Society : When dating was sent packing

One after another, they walked into the restaurant, and each time I pointed them out to a friend. “Look, there’s another one,” I said to her as we sat waiting for our tea to arrive. After a while it was obvious that she was getting tired of me pointing out that we were not one of the few male/female couples eating dinner that night, that we were surrounded, not by dates, but by numerous girls with their girlfriends, and dudes hanging out with the boys. She then told me that if dating is truly dead, it is dead because women are tired of men playing them and tossing them like a tennis ball, tired of wasting time on men who are noncommittal, unfaithful, unromantic, and uncaring. Women are fed up with men who say one thing and do another and men who aren’t true to anyone or anything, including the lady in their life. She expressed the opinion of many women who believe that the scene playing out at restaurants, at the movies, the theatre, the concert and various clubs all across the country is a direct result of women frequently choosing to spend time with their girlfriends rather than immature, self-indulging men who look at them as either puppets to be trained or sex objects to be conquered. They say it’s a new day, a time when they feel free to get on with their lives, to stop waiting for Mr. Right to come along and treat them with the respect, love, dignity, care and compassion that they deserve. While I will be the first to say that their viewpoint is valid, I also believe that there is another explanation to the apparent demise of dating: Men are equally if not more frustrated with women. True, women don’t want to be viewed as subservient sex objects, but men say they are tired of being looked at, and judged, as inanimate SUCCESS objects. Some men call the dating game “The psychological game,” a sterile appraisal process that many times rears its head early on in their relationship with a woman. Like an old lamp at the county auction, men feel as if they have to submit themselves to being meticulously inspected for worthiness, for potential value every time they ask a woman out on a date. To some men the pressure to prove that they are the ultimate-provider, the dream maker, the man with the master plan, the super date hits, steered them away from the entire dating experience. After a hard day proving their worth at work and in society, they’d rather hang out with other guys than jump through hoops to prove their upward mobility to sceptical sisters. Some men believe that they are the victims of the popular media’s portrayal of what constitutes an “acceptable” mate. They feel that old-fashioned, innocent love has been kicked to the curb in favour of a sort of celebrity pay-to-play mentality. And unless they can pass the audition and prove that they’re superstar quality under a woman’s critical eye, many women won’t give them a chance. in the end, the death of dating may have more to do with false characterizations and unrealistic expectations by both men and women than anything else. Both men and men have lost sight to what qualities really make a good mate. It’s not about his money. It’s not about her skin colour. It’s not about his job titles. It’s not about how well she waits on you or how well she romances you. True love should not be about what she looks like on the outside, but what she looks like on the inside. It should not be based on how good his credit is, but how good his heart is. Coming to realizations about others begins with realizing things about yourself, having enough confidence in yourself to know that, in your search for that good date, who may eventually become the good mate, the first question to ask yourself is not what he or she can do for you, but if you like this person as a person; do you enjoy his or her company; do you seem click as human beings? Maybe we shouldn’t expect so much. Maybe we shouldn’t have so many high expectations of what we want a man or a woman in our life to be that it prevents us from simply enjoying them for who they are. Maybe a good start would be for both men and women to stop being slaves to what society says is a good mate. Make your own rules. Set your own standards. Don’t let yourself get so frustrated looking for the object of your desire that you overlook the fact that the whole meaning of the dating game is to hopefully find your soul mate, to hopefully find someone you love to be around, someone you can’t stop thinking about, someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. But in order to win at the dating game, you have to participate in it. Because in the end, sitting on the sidelines would be the real tragedy, no matter who is to blame for the death of dating. jeav202@yahoo.com