Thanks for sharing your story Tiny Army. That is something I think about all the time: whether passion and a sort of spontaneous encounter comes first, or dating. I actually don't have any acquaintances that ever really "dated." This was
especially true in college. I grew up with the Leave it to Beaver upbringing, traditional and proper. To me, you meet someone you like and you ask them out on a date, and it's a very formal thing. My introversion is pretty extreme; I am good in very small groups of a couple people but when it comes to being out in the world I can only navigate society when there are set rules. When there are no set rules and you have to try to figure out all the "hidden" rules of society, I fail miserably.
For example, my parent's friends are kind of socialites and some of the most extreme extroverts I have met (very nice people) and they know I am single so they are always on the lookout for someone who might be a good fit with me. They gave me the phone number of this girl they met this weekend for me to call. To me, the first call should be about asking her out on a first date. But, people in my age group in general would not even be doing what I am doing, going through this formal process. They might call but the word "date" would never enter into the equation. Instead, they might go through vague, amorphous processes of meeting at a certain time & place but god forbid it be called a date because certainly that is an outmoded way of thinking from a world gone by... Never having a first date means you never have a second date. So, what stage of the relationship are you at? Well, one person thinks one thing (that it's serious) and the other person thinks another thing (that it's not) because there is no common lingua franca, no enthymemes, that both people can use as guideposts. So, eventually people hook up and one person wasn't ready or the other wasn't, because they either are or are not a couple but we can't even use the word couple to describe them because they have not been existing in this by-gone world of "dating" or "relationships" so how would they know in the first place anyway.
For me, this vagueness means I cannot understand what the other person is trying to communicate to me socially, and I cannot therefore conceptualize how to communicate socially back at them. Are they expecting me to move to the next level, what is that even, do they want to move things forward/backward/up/down/left/right? At this point, I feel like if I even ask someone out on a date they will look at me like I'm not speaking English or like I'm from another planet or a time traveler from centuries in the past. I may as well mention I want to "woo" them.
And this plays out further down the line too. I know so many people who have 2-3 kids and are living with a guy, but yet they're not married, don't "believe" in marriage (either you believe in commitment or you don't, marriage is just another word for commitment) and don't really have what could be called a "family." Is this the result we're finally truly seeing in the world of so many divorces and broken families etc., that people think this is normal and that's what they want, or are they afraid to have a family because they think it will be broken, and therefore we are as a society steering away from terms and concepts like dating, relationships, marriage, and family?
I don't get it...
This is a crude summary of something that should probably be a 5-10 page essay in a blog or something, but I saw this as a possible opportunity to bring this up on-topic in a thread. Does anyone else also "not get it?" I mean, if you told me I had to swim through a lake of fire and then walk across a desert of broken glass to reach my goal of being with someone, I'd say, "Awesome! I finally know the parameters and what's required to accomplish the goal, so I can begin my journey." Not knowing how to conceptualize the journey itself I cannot begin to prepare for reaching the goal. I mean, I can't even count on a wedding ring to let me know if someone's taken because most of the people I know who have kids and are living with someone aren't even married or engaged... I search for clarity on this in the world on a daily basis and find none, it has become truly maddening... :crazy: