Guy meets girl. It's love at first sight. They have a flawless first date… and the next thing they know, they're blissfully riding off into the sunset.
Okay, you can wake up now. Aside from sounding like a badly made movie, it's more likely to have happened in the subconscious fancies of your dreams.
Let's face it; we've had more than our share of love gone sour, bitter heartbreaks, breakups and 'I-love-you-buts'. And we know dating doesn't always have happy endings. But do we dare to give up dating?
I often get a stubborn "no" and a shrug that says, "We can't do anything about it. That's how dating works. Besides, how else will I find that someone I'm destined for?"
Right. And for someone like me who hasn't completely grasped the whole dating idea yet, that sounds pretty scary. Judging from my friends' woe tales, dating doesn't appeal much to me. Do I have to go through all that? Isn't there anything better?
Not until recently have I found some of my concerns and doubts about dating answered in Joshua Harris' book I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
Harris presents the idea that dating is not the problem -- it's more than that. It's about our lifestyle involving our attitude and values about love and intimacy in relationships.
I became convinced that I have to be willing to break cultural rules to experience true love. So I have made a decision: I am not going to date.
But before you violently react and ask me, "Just because you read this book, you won't date?? Are you nuts?" hear me out and I'll tell you why. I have nothing against dating, but I realized that there are problems with it that I want to steer clear of.
- Dating lets you get intimate with someone without the commitment, contributing to broken hearts.
How many people enter a dating relationship with no real intention of sticking it out? They are those who would rather have the nice temporary pleasures that a pseudo intimacy can give them without having the security of commitment.
I suppose you can enjoy all the physical satisfaction if you want, have a "clean" breakup, and call it "short-term relationship," but at the end of the dating relationship, or worse yet, at the end of a series of dating relationships, deep down there is no real satisfaction, and there is even hurt.
I've seen friends who have wound up hurt from dating relationships that they originally intended to be "casual" and just for fun, but later it got messier because something else got involved -- their heart.
Intimacy without commitment is like going mountain climbing with a partner who doesn't want to be "tied down" by your relationship and decides not to hold your rope any longer.
- Dating tends to skip the friendship stage and head straight to the romance part, thus bypassing true intimacy.
The premise of dating is "I'm attracted to you, so let's get to know each other better." But let's be honest here. Does dating someone actually succeed in building friendships that are strong enough for the relationship to grow longer term? I'm talking about real, genuine friendship here. The kind where you don't feel pressured to know you "like" the guy and he "likes" you back.
If there is more physical contact than meaningful conversation, that's a pretty weak premise for building a satisfying, meaningful relationship that will stand any good chance to last longer and avoid the pain of breakups.
Intimacy without friendship is superficial, a half-baked version of true intimacy at best.
- Dating often mistakes a physical relationship for love.
In our culture where love's meaning is lost in obscurity, it can be easy to equate love with sex or it can be tempting to get swept away by "s/he makes me feel so good."
We often try to define love and limit it to the physical sense of the word, like something we can touch, sense or feel. True love and intimacy, on the other hand, involves much more than a mere physical connection. Genuine love involves connection on several levels: emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual.
And true love isn't selfish, seeking the fulfillment of self, but rather, it seeks the good of others.
A physical relationship without true love has only a selfish lust to boast of.
- Dating isolates couples from other vital relationships.
You may have heard this, either in your own heart, or from your love lorn friends: "When I'm with him/her, it seems as if everyone and everything in this world disappears. We're the only two people left."
Well, which world do they think they belong to? Maybe mars? How many of us really like it when one of our close friends neglects us and sees less of us because they're in the next new dating relationship with their great new boy/girlfriend?
The time, energy and money you spend on dating someone (or a string of people) steals from what you could have given to those who love you more. Those relationships in your life will probably outlast all your dating relationships.
- Dating can cause discontentment with your solo state.
Look around you. Couples are everywhere, so obviously revealing the fact that you are hopelessly alone. So what do we do? We get tangled in series of uncommitted relationships and we want do everything we can to be anything but single!
But we don't find the real beauty of our singleness in pursuing a whole bunch of often-shallow and half-baked relationships with as many different people as we want.
The beauty of singleness is freedom -- what better thing to do than enjoy it? Be open to receiving the freedom that this time of singleness can give and make the most of it.
Instead of focusing on what you don't have and pining after the next relationship, try learning to be content whatever the circumstance.
While these might not be reasons enough for you to decide to give up dating like I did, I hope it it has jogged your thoughts about your attitude towards dating and relationships. I know I can't say that this is the way to go for everyone, but it's a choice I've made to help me live my single life to the fullest enjoyment.
This new "no dating" attitude I'm talking about may sound radical to you but it sure leaves no room for insincerity, wasted time, or shallow relationships.
Am I planning to stay single for the rest of my life? Be an old maid? I don't think so. I know that somewhere in this world, because of God's love for me and his perfect plan for my life, he has the best match for me.
Until then, I'm going to live to make the most of this time of freedom to develop into my own person, so that I have more to bring into a relationship when that time comes.
Cherley is a student living in the Philippines and collects "I love you" in all languages. Copyright 2001 iamnext.com May not be used without permission.
Related reading:
