Dating Can Be Doubleplusgood
- Thursday, August 19 2010 @ 09:09 am
- Contributed by: Jet
- Views: 1,600
We've all heard it: someone comes in from a date, and when asked how it went, says something along the lines of, “It was a bad date.” Or, conversely, it was a “really good date.” Well, I'm taking a somewhat radical stand: no more shall we use these terms! For one thing, it just seems sort of... Orwellian. For another, it's often not what we really mean, and it confuses people when they're on the short end of the stick.
Let's say you've been on a few dates with someone, and the person is nice, great, in fact... but there's no chemistry there. Ultimately, you end the relationship. Does that mean you had a “bad” time, or that your date was a “bad date”? Of course not. You might even recommend the person to a friend, one who might have a better shot at that whole chemistry thing.
The person you've just dumped, however, is mystified. We've spent so much time quantifying our relationships into good and bad. The freshly dumped person might wonder: Am I now a “bad date”? What did I do wrong? When, of course, the person didn't actually do anything wrong.
If we used different terminology, if we thought in a slightly different way, we could avoid unnecessary heartbreak. Remember, when you're going on a date you're not interviewing someone for a position; you're meeting an equal to see if you fit well together, to see if you'd essentially become great friends. Some, you might want to stay acquaintances; some, you might want to run screaming, but both of these could be considered “unsuccessful” matches. One where you want to see them the next day, and the next after that? Well, that would be a “successful” meeting.
Suddenly we're not calling entire people “good” and “bad” - we're merely referring to the status of the compatibility between the two of you. After all, an unsuccessful match for you and Person X doesn't mean Person X can't find happiness with Person Y.
Okay, so is all this more than a little silly? Perhaps – but maybe we have to do something silly to get some people to look at dating in the right way. People go on one unsuccessful date and decide that it “means something” about their character, when all it really means is that two random people were not compatible. So if this applies to you, do whatever it takes – speak like a robot to yourself, come up with ridiculous terminology, but stop beating up on yourself and get back on that dating horse! It was just one unsuccessful match.
Let's say you've been on a few dates with someone, and the person is nice, great, in fact... but there's no chemistry there. Ultimately, you end the relationship. Does that mean you had a “bad” time, or that your date was a “bad date”? Of course not. You might even recommend the person to a friend, one who might have a better shot at that whole chemistry thing.
The person you've just dumped, however, is mystified. We've spent so much time quantifying our relationships into good and bad. The freshly dumped person might wonder: Am I now a “bad date”? What did I do wrong? When, of course, the person didn't actually do anything wrong.
If we used different terminology, if we thought in a slightly different way, we could avoid unnecessary heartbreak. Remember, when you're going on a date you're not interviewing someone for a position; you're meeting an equal to see if you fit well together, to see if you'd essentially become great friends. Some, you might want to stay acquaintances; some, you might want to run screaming, but both of these could be considered “unsuccessful” matches. One where you want to see them the next day, and the next after that? Well, that would be a “successful” meeting.
Suddenly we're not calling entire people “good” and “bad” - we're merely referring to the status of the compatibility between the two of you. After all, an unsuccessful match for you and Person X doesn't mean Person X can't find happiness with Person Y.
Okay, so is all this more than a little silly? Perhaps – but maybe we have to do something silly to get some people to look at dating in the right way. People go on one unsuccessful date and decide that it “means something” about their character, when all it really means is that two random people were not compatible. So if this applies to you, do whatever it takes – speak like a robot to yourself, come up with ridiculous terminology, but stop beating up on yourself and get back on that dating horse! It was just one unsuccessful match.
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