The Friday Exposure: Dating and Love

The other night I found my self thinking about the word 'dating' and how society defines that word. For me, dating is not some magical threshold that once crossed opens the door to new ways of showing love. Instead, the whole process of forming a relationship with someone of the opposite gender is just that, a process. In thinking about the words used to define where we are in that relationship process, I have come to realize that people often misconstrue those words to mean something physical.

Take 'dating' for example. That word should define the portion of the timeframe of the relationship in which both persons have first become open and honest about how they think of the other person and where they want to head with this relationship with the understanding that this period of time is for getting to know the other person better and to the point of being able to decide if marriage is the right course of action or if ending the relationship is what needs to happen. Continuing with another example, the word 'marriage' should mean that two people have committed to loving one another through both the smooth and the rough times of life and is meant to be a lifelong commitment.

However, upcoming generations do not view 'dating' or 'marriage' as specific timeframes of a relationship but rather as physical descriptions of the status held by two individuals in relation to one another. This can be seen in the expressions that society uses to convey the physical relationship between two people with examples being as follows: 'seeing each other', 'going out', 'hooking up', 'tie the knot', etc. What has been lost is the deeper meanings behind dating and marriage. All that is left in society is the shallow meanings of the physical side which interestingly correlate to self-gratification rather than love for the other person.