Note: Actual date written is unknown, my best guess is sometime in the Summer of '06 since other accurately dated blogs referring to this one start as early as Sept 06.
It is true. Never in my life have I ever dated and it is likely for the next few years I will yet to date. I think I should start with what I mean by dating because as many of the relationships I have seen with friends at church, they did not follow traditional dating as American society has portrayed it to be. Based on observations and talking to people around me, society as a whole believes dating is appropriate and initiated when an attractive person clicks or finds a minor connection, most likely physical connection to start. From that point a series of dates takes place and a couple's relationship carries on from there. Some win, most don't. I think you all understand what I mean by that form of courting. Through seeing its holes is how I have come to my beliefs about this topic.
The primary problems with the way dating is conducted is it lacks knowledge about the each other, focuses too much on the physical, and it is usually done too quickly. Mind you this is the initiation phase. Whether there is communication, trust, or other issues are more generalized once the relationship has some time to develop. I am tempted to say that dating people you don't know is the wrong course of action to getting to know someone.
I think it is best to get to know people in social environments such as parties, activities, classes, and the casual “hanging out”. Through those interactions a familiarity could build and turn to friendship. This is where many people go whoa; hold on, are you saying to date only friends? Well, yea. Friends are people who know you for who you are. They are not people who know about you or have seen you around, they have direct knowledge about you. With such a foundation of understanding we can know enough about each other and assess who we are compatible with.
I think society has a problem with this because friends are too hard to make and take too long to find. Mind you I am not talking about a common acquaintance I am talking to an actual friend. At the very least someone who shares similar values, beliefs, and interests. After all, who do people most often end up talking about their relationship issues with and why? It is always a friend. Now if relationships were built on a friendship which entailed knowing each other, perhaps certain issues could be better worked out when they come up. Maybe, this is the rougher areas of my theory because most people I present this theory to are so flustered that I am still talking about friends being the best candidates to date. At the very least someone should know more than the basics of a person, such knowledge requires moderate effort of being interested in a person as another human being. I have not yet decided if this will overflow into another blog which might be closer to a rant about how people are too preoccupied over physical attraction.
Another red flag usually rises when I tell people my stance is with the whole “what if you break up and then you can't be friends anymore or you lost a friend?” Well, this theory doesn't exactly allot for failure, that's one of the main points for knowing someone very well before you start a special part of human interaction. I believe the more honest someone is as a friend the better the probable success if a relationship is to start. At the very least the other major factor is how one's behavior changes once the "dating" starts to occur. After all so far this has explained the initiation circumstances. For the most part I think the people involved should conduct themselves the same way they did while they were friends. Those details are much sketchier mainly because I have never needed to think that far into the situation. Granted you have probably already thought I put way too much thought into this.
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