Dating and relationships - opinions?

StarryMoon0

This isn't a request for help, more looking for opinions.

Do most of us understand what dating actually is?

I look at the posts on here in relation to short relationships of a few months, and people complaining about thier OH, wondering if they should stay with them or looking for ways to deal with it.

I always thought that dating was something you did to get to know the other person, to see if your compatible, and can get along. At what stage did this change? Its like a few dates now constitutes a relationship?

I recall my aunts talking when I was younger. They would talk about dating so and so, and eventually a guy would ask them to "go steady" which was considered a committed relationship, and dating others was to be ceased at that point.

I'm not some old grump, I understand the emotions when you feel "in love", but a lot of us seem to be stuck in this idea that because we think we love someone after a a month (or whatever) that we should forgo all all natural instinct and force ourselves to put up with thier flaws, or complain about thier flaws.

Surely if you have such strong feelings of dislike in the first year, it means that the compatibility is not matching up. I firmly believe there is someone for everyone. One person's couch potato is another couch potatoes soulmate.

Am i wrong in my old fashioned thinking, or do we try too hard to change ourselves or our ideals for the sake of someone else?

strobe

Are you Irish Starry Moon? "Dating" doesn't really exist in this country in the same way it does in the USA. It doesn't have the same structured meaning it tends to in other countries like America. Perhaps this is the cause of what you see as an incompatibility.

movienut

I completely disagree that there is not someone for everyone. Some people are too imature or not ready to be dating anyone. There's people out there who could be bad for anyone whether another boyfriend/girlfriend is little bit more compactible than the other. You shouldn't base any relationship on compactibility because it only goes so far.

StarryMoon0

movienut wrote: »

I completely disagree that there is not someone for everyone. Some people are too imature or not ready to be dating anyone. There's people out there who could be bad for anyone whether another boyfriend/girlfriend is little bit more compactible than the other. You shouldn't base any relationship on compactibility because it only goes so far.

True, but I think I meant it differenty. Its not "someone for everyone" in the exact moment, I mean over the course of a persons life. They may be 40 years old before they find that someone. Yes some people aren't ready to date, fair enough, but its more in the sense that in the search for a mate, you need to look for things that are compatible with you. Values, morals, activities ect. My observation is that some people are attracted to someone, then in 3-6 months time start complaining about who they are and want them to change for them. There comes a point when you have to objectivly say " we are not suitably matched for each other" and move on, rather than spend months trying to change them into what we want them to be.

I think a relationship is based completely on compatibility actually. If you have absolutley nothing in common and the other persons "way" irratates the heck out of you, how can you possibly have a meaningful long relationship.
Sexual attraction is fine, thats where it starts, but that diminishes, to be replaced with a bond of love of trust. You also need differences, that keeps things interesting, but on some level there has to be something there other than sexual attraction.

My couch potato anology for example. If your a fit person, likes to go out, work out, play tennis, socialize ect ect, and you hook up with an utter couch potato that never leaves the house, in 6 months you'll be going crazy. So you have to either attempt to change thier lazy ways, or change yourself to become more of a couch potato. Where as 2 couch potatos could meet, fall in love and live happliy ever after, never having any other expectations of each other.

StarryMoon0

strobe wrote: »

Are you Irish Starry Moon? "Dating" doesn't really exist in this country in the same way it does in the USA. It doesn't have the same structured meaning it tends to in other countries like America. Perhaps this is the cause of what you see as an incompatibility.

Correct, I'm not Irish
I see your point, but i think regardless of the structure of dating, as individuals we can we say to ourselves " i've been with this person for 2 months and he annoys the living heck out of me, hurts my feelings and doesn't hold the same principals and values as i do, maybe we just are not suited to be mates"

Now, not everyone is out to get married and have a family, but biologically the process is driven because of that. The need to procreate the species, to do so with a partner that can provide and protect untill the offspring mature enough to leave the nest.

I watch the birds in the park, the skinny runt pidgeon who isn't doing the "warble" and "the dance" with puffed up feathers does not get his bird.. she goes for the bigger, healthier lad who is wooing her.

Just some musing on my part..just so many unhappy people out there looking for someone else to change to make them happy..

Eliot Rosewater

StarryMoon0 wrote: »

I think a relationship is based completely on compatibility actually. If you have absolutley nothing in common and the other persons "way" irratates the heck out of you, how can you possibly have a meaningful long relationship.

I'd agree to a certain extent. Even though I'm young enough (20), I've had a good bit of experience with relationships. What makes my girlfriend of today different (and better ) to any girlfriend of the past is our sharing of a wide range of interests - literature, science, maths, computers, electronics, baking, etc etc - things we can talk about and do together. It's also nice to know that if I find some nerdy thing interesting, or if I find an exceptionally good book, say, I have someone to share that with.

In relationships where there's frequent conflict I find that a lot of people hang on just because they're emotionally attached to the person and find it hard to break-up. I've been through this myself. Sometimes it's difficult to see outside of your current situation, and realise that things might end up better if you swallow the bitter pill.

StarryMoon0

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

What makes my girlfriend of today different (and better ) to any girlfriend of the past is our sharing of a wide range of interests - literature, science, maths, computers, electronics, baking, etc etc - things we can talk about and do together. It's also nice to know that if I find some nerdy thing interesting, or if I find an exceptionally good book, say, I have someone to share that with.

Exactly!!
And when it comes down to it, if this was to be a long relationship, in 40 years you'd still have that bond, regardless of the ravages of age, natuaral diminishing of sex drive, and whatever life throws at you.
I just think if we are not having somethings in common, whats there to talk about on a long dark night when you realise you forgot to refill the Viagra script

I think its brilliant that your 20 and have this attitude. When I was 20 I was a lot less clued in

Eliot Rosewater

Yes, but I wouldn't be so dismissive of other relationships. It seems to me that having a lot of things in common works, but that's not to say that something other than that doesn't work. It's down to each individual's taste, in the end. One can only comment on ones own personal experience, and making statements broader than that is risky.

StarryMoon0 wrote: »

I think its brilliant that your 20 and have this attitude.

Well, we'll have to wait and see if it's a positive thing in the long run. It has probably made me too picky!

AngryBadger

I think Ireland is still in a very weird place as regards relationships. On the one hand we supposedly have this liberation and all the associated freedoms therein. On the other hand, however much we might like to kid ourselves, our "catholic" heritage is still very much ingrained in our whole culture. So now you have this crazy situation where a lot of people feel like they have to be dating people (because of the usual reasons we want to date people), but also having sex with loads of people (otherwise they're not liberated enough), and at the same time trying to force whatever relationship they do manage to garner into a functional situation, very much like putting a square peg into a round hole.

A lot of what you have is people falling from one situation into the next without any real sense of growing into their own person before committing themselves to another person.

Seems simple enough, but it's unreal how the culture clash blinds people.