Lack of Exposure to Dating

[Patrick0510]

I’m an 18 year old male in college for the sake of contextualizing these statements.

As painfully hard to accept as the Catholic Church’s sexual ethics teachings are to accept at time (for me), I do and do intend to practice chastity throughout my life.

Moving on, I get the teachings and understand them yet at the same time I absolutely do not understand them. Here is why. My real exposure to relationships in High School was kind of unfortunate from this point of view. All my friends, close, medium, and distant, had relationships that basically revolved around sex. The goal for the guy was to get sex while the girl offered that in exchange for less physical and verbal affection. At this point, I have never dated or kissed anyone which I am relatively content with. I recognize that other people have much bigger problems than me.

So, as I think about dating in my future I have kind of run into a hypothetical obstacle, I have absolutely no idea what a relationship between young adults is supposed to look like. (The fact that I don’t know or am attracted to any girls who also are chaste is a problem, but I am confident I’ll figure that out somehow.) The idea of dating or being in a relationship are inseparable from a sexual relationship in my mind.

I am here to ask anyone with advice, thoughts, comments, feedback, anecdotes, resources (I am familiar with Jason Evert) etc. to share with me anything that might be beneficial. Thank You and Merry almost Christmas!

 

[Aggies08]

My DH and I had the same background. We were both 20! Met in College through mutual friends. 2007ish

I’d just say that all you really do is become friends with a girl you meet in groups- class together, church group, llama lover’s association, whatever. If you click, then ask her to dinner or something. It’s just friends going out, is how it always seemed to me, except that was also that physical/etc “attraction” as well.

If you find someone, see them alone a few times, etc- you would be comfortable enough to say “I’ve never actually dated before!” and take it from there.

As for meeting someone, look for like-minded individuals. If you know any guys that are practicing Catholics, they would probably help you meet and girls who are active catholics, etc. If the guys you hang out with are only out to sleep with a girl asap, then that’s the type of girl they would be most likely to introduce you to- one who shares those values.

 

[3DOCTORS]

I wish you well in your search and commend you on your intentions to do the right thing. You may have a difficult time believing this, but I was in high school in the 1970s and turned 18 in 1980, and am female, and it was pretty much the same for me and still is. I did not marry, and currently am not dating, but if I were to start dating again it’d be the same issue. The majority of available men my age would expect sex during dating, and it’s been this way no matter what age demographic I was in. The sexual revolution and the high percentage of persons willing to fornicate have pretty much ruined it for those not willing to.

That being said, there has been some movement back toward chastity and there is more support for it now in your age group if you can find the right people. Good luck to you and God bless!

 

[twoangels]

Its important to understand that dating is our invention. Marriage is God’s invention. Because we are a society that chooses to choose our own marriage partners, the proper idea behind dating/courtship is to not marry impulsively. In other words, it is there to build a special friendship with the person to discern marriage. You are in some ways actively slowing the development of the relationship down. Its not just sexual passions you’re restraining. Its aspects of your heart as well.

Its very easy, though, to overthink it. Frankly, I think this is where the concept of courtship becomes more idealogical than practical. Its easy to overthink, common to be ackward about it, and even common for young people to rationalize rushing the development of the relationship to call it courtship (like courtship because its oriented toward discerning marriage should be more serious than dating)

I think the best book I ever came across on the subject is “Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar.” You can look it up on Amazon. It tracks the evolution of the courtship/dating culture through articles written on aspects of it over a lengthy timespan. It gives a lot of food for thought and helps you meditate on what marriage is. I think its really meditating on marriage that helps to get the approach at least closer to right when you’re discerning marriage with someone.

 

[llenadegracia]

I am also in college and definitely recognize how hard it can be to figure out what a healthy relationship should look like. I advise finding a good Christian (ideally Catholic) couple that has been dating for a while and is heading towards marriage. Or a young couple just married within the last year or two. The reason I really stress young is because those closest to us in age often share the same hardships and similar culture in comparison to someone who got married 30 years ago (though obviously they have super great wisdom too!).

Keep hope. Don’t give up. It IS worth it. There is a special girl out there waiting for a young man to sweep her off her feet and show her how a good, Catholic man should treat a woman. You are worth it. She is worth it.

 

[chevalier]

Don’t worry, Patrick, you don’t need to have kissed anyone or anything of that sort. There is no real accomplishment in that. Ultimately, it’s basically about sharing a life, a large part of which is having children together and bringing them up. Physical affection is just one of the aspects of it (and not totally unique to it, either, as some time ago people men still hugged other men). Lack of an idea as to what a relationship should look like is actually a common problem but not everybody gets around to naming it. I suppose a lot of sexual or semi-sexual activity happens just because people can’t come up with any other idea, which is not far from saying it happens out of boredom. Well, not really, but close.

Being able to imagine some things you could do together might actually be a good gauge of how well matched you are and perhaps how serious or genuine about the relationship. If you meet someone you actually want to share your life with, you want to spend time with that person, learn about her, involve her in her activities. Since you care for her, you’re genuinely interested in her life, and you want her to grow. Not just simply to use her for entertainment (and I’m not even saying just sex here).

You do need to have things to do together and thinks to talk about or else it may be hard to have and maintain a meaningful relationship with her throughout your lives. Because it’s not just a couple of weeks or months of dating, it’s a couple of decades living together in the perspective. It would be difficult to be friends with a guy you had no interests together with, right? It’s similar with a wife you don’t have common subjects with.

On the contrary, if you have no common interests or subjects, it may suggest that the relationship is forced: for example you met a pretty girl and it was hard to pass up, you thought you were supposed to do something about it etc. None of that! You’re a free man, you can make your own decisions, and need to. Initially, dates seem to be all or most of the relationship but later on going out together will be just one aspect of being together in general (that is, being together in life rather than on dates).

In short, you’re looking for a woman to share your life with.

 

[TraderTif]

I would just try to relax about it.

I was in the same boat as you, except that I’m a girl, and I was almost 30.

Then, right here on the CAF, I started chatting with someone, which turned into a long-distance relationship, eventually leading to engagement and marriage. And it didn’t matter that I’d never dated, never kissed anyone, and basically had no clue what I was doing. I figure that every relationship is unique, and there’s no script. It didn’t matter that I’d never really seen a healthy relationship before, we figured things out as we went.