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wispfoxOK, I'm all introspective (ok, perhaps that isn't all that noteworthy...) and stuff.
The idea of 'going on dates', as I believe it is generally understood, seems to be a combination of getting to know someone new and determining potential for a sexual relationship. It seems... odd to me to combine those two goals, because getting to know someone is, in my head, a perfectly delightful goal all on its own, and adding in conscious thought about a possible sexual relationship only adds large amounts of stress, confusion, and nervousness. It also makes it much more difficult to get to know a person entirely on the basis of who they are, rather than on future possibilities.
For me, getting to know someone _is_ an end goal, and generally one sparked by in-person meetings (sometimes planned, mostly not - and usually in decent-sized groups). I'd want to know more about them, whether I'm coming from a base of just having met them, or from some amount of knowledge gained before meeting them (online for example).
Sometimes, from friendship, comes the potential for some sort of relationship with includes sexual activity or the possibility thereof - but, for me, it always follows the friendship, and does not happen while trying to _form_ the friendship. (although, sometimes, I feel compelled to note, there has not been a whole lot of time between the two states. I've gotten much better at separating the two more clearly, since that _is_ how I work.)
It's true that, if I meet people online, I can form some level of interest in meeting them - certainly! But, for the most part, this is a fairly passive interest, and takes a fair amount (usually at least a few months of actual interaction) of time - I develop interest in meeting a person eventually, and won't, for example, feel a need to attempt to seek them out. This type of thing tends to result in me meeting a person at some sort of social activity that we'd both have been going to anyway. The actively seeking out also does happen based solely on online interaction (to my profound surprise), but ridiculously rarely.
So... I think that I'm very, very curious as to why it might make sense to any of you to do what I believe to be the 'typical' kind of dating, where getting to know people is simultaneous with investigating possibility of a sexual relationship. It seems... time-consuming, stressful, and not terribly effective for forming good bonds. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding something?
Note: I _do_ realize that there are cases where people meet, have an instant connection, and therefore the getting to know is simultaneous with _everything_. But those are special cases. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking so-called 'typical' forms of dating (for those who don't understand the concept of dating in the US - I think I've explained what I'm talking about in enough detail? Especially since I don't really understand it, either... and considering that that word can mean entirely too many things).
The idea of 'going on dates', as I believe it is generally understood, seems to be a combination of getting to know someone new and determining potential for a sexual relationship. It seems... odd to me to combine those two goals, because getting to know someone is, in my head, a perfectly delightful goal all on its own, and adding in conscious thought about a possible sexual relationship only adds large amounts of stress, confusion, and nervousness. It also makes it much more difficult to get to know a person entirely on the basis of who they are, rather than on future possibilities.
For me, getting to know someone _is_ an end goal, and generally one sparked by in-person meetings (sometimes planned, mostly not - and usually in decent-sized groups). I'd want to know more about them, whether I'm coming from a base of just having met them, or from some amount of knowledge gained before meeting them (online for example).
Sometimes, from friendship, comes the potential for some sort of relationship with includes sexual activity or the possibility thereof - but, for me, it always follows the friendship, and does not happen while trying to _form_ the friendship. (although, sometimes, I feel compelled to note, there has not been a whole lot of time between the two states. I've gotten much better at separating the two more clearly, since that _is_ how I work.)
It's true that, if I meet people online, I can form some level of interest in meeting them - certainly! But, for the most part, this is a fairly passive interest, and takes a fair amount (usually at least a few months of actual interaction) of time - I develop interest in meeting a person eventually, and won't, for example, feel a need to attempt to seek them out. This type of thing tends to result in me meeting a person at some sort of social activity that we'd both have been going to anyway. The actively seeking out also does happen based solely on online interaction (to my profound surprise), but ridiculously rarely.
So... I think that I'm very, very curious as to why it might make sense to any of you to do what I believe to be the 'typical' kind of dating, where getting to know people is simultaneous with investigating possibility of a sexual relationship. It seems... time-consuming, stressful, and not terribly effective for forming good bonds. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding something?
Note: I _do_ realize that there are cases where people meet, have an instant connection, and therefore the getting to know is simultaneous with _everything_. But those are special cases. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking so-called 'typical' forms of dating (for those who don't understand the concept of dating in the US - I think I've explained what I'm talking about in enough detail? Especially since I don't really understand it, either... and considering that that word can mean entirely too many things).
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-18 06:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-18 02:28 pm (UTC)Depends on the person. For some people, it _is_, but I believe for most people it is not. As well, there is a difference between the meaning for "going on a date" - usually intended to get to know someone better, often including overt interest in possibility for sexual activity - and the meaning for "dating" - generally if someone is said to be dating a specific person or persons, there already is some established potential or actual sexual activity going on.
I think there may be other variations on that damn word, which is part of why it's so confusing. People can also be said to go on dates with people they've been with for a while, in which case it's about nothing more than going out somewhere with them for a while, and people can go on dates with people who are nothing more than friends (same def as previous).
That is possibly the most confusing word _ever_. Which is why I put so much effort behind defining what I was attempting to use it to talk about.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-18 03:45 pm (UTC)You should try defining love. (:-)
(You do know that even people who are celibate can go on dates, right?)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-18 06:44 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2004-06-18 09:33 pm (UTC)I want a variant on "date" that means "two people hanging out together", like "coffeedate" or "dinnerdate" - not romantic, just a specific set time slot for a specific one-on-one event.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-20 09:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-18 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-20 06:45 pm (UTC)Very complicated, linguistically. *sighs at the confuzzlement*