Friday, February 14, 2020
This week was fun in my class. We talked about preparing for marriage. The main focus of the discussion was the importance of dating.
The dating culture in my little town is bizarre. High School kids go to elaborate efforts to ask others to the school dances. It often involves posters, candy, doorbell ditching, and even flash mobs. Sometimes the efforts are video taped to post on social media later. After one is asked, the invited returns answer with equally elaborate plans. The kids don’t seem to feel that you can just call someone up and ask them on a date.
After the kids ask someone to the dance, they also plan a “day date” for before the dance. These often last several hours. These “dates” are a marathon! So much effort and money are put into these dates that the kids don’t date much between the events.
The college kids have struggles of their own. I think because they attend a religious institution that encourages focus on marriage, they get confused and skip right over casual dating to courtship. Meaning they don’t get to know many different people in different situations before they pair off exclusively. They pair off after one good date and get more serious than the relationship really warrants.
There are a few dangers in these practices. The all-important step of casual dating is being skipped. If you are casually dating, you don’t expect the relationship to become a romance. It doesn’t mean it can’t lead there, but that isn’t your focus starting out. Casual dating needs to meet three simple requirements. It needs to be planned, paid for, and paired off. There are a multitude of options. Ice cream and a walk around the park, hiking, cultural events, a picnic, roller skating, service projects, or cooking together.
Why does it matter whether or not you date a lot? Dating gives you the opportunity to understand what personality traits inspire, uplift, and recharge you. Going on more than one date with a person helps you to see how they will react in different situations. Are they head strong, bossy, or controlling? Are they patient, fun-loving, or talkative?
Casual dating also gives you the opportunity to hone skills you will need for a healthy marriage later. According to “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, we understand that some of mens main responsibilities are to preside, protect, and provide in a family. Women are primarily responsible for nurturing. Dating gives many opportunities to practice these roles. When a man makes the effort to ask a woman out and plan a date, he is presiding or organizing and overseeing the date. When he comes up with the resources to make the date happen, he practices providing. When he looks after the comfort and well-being of his date he practices protecting. Women are able to practice nurturing on a date as they make an effort to enjoy and engage in planned activities. She can help the man to understand what is important with her kind feedback. She can also nurture his self-confidence as she shows appreciation for his efforts.
I don’t want you to think that I am pushing for casual dating forever. Steady dating or courtship are a good and necessary step leading to engagement and marriage. When a young person is at a stage in life where they can commit to someone completely, steady dating is encouraged. I just think that when we skip to steady dating without a lot of casual dating first, we damage our chances of finding a truly good match for ourselves. We also miss out on the opportunity to develop the skills we will need to fill our roles later in marriage.
How can we shift the culture of dating back to a healthier one?
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This is a hard one. There weren't a lot of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later day saints, in the towns I grew up in. I dont think its wrong to go out with a non member but I also had goals to go to the temple and didnt want to change my standards to date non members. Personal preference.
ReplyDeleteI think the lack of opportunities also make people feel they have to jump right into a relationship after a first date or two. At least I felt like that happened to me. I think I also had low self esteem and did not think I deserved better. After two failed relationships with guys that werent bad people, but werent good for me, I worked on my self esteem and was open to casual dating. That's when I met my husband to be.
I think when we go into a date planning and worrying if it will lead to marriage, we cant fully enjoy getting to know a person as a person or enjoy the date either.
I think something we need to do better, is building each other up instead of taring each other down. The world tells us we have to be a certain way, and if we arent that way which noone is going to be. We began to feel worthless and sometimes that leads to desparateness or settling.
Another thing I would say we should work on. Is incouraging casual dating with our children. So many parents are okay with their kids being in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship while still in their younger teens and sometimes early then their teen years. This closes the door for casual dating. Now many of these kids in these type of relationships arent doing anything wrong, they are closing them self off to opportunities to know what they like and what they dont like.
Anyway so I think working on self esteem and encouraging casual dating starting in our homes is where it will hopefully start to change.
Encouraging our children was where my thoughts went as well. I can't really change my past, but I can still try to shape the future for my kids.
DeleteI have wished for a long time that the big dances in high school could be scaled down. Myh boys, for instance, feel like they've spent so much on the dance that they don't want to do other things. They also have the hardest time being with one person for that long when they don't know them well. I've struggled with how to do it and the answer is probably PTO, but even then, I don't know if changing a huge tradition is possible.
ReplyDeleteThe money is one issue, the extended time for a first date is another, and the idea that you must have a date but can't control if you are asked is yet another. It is a wonderful rite of passage in some ways, to get super dressed up, but I wonder if only 2 dressy dances and 3-4 fun themed a--school dances would be better for everyone.
We had a family home evening lesson about dating this week. We talked about how even a few kids could possible start a culture shift, at least at our high school. We encouraged our kids to be part of educating and setting the example for what fun, casual dating looks like. I guess you can only start with yourself and hope it catches on to those around you!
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