Dating
Hello everyone! Hope you had a fantastic week! Mine was busy, but I made it through :)
This week we discussed dating, falling in love, and preparing for marriage. One of my favorite topics, because I find it so fascinating! One of the topics we talked about the most was the dating culture we are a part of, what things don’t really seem to work, and how we can change them.
The first thing my professor brought up was that we often don’t move from one step in the dating process to another with very much deliberation. We tend to “slide” from one thing to another, which means that couples may not discuss their expectations or get to know each other intentionally. This is important because we tend to fill in the blanks about the people we think we know based on what they tell us about themselves in self disclosure, but there are always characteristics or tendencies that aren’t immediately told or observed. Deliberate dating is so important! By dating with the intention of getting to know someone, we are more likely to have the right balance of Talk, Time, and Togetherness, which is John Van Epp’s formula for Intimacy, or really knowing a person. In this way, what your partner discloses to you can be weighed against what behaviors you’ve observed. This is why dating is much more important than “hanging out,” which has sort of replaced dating in this day and age. You need to see your partner in a variety of circumstances. Using the words of Brother Williams, “You are dead wrong if you think hanging out accomplishes the same thing as dating.”
We also went over the Three P’s of dating by President Dallin H. Oaks. He taught that dates need to be paid for, planned ahead, and paired off. Someone in the class related these to the Family Proclamation’s roles for husbands and fathers to fulfill: provide, preside, protect. So, dating gives priesthood holders a chance to practice these duties!
Speaking of practicing, my professor also emphasized the importance of having important conversations during courtship, so a good pattern is established before marriage. As he described couples who struggle with expressing themselves to their spouses, Brother Williams said, “Of course you can’t talk about important things when you’re married, you haven’t practiced it.” When couples slide into the stages of the dating process instead of moving from one stage to the next with intention, they’re losing precious moments of adjusting their relationship to meet the expectations of the other, and to properly get to know each other. “We have so many shortcuts that we don’t really explain how we think and feel as people,” Brother Williams shared.
I know I’m not the best at dating, myself, but these ideas are good to put into practice and to talk about so that we can change the culture of dating we’re inheriting. I leave you with a question posed by Brother Williams: “Are we going to comply with the culture, or are we going to change the culture?”
Have a great week!
—Audrey Kaydrey
This week we discussed dating, falling in love, and preparing for marriage. One of my favorite topics, because I find it so fascinating! One of the topics we talked about the most was the dating culture we are a part of, what things don’t really seem to work, and how we can change them.
The first thing my professor brought up was that we often don’t move from one step in the dating process to another with very much deliberation. We tend to “slide” from one thing to another, which means that couples may not discuss their expectations or get to know each other intentionally. This is important because we tend to fill in the blanks about the people we think we know based on what they tell us about themselves in self disclosure, but there are always characteristics or tendencies that aren’t immediately told or observed. Deliberate dating is so important! By dating with the intention of getting to know someone, we are more likely to have the right balance of Talk, Time, and Togetherness, which is John Van Epp’s formula for Intimacy, or really knowing a person. In this way, what your partner discloses to you can be weighed against what behaviors you’ve observed. This is why dating is much more important than “hanging out,” which has sort of replaced dating in this day and age. You need to see your partner in a variety of circumstances. Using the words of Brother Williams, “You are dead wrong if you think hanging out accomplishes the same thing as dating.”
We also went over the Three P’s of dating by President Dallin H. Oaks. He taught that dates need to be paid for, planned ahead, and paired off. Someone in the class related these to the Family Proclamation’s roles for husbands and fathers to fulfill: provide, preside, protect. So, dating gives priesthood holders a chance to practice these duties!
Speaking of practicing, my professor also emphasized the importance of having important conversations during courtship, so a good pattern is established before marriage. As he described couples who struggle with expressing themselves to their spouses, Brother Williams said, “Of course you can’t talk about important things when you’re married, you haven’t practiced it.” When couples slide into the stages of the dating process instead of moving from one stage to the next with intention, they’re losing precious moments of adjusting their relationship to meet the expectations of the other, and to properly get to know each other. “We have so many shortcuts that we don’t really explain how we think and feel as people,” Brother Williams shared.
I know I’m not the best at dating, myself, but these ideas are good to put into practice and to talk about so that we can change the culture of dating we’re inheriting. I leave you with a question posed by Brother Williams: “Are we going to comply with the culture, or are we going to change the culture?”
Have a great week!
—Audrey Kaydrey
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