Dating should never be recreational

[Maul the Koala]

I thought this was timely, considering our discussion on Natalie Nyquist and when courtships fail

facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=420000478032461&id=116566781709167

What is the purpose of dating/courtship? Is it for the purpose of getting to know a person? Or is it for recreational purposes?

Do we want to be cultivating "romantic love" toward a person before we know if they are fit to marry?

~Paul

Susanny Danny Satterlee

Dating/courting should never be recreational. It should only be for someone you intend to marry, or is at least marriage material (something you should know by friendships and sometimes family input) the dating/courting allows you to know if the two of you can really make a marriage work, and really do. Its a time to open your heart to more intimacy (but not physical) most areas you can cover in just friendship... Which is why I know many people who skipped the dating all together. But sometimes it doesn't work like that. Like with my first boyfriend, 5 years of deep friendship and family approval... 2 months of dating & everything fell apart. Its okay to break up or even end an engagement. But never open up your heart to that intimacy if you don't have plans for marriage... In my experience/opinion

Bethany Watkins

Dating/courting/wooing/etc (I don't think the term matters so much, what matters is we do it in a Christ honoring way) should never be recreational. It should be for getting to know a person further, with the end goal of marriage in mind.

Note: initially "knowing/knowing of/observing character" should be done in group settings.

So it's not like you're just walking up to someone you've just met and saying "hey, let's start dating because I'd like to marry you." It's something done prayerfully, carefully, and, in my opinion, it's something God leads you into. I firmly believe if we hand Him the area of our life, He with faithfully show us the way when the time comes.

I find this a very interesting topic. Growing up there was some pressure that dating wasn't supposed to be recreational in my peer group. You were only supposed to date people you were serious about marriage. I carried that well into my 20s. I might be the minority but I found it pretty self-destructive. That's a lot of pressure to be putting on a new relationship. I don't know, that's just my experience.

[luckystone]

Yes, that's a tough one. I can understand if you want to get married then you might view dating as "wasting" time with other people (and break ups can leave you very upset). But the alternative isn't great either. How do you know if somebody you are going to court wants to get married? Even if you discuss this before you go on a date, just because you both want marriage eventually, doesn't mean you want it together. And like one of your quotes mentioned, sometimes even great friendships don't work out in other ways.

I'm not sure what the right answer is. I've only had two relationships, and I was pretty destroyed after the first one ended (it was fairly long-term and I didn't want it to end). But my new partner is soooo much better and overall the relationship is much happier and healthier than my last (and my partner's last too). I was so happy with my ex though, I would never have ended it, and then I'd never know.

[Maul the Koala]

Oh for crying out loud

(the facebook page cover photo)

[crassy]

I must be doing it wrong because my reason for going out on dates was to get laid.

[Soldevi]

Thank heavens that Finnish language doesn't have similar verbs for seeing someone, only one which covers all types of forms from religious courting to sex-targeted dating...I can't stand this kind of stupidity with semantics.

And why romance and marriage are opposites? I dated both in mind.

[FlorenceHamilton]

Oh for crying out loud

(the facebook page cover photo)

Beside the fact that this is a total lie. Dating is not more random than Courtship. In fact, the woman gets very little ability to screen eligible males for her preferences. What she gets is based on a brief overview/interview done by her father. As for romance, it seems to me that the whole obessession with the Victorian thing is totally obssessed with romance. People who date also value romance, along with a whole lot of other stuff like compatibility, similar interests, sense of humor, goals and trajectory. Dating can and should be recreational, however, it is the process of figuring out what qualities that attract us are the ones that will sustain us for the long haul. I will give the funies the fact that the ONLY reason for folks of opposite gender to interact is to plan and execute a marriage relationship and to procreate. This from people who think that we are created by deity to be more than just animals. News flash. There is no way to practice for divorce. The breakup of a courtship or a dating relationship is very painful. A divorce is a whole different level of hell. Rose colored glasses vs magnifying glass. Please refer to comments about romance above.

[Peas n carrots]

Eh? It seems like they are making up their own definition for dating. I never dated anyone with marriage in mind, but I was open to the potential if things went well. But there was no build up of expectations either, as there seems to be with their definition of courtship.

Ok, and I admit sometimes I dated to get laid too!

[apple1]

Oh for crying out loud

(the facebook page cover photo)

I'm sure I shouldn't bother, and FJ is preaching to the choir on this anyway, but...

After DATING (yes, it was dating) the man, I married him. We did not practice for divorce while dating. Neither of us needed a protector; we were both 24 year old adults. As for rose colored glasses, I will just say that the courtship people have the craziest rosy glasses I have ever seen.

In a few days this post-dating marriage will have lasted 35 years.

[gezykah]

Oh for crying out loud

(the facebook page cover photo)

Dating is unprotected? I could make a joke right now about always using protection but seriously you learn so much more in so many ways about protection through dating. Being passed from your father's headship to some man he tells you is your type protects you from any sort of independence but that's about it.

[Dixiebelle]

It seems to me that a breakup from courtship would be MORE catastrophic, heartbreaking, and similar to "practice for divorce". :?

[Muriel]

They are so stupid... I know plenty of examples that contradict that :angry-banghead:

I dated a lot between 15 and 21, then at 21 I started dating the man I'm still living with 22 years later, we have been married 19 years and are still very happy !

I don't think I could have achieved that without dating first, I had to try different men, learn about being sexually active with them (at 18 for me, I wasn't ready before), I'm sure I would have missed some very important steps if I had to do this courting thing... Poor fundy girls...

Dating is part of education in my opinion, my 16yo daughter has currently her first serious dating relationship and we talk a lot about it, she is happy and healthy and growing to be a functioning adult ;)

[holothuroidea]

Well, like almost everything else it is highly individual. I never really "dated." I had a high school sweetheart and broke up with him and found my DH in college. So I have had two committed relationships and that's pretty much it. I never had a goal of marriage in mind, I just followed my "heart" really. My goal was just to love someone and be loved.

I hate these blanket prescriptions for the way things should be. Everyone has different goals in relationships. I think the only important thing is to only engage with people who have the same goals as you, so as to be considerate of other people's feelings.

Wanting to get laid is no less noble or valid a reason to engage with someone than wanting a traditional Christian marriage.

[DomWackTroll]

Dating/courting/wooing/etc (I don't think the term matters so much, what matters is we do it in a Christ honoring way)

Wait, I thought "wooing" was what daddies did to their own daughters! That's what Doug Phillips says, anyway.

visionforumministries.org/events/fdr/

[ElphabaGalinda]

Dating's a lot less random than courtship because you deliberately pick the person you date out of a lot more options, where as in courtship you pick the first random guy who meets your parents' specification. And how is dating practice for divorce? If you never expect to get married that makes no sense. Not everyone dates recreationally. I'm not dating my gf for the purpose of marriage, but if everything goes well, i'm not against the possibility in a few years. Rose-coloured glasses is also something I thinks should be moved to the courtship side. When you're dating, you understand it's possible it won't work out and it's not the end of the world. And you also know that relationships should be a partnership. While in courting, you're with God's one true choice for you, so if it doesn't work out your life is ruined forever, but of course it will, because God chose the perfect one! And if it doesn't, then you MUST have done something wrong. Also courtship's a lot less protective, since you don't really get to know someone before getting engaged, there's a much bigger chance you're marrying a monster. (which could happen through dating, but I think through courtship there's a bigger chance, because mom and dad's screening process is easier to lie your way through than a real relationship.

[ilovetchotchkes]

Hummm... From what I always understood it, today's method of "dating" is better because you get to see what TYPE of person you want to marry. Like, do you want someone who wants to hike and parasail every week? or do you want someone who prefers to putter in the garden. If you marry the first guy who comes along... its just... ugh. What if you're a garden putterer and your "headship" wants to go off hiking the grand canyon every weekend.

Oh wait, I forgot, you're supposed to give up everything YOU love.

This whole patriarchy fundy thing disgusts me SO much.

[fencesitter]

What crap... I had many dates in my younger years and they weren't random. And although I did not start datign with a plan to get married to every guy, I had a 6-week rule. If aftr 6-weeks, I knew they weren't marriage material or we weren't compatible in general I ended it. Not because we were getting married but because I didn't feel like putting up with some boy's BS.

[ThisOlGirl]

I must be doing it wrong because my reason for going out on dates was to get laid.

Then there are tons of fundies out there doing it wrong regarding courtship. I'm convinced that the biggest reason so many of them get married so young is that they're really, really reallyreallyreally horny.

[snarkbillie]

The phrase "deep friendship" irks me quite a bit. Are you giving some of your heart during "deep friendship" that you should be saving for courting? I don't know. I didn't do the whole courting thing so I don't know what "deep friendship" means, but it sounds like some kind of serious relationship and I thought courting was about avoiding serious relationships until you're engaged?

[MarciaBrady]

A magnifying glass? Really? Am I supposed to believe that totally honest answers are being given when Mommy and Daddy are hovering three feet away, monitoring every word that's being said. There doesn't seem to be a point in even asking a question during courtship - they're not going to get a real answer. They're going to get the answer that person's parents have decided they should give.

I would imagine courtship conversations are a lot like a really wholesome episode of The Bachelor, where two strangers try to talk themselves into feeling some kind of connection they don't really feel, and the same old, tired cliches get spouted over and over.

[Avalondaughter]

Who said dating never has marriage in mind anyway?

When I was a teen I wasn't thinking of marriage when I dated, but I would sometimes get dreamy and think of people who married their high school sweethearts.

The only serious boyfriend I had in college and I felt we were too young and umprepared for marriage, but it's not as if we didn't occasionally fantasize about how things could be different if we were older and more settled in life.

After college I had some recreational relationships, but once I was more established in my life, I really was hoping that eventually I would meet the man I wanted to marry. I talked quite seriously about marriage with my last boyfriend.

I'm also confused about these endless recreational settings. Is picking your boyfriend up at the airport recreational? Is having him help you move furniture recreational? Is taking him some soup when he's sick recreational? To me that's practicing being selfless for someone you love - a pretty good trait in marriage no?

[gardenvarietycitizen]

It's interesting to me how the "usual" American dating scene has changed, anyway. Most people I hear about now, and people when I was of dating age, essentially practiced "serial monogamy" - at any given time, they were/are dating ONE person. If they break up, that person becomes the ex, then they're on the market, and start dating someone else.

But listening to stories of (American) women relatives who did their dating in the 50's, it seems that back then it was completely normal to date many boys at one time, you could say "Yes, I'll go on a date with you Friday" and have a date with another boy (who also knows this is happening) Saturday. Or "I'm sorry, I can't go out with you Friday, because I already have a date with Steve." Then it was some big deal to move to the next step and go out exclusively with ONE boy, to "go steady."

Nowadays it seems that people either go out in groups of friends (mixed groups) where they're not "with" anyone, or else they're starting out already "going steady" even if that only lasts 2 weeks.

Makes me wonder why/how it changed, just generally, but also I wonder how the fundies would think of that old system, if they're so upset now about the whole "serial monogamy" thing. If that's "practicing for divorce" would simultaneously dating more than one boy be worse? Or would that be less of a problem because you aren't giving away your heart yet, or what?

[mebeforee]

That's how my dating experience was ('going steady' from the start), which I found kind of annoying, actually, because there were two boys I really liked and while I'm sure one of them wouldn't have minded my dating them both casually until I knew them better, the other one was very jealous and basically said "this isn't tv!" to me. I ended up dating him, and I actually regretted that decision later because we were not a very good match.

That's one of the reasons this whole system bothers me so much. If I'd subscribed to this belief, I'd be married to that guy right now, and I'd be miserable. I was attracted to him, and I liked him as a person, but we had very different ideas on what our futures would be like and what kind of family we wanted. Even if you spend time with someone ALONE (gasp!) before you start dating, the relationship changes significantly once you become a couple. Part of this is because they are no longer trying to impress or charm you, and the longer you spend with them, the more you see the negative sides of them as well as the parts of their personality that are not compatible with yours.

Dating isn't practice for divorce, it's practice for relationship problem-solving. Jumping into marriage without the skills you learn from dating doesn't necessarily doom the relationship, but I wouldn't want to do it. I remember the stupid shit that I/my boyfriend did out of lack of understanding how to relate to each other or compromise, partly because we didn't yet know the things that would upset us or what was most important to us within the relationship. That's important stuff to know, and not something that people can just tell you. They might agree that, 'yes, I want a large, religious family, with disciplined and obedient children who love the Lord', but when actually teaching/disciplining the children has to be done, people can disagree greatly on the way to do it and what situations call for it. You kind of have to SEE how your partner is with you/others/children before you know how they'll be as a parent or spouse.

[holothuroidea]

I don't think courtship has anything to do with love, unless fundies are willing to admit that love only exists within their system (then I would be completely confident in calling them "delusional"). The only point of "courtship" that I can see is stopping adolescents (specifically female adolescents) from engaging in sexual behaviors by restricting their access to the opposite sex. Unfortunately this seems to extend well into adulthood in some cases.

Not to mention that it is completely normal and developmentally appropriate for adolescents to engage in sexual behavior. I don't encourage the repression of that.

People should be allowed to develop their own sexuality on their own terms.

[Kitty]

If you're dating/courting/whatever with marriage in mind, you're fucking yourself over before you even get started. You might develop actual feelings for the person you're courting, but those feelings never develop beyond infatuation, which isn't love. Then before you know it you're engaged because you don't have much of a choice, and then married to someone you realize you barely know. And divorce is never an option.

It's why dating without a goal in mind is far superior. If it doesn't work out, well, that sucks but it's much easier to move on. If it does, great! You're married. And with dating, YOU choose who you date. Your parents might supervise if you're young teenagers, but it's still not like your parents "introduce" you to the person you're dating. I've read about way too many fundies who have gone along with courtships just because their parents expected them to.

I didn't have a serious boyfriend until, well, now, but it's not like we're still in that infatuation stage. We do know each other far better after nearly a year than fundie couples do. Fundie relationships are really shallow and immature, and I always feel like I'm reading a 12 year old's diary whenever I read a fundie's blog about courtship. That's not the sort of thing that leads to a long, happy marriage.

[JaChelle Sugar]

Then there are tons of fundies out there doing it wrong regarding courtship. I'm convinced that the biggest reason so many of them get married so young is that they're really, really reallyreallyreally horny.

do they get married young though? you'd think since there parents are so picky they'd all be like Sarah Maxwell and the J'Slaves. I can't think of any young fundies marrying.