While browsing my usual social media sites recently, I came upon a post that read, “A girlfriend is a potential wife if you ask me. Relationships are investments, not hobbies. Ya’ll gotta grow up.” I’ve also seen posts that say something to the extent that dating is practice for marriage and dating to date is futile and simply a waste of time. I even overheard a student at a baseball game criticizing two of her friends who had been dating for about a year yet had just recently made their relationship exclusive.
Don’t get me wrong; I understand how wonderful, supportive and comforting a committed relationship can be. But the question remains in the back of my mind, what’s wrong with casual dating? Dating for kicks, dating because a guy at a bar told you a funny joke and you want to find out if he has more, because you find someone attractive, because dating is fun. So, other than these examples, what exactly do I mean by casual dating? Well, Wikipedia defines it as, “a physical and emotional relationship between two people who may have casual sex or a near-sexual relationship without necessarily demanding or expecting the extra commitments of a more formal relationship.”
While I think the definition of casual dating, like so many other dating terms these days (i.e. hookup), may be different for everyone, this is the basic idea. To me, casual dating is expressing your affection for someone (or multiple people) and enjoying the time spent with them while accepting the idea that you most likely won’t be dating forever. Life gets in the way of things, but that doesn’t mean you should stop yourself from enjoying someone’s company while you have them in your life, just because you don’t think they are necessarily “marriage material” (whatever that means).
Yes, the process of dating, or courting, has historically been seen as romantic involvement with the intention of marriage. Because historically, marriage was seen as a necessity that had to be fulfilled while women were young and still of childbearing age. So logic would follow that some of these instincts remain. However, another idea also persists in that as college students, almost none of us are realistically looking to settle down yet, at least in the next few years.
Dating/marriage etc. is not a race to the finish line and thinking of it that way takes the magic right out of the whole thing. Not to mention the correlation between those who marry at an older age and stay married is significantly higher than those that marry young. Those who marry after college are more mature and financially secure, and thus more inclined to be successful in marriage.
Though these statistics are valid and important to consider, I admit that I more often think about the enjoyment that comes with dating minus the pressure. I enjoy getting to know members of the opposite sex and the excitement of the possibility that dating brings. I wish that other young people could see this point of view and consider that casual dating can often hold just as much value as a serious relationship. And hey, if throughout your casual dating process you find someone you want to be committed to – go for it, lock them in, I’m all for it. Just keep an open mind about dating and experience it in all its glory and gore.
