Purposes of Dating

A lot goes into dating when someone does it in preparation for marriage. Choosing who to go on a date with is the first step. I don’t know of anyone who has gone on a date with every person that they’ve met because, as human beings, we use filters to help prioritize our time with everything else that needs to be done. Some of these filters are propinquity (access to that person such as a classmate, coworker, or friend of a friend), similarity (religion, politics, socioeconomic status, race, culture, and family), attraction (usually physically attracted to someone who looks familiar to our own family), commonalities (those on their way to divorce have 10 areas of significant incompatibility, and those who are happily married ALSO have 10 areas of significant incompatibility), and knowing the person.

To get to know someone, three factors are involved: togetherness, talking, and time spent being together. In general, it really takes about 3 months before you can really begin to know someone. After this amount of time, people become more relaxed and act themselves. They may have acted in a way to seem more attractive to the person who’s attention they were seeking.

Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for boys and girls to spend Friday or Saturday nights going on dates, not necessarily “going steady” even. Dating develops ability to cooperate with others and going on dates with a wide variety of people can even increase how much you value your future spouse. However, people feel so much pressure even going on just a first date. Dating has become a speed race to romance rather than a stepping stone to courtship, or exclusive dating.

There are so many benefits of dating, but before we get to that I’ll explain a little more about what dating is. It is common for young people to “hang out” where they spend time together and are able to get to know others but dating has 3 qualities that make it different than hanging out: it is planned, paired off, and paid for. As mentioned earlier, it is important to go on dates with several kinds of people. Also, doing various activities for dates because this elicits different conversations that can be learned from.

Many people say, “We’re dating, but we don’t go on dates.” Clarity and defining where you are in the dating relationship are vital to the wellbeing of the individuals in the relationship. The common practice is to just slide from hanging out, to being “together,” and then to engaged and marriage. Those involved did not participate in thinking about and conversation of where they are in the relationship and where they’d like to go next. Practices in a marriage are reflective of behaviors in dating. Without clear communication, problem solving, and making decisions about your relationship before marriage is good preparation for being able to talk about it during the marriage.

The benefits, or functions, of dating include: recreation, intimacy and companionship, finding someone to spend your life with, status attainment, and socialization. I have made many friends from going on dates with different kinds of people. Having that one-on-one time, or in a small group date, allowed me to have great conversations (or not so great ones that were slow and awkward) to learn from and practice social skills. My sister reminds me often that every dating experience is a good one. She means this in the sense that I can learn from the great dates and the bad ones too for my future relationships.