Many people seem to date complete strangers. Maybe even you do. Perhaps someone caught your eye at a party, in a classroom, or at work... there was a little bit of chemistry and you dated that person a few more times and decided to get serious. Perhaps weeks, or months later after seeing this person consistently, a revelation occurs. They are a completely different person that you had realised, and they have to go.
Dating Dating Dating. For so many people it is a rabid fascination. For many others it is an obssession. The desire to date is so strong that the number of people who are willing to date absolute strangers is probably astronomical.
We all love to date, but no one loves the mess that comes after. The trust that we place into those temporary fascinations teach us that we cannot trust anyone at all, keeping many from ever being able to truly love anyone.
The chase is always more exciting than the catch. Always. I know that finding someone with a certain amount of mystique and discovering what makes that mystique work, and the depths of interest that can be found in that mystique can be absolutely intoxicating.
Of course, it is also like the scene in the Wizard of Oz. Once the man behind the curtain is revealed, he no longer seems as powerful and interesting.
For guys, after the conquest is over and the mountain climbed, they are most likely to move on and find taller mountains to climb.
For girls, they are more likely to find a guy and project what she wants him to be over top of who that guy really is. Girls often will go at length to validate themselves with the approval of a boyfriend.
What can these observations show us? That dating complete strangers will usually not make us truly happy, and it often results in making us sad. Can this problem be solved? Absolutely.
The solution comes in the form of a new way of observing dating. We need to realize that we are the most constant thing in our lives. People may come and go out of our life, but at the end of the day, we must deal with ourselves. So we need to identify what our goals in life are and how we can get there.
We may meet someone who rocks our world, but if the relationship means that you lose yourself in that other person and completely ignore what you find valuable, such as friends, work or school, then that relationship will not make you happy.
I want to encourage everyone to set a higher standard in dating. Lots of people get lonely. And because of that loneliness, too many people are willing to date complete strangers. We should be dating people who compliment ourselves, and know will get to know who we are deep inside. The most rewarding relationship we can have will be with that person who knows all our flaws and weaknesses, and loves us regardless. Therefore I suggest we should not date strangers but people who we know well, and people who know us well.
This requires sacrifice. If there is a strong impulse to date someone right away upon first glance, my advice would be to slow down. It will be most rewarding in the long run to wait and find the person who suits you best than to date the first (or every) person you meet.
Tyrone is currently in his third year of english studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
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