The Dating Game

     When you look at how dating was when your parents, or even your grandparents, were young, it is vastly different from how dating is today. There was no Tinder or Mutual. Dating was only “mutual” when you met through mutual friends. Which was, actually, how it happened a lot. Back then, you met people by going out and talking to people. That, or someone you know introduced you. Nowadays, you usually meet people online.

    Call me old-fashioned, but I do not use dating sites or apps because I would much rather meet someone in person and get to know them, instead of judging someone based off their initial appearance. I also feel like dating today is not taken that seriously. It is a lot more “hanging out” rather than going on dates.

    In class this week, we talked about how there are four stages of dating: dating, courtship, engagement, and marriage. I really enjoyed looking at these stages, and how it is important that we go through these steps without skipping over them. The main ones that are often skipped over or not gone through properly are dating and courtship.

    Dating is that initial getting to know one another stage. It is where you go out on dates before you are in a committed relationship. And like I mentioned before, there is a difference between dating and just hanging out. For something to be a date, it needs to have The Three P’s. They are planned, paid for, and paired off.  When a date is planned, it goes to show that thought and effort have been put into the date. You don’t get together and have the “what do you want to do?” banter.

    When it comes to the “paid for” part, it does not necessarily mean that money has been spent. There are plenty of fun, free dates that you can do. However, when a date has been “paid for” it once again has had effort put into it. It means that everything needed has been provided. For example, if you are going on a hike for your date, the car has enough gas to get you to where you need to go and you are dressed accordingly.

    The “paired off” part is a bit self-explanatory. When you are going with a group, it is clear who is on a date with whom. For example, I recently went on a triple date with friends to a Haunted Mill. It was a lot of fun and we all interacted with each other, but we all knew who our date was, and that was who we spent the most time with. We walked through the attraction as a group, but we were still walking next to our date.

    When you decide that you want to date someone exclusively, that is when you enter the “courtship” stage. It means you are seriously dating that one person. However, you are still spending time together and going on dates. Just because you are in a relationship with someone, it does not mean that it is no longer important to go on dates and do activities with one another. I have seen friends who were in a relationship with someone, but they did not take the time to still do special things with each other. It was more of a label. A lot of those relationships ended up not working out because they were not spending the time to really get to know one another.

     Personally, I have never made it past the Dating stage. However, I still know how important it is to be ready to take the next step to be in a committed relationship with someone. We need to be prepared, personally, to take that next step.