Incoherent Ramblings

(Oringially posted November, 2006.  I am reposting it because of a journal question I had for my students today about girls asking guys out. I was remined of this blog.)

 This is something I have had several conversations with different people of both genders over the past few weeks.  Dating is dead.  People just don’t seem to date anymore. 

The act of courtship and wooing has disappeared.  A lot of my friends, married and dating, are together only after having “hooked up” or slept together several times, and therefore become a couple by default. 

Dating is a lost art.  Picnics in the park.  Drive in movies.  The theater.  Basketball games.  Hockey games.  Walking in the park.  Coffee.  Drinks (no, not getting drunk in a bar). Dessert.  Cooking dinner for each other.  It seems now that dating comes AFTER sex and the hook up.  We do these things once we are already intimately involved with someone.  We aren’t dating in the same way I guess.  We are still dating, just in a backwards manner.

I have several theories on why dating is dead.  One is that the sexual freedom experienced by both sexes has altered our methods of courtship.  No longer does the man feel it is necessary to take a woman to dinner, or the movies.  Heaven forbid he come up with something more creative.  I am sure florists and jewelers have taken a hit, except for the guilt flowers and jewelry.  I can’t tell you the last time I went on a genuine date.  I think it was with The Canadian.  We went for ice cream.  I hate ice cream, but I got a smoothie.  That was about two years ago. 

Theory Two.  Women are financially and socially independent these days.  It’s not like it was in the 50s when we HAD to rely on men for dates because we didn’t have our own money, or it was improper for us to go into bars and clubs unaccompanied.  We have our own independence and money so we can go where we please and buy what we please, including flowers and jewelry.  Dinner and movies. 

Theory Three.  This is a theory I did not come up with on my own.  Men have become emasculated by women.  You read about this in the media all the time. Why should they become emasculated?  Because we have OPINIONS??  Because we have JOBS??  Malarkey.  This is just a cop out to get out of footing the bill for dinner. 

Men and women have found it too easy to go out, get drunk and go home with each other.  It is much easier than dating.  Dating is HARD.  hell relationships are hard, so you know getting to one is! Keeping up your end of the conversation.  What?  HARD!  Not spilling spaghetti sauce on your white blouse.  For me, that’s REALLY hard.  Worrying about who is going to pay.  Another dilemma that has been the topic of many conversations over my lifetime.  It is much easier to get drunk, go home with someone you would actually LIKE to date and get to know better, and then you can blame your behavior on the bottle.  Or the beer goggles.

I think it’s sad that dating has fallen by the wayside, except for high school kids.  Hell, even they use the hook up method of courtship.  I would love to be wooed and courted.  Have love letters written to me.  Now all we have is drunken texting, dialing and emailing.  Not much of a trade. 

Have women made it to easy for the men because of our own physical desires?  We like sex, too.  We also like having dinner bought for us, flowers sent to us, little notes to let us know you’re thinking about us.  We can’t help it.  Even the most feminist of us still are women and more sentimental and emotional by nature.  Would it really kill you to treat us to a meal once in a while?  I mean we read magazines to learn better techniques in oral sex, bedroom maneuvers; we spend oodles of money on cute panties and sexy bras.  Does our effort not warrant some sort of reward other than a couple of quick drunken thrusts and then the inevitable pass out and snoring?  I know we women aren’t perfect.  I love to buy my man gifts.  I have spent more money on boyfriends than I care to think about.  I do it because I want to though. I want them to feel special and loved.  Is it wrong that I want that, too? I think not! 

I would put a ban on myself against drunken hook ups, but it would fruitless.  As many of us already know, dating in Columbia is dead.  I might as well get some good kissing out of it.

I guess it all goes back to my desire to meet a man like George Bailey.  I fear I will die waiting.