Talk about pressure, not to mention settling “because this is your one chance!”

Going out as friends is reasonable. However, I do think you should only date the type of person you might marry. Why go through the dating process and potentially become attached to a person that you would never enter into a serious relationship with? In addition I see it as cruel to lead someone on. If you never want to marry a non-catholic, a smoker, or a dog lover then you shouldn’t date one.

 

[Xantippe]

Going out as friends is reasonable. However, I do think you should only date the type of person you might marry. Why go through the dating process and potentially become attached to a person that you would never enter into a serious relationship with? In addition I see it as cruel to lead someone on. If you never want to marry a non-catholic, a smoker, or a dog lover then you shouldn’t date one.

Right. But don’t narrow it down unnecessarily (“I could never marry somebody who didn’t love Dr. Who as much as I do!” or “I could never marry somebody who wasn’t a slender redheaded trad royalist who loved anime!”). Some people get REALLY specific.

I think what pianistclare was getting at is that one shouldn’t expect to immediately want to marry the person you wind up marrying, especially if one is the person being asked out, and hasn’t had a chance to develop feelings the way the person doing the asking may have.

 

[Xantippe]

One does encounter people (including on CAF) who think of dating as Build-a-Bear.

They actually believe that they can create a mega-checklist of desired features and then go around comparing their dating prospects to the mega-checklist. And–surprise–that doesn’t work very well.

I’m not against having deal-breakers–but I think that one can’t have a dozen of them and expect to find a human being that meets all of the requirements.