My boss, Mrs. P, and I had a discussion this morning. I won’t bore you with all of the details or what led up to it because it is intensely personal and not something I want to share with the world, but it provoked an interesting question.
Mrs P read a book a while back, before she met Mr. P. It is called “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” by Joshua Harris. She loaned it to me, however I’ve been home 5 minutes and haven’t finished it yet. Ok…I haven’t even started it yet, but she explained the theory behind the book. She says it changed her life and when she first met Mr. P, he also had read the book and it just made sense for their life.
The gist of the book is that society today has messed up ‘the dating game’. It says that in the olden days, the biblical days, even just 100 years ago, people didn’t just date for fun. They generally didn’t date for 2+ years, they didn’t date person after person and delay marriage. They ‘courted’ for sometimes a few days, a few weeks or at longest, a few months, and then married or if they found some serious personality flaw in that person, they moved on and courted someone else and eventually married. The end goal always being marriage.
Mrs P is of the opinion that the dating game that exists today is the wrong way to do things, that it promotes heartache, temptation and other things. Now, let me take a moment to explain THEIR relationship, or what I know of it.
They met on a Christian dating website. They talked online and on the phone for just a few months and they both took a leap of faith and “listened to God” and when she went to California for the first time to meet him, they already had a wedding date set and a deposit down on a reception hall. A month after her arrival (she stayed with a female friend of his from a bible study group), they were married and they kissed for the first time at the altar. They wanted to “avoid even the appearance of evil” and thus were not alone together for any extended amount of time, they didn’t sleep in the same room or even the same house. They believe that if two people live in faith and live by God’s word, the marriage cannot fail.
So here is my question for you….do you think there is something to that? Have we turned to dating for fun, for companionship as a substitute for something more serious? Are we “serial daters” now? To answer this question, I’ve devised a fancy little poll. I can’t wait to hear your answers and your comments too, and no, I don’t have an ulterior motive in gaining answers from this poll, I’m undecided myself and need to give it some thought, I just wanted to hear what everyone else had to say!
I do think that dating should be the way you find out more about someone & if you are ready to commit your life with them. I do think you should know someone fairly well before you marry them, but there is no way you can know everything about someone until you’ve been married a long time!! There has to be things you are willing to compromise on, of course. I think marriage is 100% from both sides.
I have serious issues with the whole “courting” thing. It is outdated. 100 years ago my son would be looking to court someone…..
Just as things changed from the Old Testament to the new…….I prefer to think of God as a little more up with the times and understanding of the world we live in. Understanding of our longer life expectancies and the fact that people no longer live in a bubble. 100 years ago our great grandmothers were also stuck in loveless marriages that felt the couldn’t leave because of their beleifs, or their economic standing. I think that as educated, independant women we have every right to date who we want, when we want and make DAMN sure we are willing to make compromises with the person we choose. I think that you can still follow your religious beleifs inside of each dating experience, and while plenty of people just date for the fun of it, I think the end goal for most people is marriage. But we no longer live in tiny little secluded towns with a handful of options and no way out, and I don’t think we should try to go back to those old ways.
I don’t really understand questions like this. It seems to me that many people are always looking for “rules to live by”. Wether they should have sex before marriage – wether they should have an “open marriage” or even get married at all. Wether we do things better now or back in the “old days”. The idea that someone actually wrote a book on it I find really strange. With all respect (because I really really like you becca) Who really freakin cares how anyone else does dating or mairrage – wether they sleep with one person in marriage or 150 without even a relationship. Why does there have to be a right and wrong way to do it? If you aren’t hurting you or anyone else – do whatever the hell you want to do and makes you happy. I personally had many “friends with benefits” before getting married. I didn’t want to “date” or be serious with anyone. I had a whole lot of fun and nobody got hurt. Does that mean I was a slut? Not to me but to many – yes, definately. Should I care. No. So that’s my vote, and my opinion. We live in a country where we can choose whatever we want – but people are reluctant to do so – they’re always looking for someone else to choose for them the right way to go. If you confuse sex with love though you can really mess yourself up – if you’re looking for love you should date more traditionally. If you’re looking for sex and companionship and friendship but not commitment – you just have to make sure the other person feels the same. I’m rambling.
See, when I dated it was to be in a serious relationship. I look at sex as something you do with somebody you love. I have too much respect to just sleep with everybody, even if they are my friends. My whole heart was into the action and the person I was with knew that. Maby that is why I was with only four guys my whole life and I am now just with one and will be my only marriage.
Courting is an old way and I would not tell my boys that they had to marry who they just dated but I have told them that sex is for two people that love each other and want to share that with just the two of them. Call me old fashion but, it has worked for me.