Now, I admit that I’m no lethario. The number of dates I’ve been on can probably be counted on fingers alone (at least the ones where it was agreed that a date was in progress). But still, I grew up in the 80’s and I learned to live based on cheesy family sitcoms like Full House, Family Matters, and the like. And it taught me a lot, about not judging people, learning to trust and when not to trust, and also that eating disorder problems can be solved in 23 minutes if you’re willing to listen to your dad. But I digress, I still have a classical view on what dating should be.

Dating (in my opinion and I hope a few other people’s opinions still) should be about getting to know a person. The stages are supposed to be:

-Being single
-Finding someone who meets your physical qualifications
-Dating that person and finding out about them
-”Going steady” or the equivelant terminology for “being exclusive”

…and beyond that - you know the story. My point is - you get to know a person AFTER agreeing to date them. I’m tired of living in a society where we decided that we “don’t have the time for wasting on dating people who we won’t be marrying” or something like that. I really don’t want to wax intellectual on eugenics and stuff, but I will say that the reason many of us are unhappy is that we’re going about things the wrong way. I realize that we are all ultimately hoping to meet “the perfect someone”, but it’s horrible to pick and choose DATING based on that qualification. The best you can do is find someone who offhand fits a loose physical description - your “perfect someone” shouldn’t be so narrowly-defined. The trick is to NOT be picking a perfect match. Your goal should be finding someone who’s decent enough - because a decent match has a better chance of BECOMING a perfect match later on. Don’t waste weeks trying to learn the intricacies of someone’s life BEFORE you date them.

You date them and learn as you go.

Aaron Samuels wrote this on May 1st, 2005 and filed it under Dating, Internet Dating, Single Life |