*points at a comment made in the comment you replied to*
people can go on dates with people who are nothing more than friends
But the thing is, this is _not_ the typical idea of a date. And it's not the kind of date for which knowing someone's availability makes any sense.
It's far, far closer to what _I_ do when I go on dates with people, and I rarely actually use that phraseology for the reasons of severe confusion. To _me_, 'going on a date' implies one-on-one, and requires that I've at least met someone, preferably more than once. It does _not_ imply anything but getting to know a person better, and implies a (generally stated on my part) interest in getting to know the person better in order to develop a friendship.
I tend to avoid the word 'date' when indicating interest in knowing people better, because of the confusion factor. I technically, at least in the common usage of the word, don't 'go on dates', except with people I'm _already_ involved with. I go hang out with people, I do things with people, but I don't call it a date.
Yes, I'm aware that it's nit-picky terminology stuff, but this is _important_ - there are entirely too many words which mean entirely different things to different people, and most of them don't realize this fact.
(Also, I feel like I'm starting to have to repeat myself in trying to explain things to you, which is frustrating the hell out of me, and probably implies a fairly basic disconnect and low level assumptions being made on one or both of our parts)
no subject
people can go on dates with people who are nothing more than friends
But the thing is, this is _not_ the typical idea of a date. And it's not the kind of date for which knowing someone's availability makes any sense.
It's far, far closer to what _I_ do when I go on dates with people, and I rarely actually use that phraseology for the reasons of severe confusion. To _me_, 'going on a date' implies one-on-one, and requires that I've at least met someone, preferably more than once. It does _not_ imply anything but getting to know a person better, and implies a (generally stated on my part) interest in getting to know the person better in order to develop a friendship.
I tend to avoid the word 'date' when indicating interest in knowing people better, because of the confusion factor. I technically, at least in the common usage of the word, don't 'go on dates', except with people I'm _already_ involved with. I go hang out with people, I do things with people, but I don't call it a date.
Yes, I'm aware that it's nit-picky terminology stuff, but this is _important_ - there are entirely too many words which mean entirely different things to different people, and most of them don't realize this fact.
(Also, I feel like I'm starting to have to repeat myself in trying to explain things to you, which is frustrating the hell out of me, and probably implies a fairly basic disconnect and low level assumptions being made on one or both of our parts)