Dating & Courting & Why & Why Not

(Old post from my drafts)

I was at a friend's birthday party when her dad turned to me and asked, "Gal when are you gonna start datin'?"

My dad answered for me. (Doncha hate it when people do that? Grrr.)

"No, she is not going to date. She is going to wait and marry the person she is going to marry." He beamed happily at everyone in the room.

And me? I said nothing till a few weeks later. (It was not a good time.)

But I am so not doing that. I mean how does that even work?

A friend once told me, "I don't think you should date unless you are planning to marry the person."

I'm like, "How do you know you want to marry the person unless you date them first."

I do have some guidelines. I don't think you should date just anyone, or do just anything. My definition of dating might be your definition of courting.

But if I felt obligated to wait until I was planning to marry someone I would be too terrified to ever be in a relationship at all.

It took some time for me to reach that conclusion. (Which is probably why I'm still single) But I don't plan to leap into marriage, or into some huge scary commitment.