A little while ago, Tikva4eva emailed me with a great question: “When do you think one should start dating? How can one assess if she is mature enough to start? What should be the criteria? When is too early?”
In addition to being a good question, it was also a well timed question. It was around this time of year (give or take a few weeks) three years ago that I started dating and went on my first date. It’s always around now that I start thinking about what things were like when I started dating- how I have changed, how my attitude has changed. I am definitely not going to pretend to be an expert on the topic of when the right time is to start dating. I will be happy to share some ideas that I have heard and my thoughts on the subject, and more importantly, throw the question to all of you out there to hear your thoughts on when a person should start dating.
When I first read Tikva4eva’s question, a number of typical answers flew into my mind of things that have been tossed around. The main one was, “When you’re ready to give.” That is very vague and kind of leaves me feeling, “Well, what does that mean? How do I know if I’m ready to give? I like to give and do chessed, but I also did when I was in high school and clearly I was not ready to get married then.” The second one was the answer I heard from a teacher in seminary who said that she knew she was ready to get married when she felt that there was something missing in her life. While this is true in the sense that it ties into the previous answer- there is a missing relationship and you want to be giving to someone- it is not good to approach this situation from the angle of “marriage will fill in what I am lacking.” The answer of “to give” is so typical and cliché, but if you take a closer look at what that really means, it is right on target. Marriage is about giving to another person, so it makes sense. How do you get there?
I would like to suggest two steps to figuring out if you’re ready to start dating for marriage. Step #1 look at yourself, and step #2, look at your life.
Step #1- look at yourself
Marriage is the ultimate, deepest relationship. All relationships begin with your relationship with yourself. Who are you? What are your likes and dislikes? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your positive traits and your faults? What are your goals? What do you strive for? Before you get married you need to figure out who you are and how you feel about yourself. This is true for all relationships, but for marriage especially. If someone doesn’t like who they are or is not OK with themselves, then it affects all of their relationships. You can’t give to someone else if you can’t even take care of yourself. Your cup must be full before it can overflow into others. When you take a deep look at yourself, look at your role in your relationships with others. Which people in your life do you get along with effortlessly, and which relationships require more work?
For this step, don’t feel shy talking to others in your life. Parents and siblings or roommates/those who you live with can often be particularly insightful when it comes to figuring out your strengths and weaknesses. One additional point that is important to mention is that you don’t need to be perfect to start dating. Knowing your faults does not mean that you need to fix all of them before you begin dating. You just need to evaluate that you are in a place where you are comfortable enough with yourself. This is not an objective evaluation, but rather it is something that each person needs to decide for themselves.
Step #2- look at your life.
I have never heard teachers or speakers mention this step, but it is important. What is your occupation and financial situation? To illustrate obviously- if you are a high school student, you are not ready to get married. If you are in college and have no income and your parents are not going to support you if you get married, then maybe either you need a plan or you should wait to start dating. If your parents will support you, make sure you know exactly what that means and how it is going to work. If you are in a job or school where you are busy for most hours of the day, then consider the fact that dating takes up time and it needs to fit into your schedule. Make sure you are at the right stage of life and ready for dating and marriage.
I started thinking about dating, around the time that I think most people do, when I came back from seminary in Israel. I knew I was not ready to get married at that point, from either of those steps, but I started thinking about it. Around three/three and half years ago I began to think about it more seriously, and I decided to do sit down and talk to my parents about it. I am very, very close with my parents and I consider them my mentors in all areas, be it emotional or spiritual. Since I seek their advice before most major decisions, it was natural for me to turn to them about this. For most people I think this is not the case, but sitting down with a teacher or friend or sibling or someone who can be a good bouncing board is a good idea. Anyway, after that conversation, I realized I was ready to start dating.
At the time, in the back of my mind, I had this picture that the way life goes, you’re born, you go to pre-school, then elementary school, then high school, then college, then you get married. Marriage was just the next step after college and I just figured I would magically meet the right person by the time college was over. Needless to say, that did not happen. I still have that template molded in the back of my mind, even though I know it is ridiculous. In retrospect, although I thought I was ready to get married at the time, I was just trying to make my life go the way I thought it should go, and I am glad that life worked itself out so that I did not get married right after college. Living on my own has been an amazing learning experience in so many ways. So many things that I always thought, “I will do that when I am married” I am doing now- such as cooking dinner every night. Even though I still believe I was mature enough when I started dating, there is so much that I have learned since then, about the world and about myself, and about dating, and I value that learning experience greatly.
Starting to date was at first just weird. Having been in a single sex environment for most of my life, the first time a guy called me to arrange a date was so nerve-wracking. When I heard my phone ringing at the time the guy was supposed to call I was panicked. Luckily, when I picked up the phone, the guy sounded way more nervous than I was so that put me at ease and I quickly became comfortable, especially once conversation started flowing. However, feeling calm didn’t change the fact that the entire time it was as though a loud voice was shouting frantically in the back of my mind, “I am on the phone with a guy! I am on the phone with a guy! Aaaahhhh!” Ok maybe I’m just weird, but what do you expect when I’ve spent my entire high school and seminary being told not to talk to guys? I was the most nervous in the time between when he called to say he arrived (I was in the Stern dorm at the time) and when I actually met him. Once I was on the date, I was fortunate enough to have a positive first date experience that was not awkward or filled with silences. Since that very first first date, I tend not to get too nervous, which I hear is rare, but I still find it oddly calming when guys are nervous.
To end off- advice for those who are about to start dating for marriage? Don’t rush into it. Take your time. Get to know yourself, think it through, talk to mentors to help you make sure you’re ready. Don’t let social pressure get to you. If you’re not sure if you’re ready, my experience is that you fall into two categories. The first describes most people, which is that you are really not ready, which is why you’re not sure. Don’t start if you’re not sure. The second category is those who are ready to start dating, but they are just scared. They are scared for any number of reasons- fear of rejection, fear of the unknown. In that case you just have to jump in.
That’s pretty much all I have to say on the topic, so I throw the question out to you: How does one know if they are ready to start dating? How did you decide? What factors played into your decision to start dating?
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Showing posts with label awkward. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awkward. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Speed Dating
“You can’t knock it until you’ve tried it!” Those were the famous last words that I told my friend, in response to her less-than thrilled reaction when we found out that there would be speed dating at the singles Shabbaton we were about to attend. Although my comment might imply that I was all for speed dating, I continued to explain to her that without ever experiencing something, one cannot fully critique it and figure out how to improve it. I admit that I was looking forward to the chance to making of the whole thing. Having never been to an event with speed dating, I too feared that it would be potentially quite awkward. I imagined rows of guys and girls sitting across from each other glancing nervously at one another.
When I thought about it more, I realized that one benefit of speed dating is that if it is awkward, it only lasts a few minutes, as opposed to an actual date where the awkwardness can last for hours. While it is true that some of the bad dates I have been on only became awkward an hour or two into the date, most bad dates were ones in which I could tell that the date was not going anywhere after two minutes. Despite this benefit, I was eagerly looking forward to tearing apart the event and laughing it off. Perhaps my attitude of “I doubt I will actually meet someone this way, so I might as well have fun” was the right choice for me, (not because I met someone- I didn’t- but,) because speed dating was not as big of a disaster as I had anticipated.
One surprising component of the speed dating on the Shabbaton was that it turned out to be group speed dating instead of one-on-one. Meaning that I sat at a table with two friends, while groups of 2-3 guys rotated and came group by group to sit down at our table. This method had its pros and cons. On the one hand it was great because it kept the environment more chilled and less pressured, but on the other hand, in some cases we each ended up only talking to the person directly in front of us, so I did not have the opportunity to meet the other two guys in the group. The best thing about speed dating was what I mentioned before, that things are short enough so that awkward pauses can be almost entirely avoided. By the time you’ve each said your name, what you are doing with your life and gone through the typical follow up questions, it is time to move on to the next person, or in this case, group of people.
Overall, I was surprised at how non-awkward and even fun the entire thing was. So much for my plan to knock it. However, there were two main problems with speed-dating. The first one is that there were guys on the Shabbaton that I had already dated, and so they came to my table as well. Here is where the fact that it was group speed dating was really helpful, as I did not end up sitting one-on-one with guys I already dated. But potentially in a situation where speed dating is one-on-one, this could have been uncomfortable.
The second is that it is really difficult to remember all the people who you meet, and this is especially the case on shabbos where we could not write things down or take notes about the person. In general I have a pretty good memory for names and faces, and often find that people do not remember me, while I will remember them. When I was a camp counselor those I worked with were always impressed that in an hour I had learned the names of all 20 kids in the bunk. Yet after I had speed dated with about 20 guys, I glanced through the list of guys to see which ones I remembered and there were only one or two that stuck out. I could not put a face the names of any of the rest of the guys. At least if it had not been shabbos I could have put stars next to the ones I was interested in talking to further, though there are no guarantees I would remember which ones they were.
Despite these two down-sides (that it is hard to remember each person you meet and that it could be bad when you have already dated a few of the guys), I think that speed dating is a really great idea and should be utilized more in the shidduch world. Particularly in the shidduch world this type of thing has the potential to go a long way. Why? Let me explain. If you break down the process of trying to find the right person there are two components: The person and the paper. The paper consists of background, family, beliefs, values, etc. - things that can be found out in advance, and written down on paper. The person refers to a combination of chemistry and personality. By “chemistry” I do not simply mean looks, but also the interaction between two people. How do they get along? Are they comfortable with each other? Do they find it easy to talk to each other? Do they understand each other?
In the Western world, aside from blind dating, dating begins with the person and ends with a paper. People meet in social settings, such as parties, bars, weddings, social events, and if two people like each other they will start to date, and then as they get to know each other they discover all of the “paper” parts of the person- where they went to school, their family, their religious, political, and other beliefs. In shidduchim we start with the paper and end with the person. This is better then starting with the person and ending with the paper because otherwise you can develop feelings for someone who is not the right one to share your life with. See my post about that here. Additionally, starting with the person would not work in frum circles because most of us have spent our lives in environments where members of the opposite sex have been separated. Putting tons of singles in the same room results in the girls talking to the girls and the guys talking to the guys. Each one is too scared to approach the other. Those who are accustomed to coed environments do not experience this problem to the same extent. For both these reasons, the “start with the person” method does not work.
The problem with starting with the paper and ending with the person is that as we all know, a person is much more than a paper. Two people can seem exactly the same on paper, yet be drastically different in person. (By the way, the reverse is true. Two people may be similar when you meet them, but after getting to know them you might discover they come from completely different backgrounds and hold different beliefs.)
Speed dating is the perfect synthesis of the two methods- starting with the person and starting with the paper. Although the process begins with the person, it is just a small taste of the person and it quickly leads to the paper. While most “start with the person” experiences are casual and informal, which demands one person to approach another, speed dating is formal and everyone meets everyone. This is all granted that all of the participants are generally on the same page hashkafically.
From my one speed dating experience, I would make the following improvements:
1. It should not be done on shabbos, because it is best for participants to be able to write things down and take notes. Each meeting should be followed by 60 seconds to write down these notes.
2. Ideally, speed dating should be followed by shidduch profiles being made available to participants. Singles should approach shadchanim who are present at the event with a list of those who they were interested in, and then shadchanim should see which two people were interested in each other and then continue from there. This did not happen at the event I was at. I would even go so far as to suggest that perhaps the men simply give a list of those who they were interested in, and then the shadchanim could approach those women to see if they would be open to giving it a shot.
All in all, I had a fun time and enjoyed meeting new people, despite my original skepticism. Have you ever been to a speed-dating event? Would you be open to it or do you think it is a terrible idea?
.
When I thought about it more, I realized that one benefit of speed dating is that if it is awkward, it only lasts a few minutes, as opposed to an actual date where the awkwardness can last for hours. While it is true that some of the bad dates I have been on only became awkward an hour or two into the date, most bad dates were ones in which I could tell that the date was not going anywhere after two minutes. Despite this benefit, I was eagerly looking forward to tearing apart the event and laughing it off. Perhaps my attitude of “I doubt I will actually meet someone this way, so I might as well have fun” was the right choice for me, (not because I met someone- I didn’t- but,) because speed dating was not as big of a disaster as I had anticipated.
One surprising component of the speed dating on the Shabbaton was that it turned out to be group speed dating instead of one-on-one. Meaning that I sat at a table with two friends, while groups of 2-3 guys rotated and came group by group to sit down at our table. This method had its pros and cons. On the one hand it was great because it kept the environment more chilled and less pressured, but on the other hand, in some cases we each ended up only talking to the person directly in front of us, so I did not have the opportunity to meet the other two guys in the group. The best thing about speed dating was what I mentioned before, that things are short enough so that awkward pauses can be almost entirely avoided. By the time you’ve each said your name, what you are doing with your life and gone through the typical follow up questions, it is time to move on to the next person, or in this case, group of people.
Overall, I was surprised at how non-awkward and even fun the entire thing was. So much for my plan to knock it. However, there were two main problems with speed-dating. The first one is that there were guys on the Shabbaton that I had already dated, and so they came to my table as well. Here is where the fact that it was group speed dating was really helpful, as I did not end up sitting one-on-one with guys I already dated. But potentially in a situation where speed dating is one-on-one, this could have been uncomfortable.
The second is that it is really difficult to remember all the people who you meet, and this is especially the case on shabbos where we could not write things down or take notes about the person. In general I have a pretty good memory for names and faces, and often find that people do not remember me, while I will remember them. When I was a camp counselor those I worked with were always impressed that in an hour I had learned the names of all 20 kids in the bunk. Yet after I had speed dated with about 20 guys, I glanced through the list of guys to see which ones I remembered and there were only one or two that stuck out. I could not put a face the names of any of the rest of the guys. At least if it had not been shabbos I could have put stars next to the ones I was interested in talking to further, though there are no guarantees I would remember which ones they were.
Despite these two down-sides (that it is hard to remember each person you meet and that it could be bad when you have already dated a few of the guys), I think that speed dating is a really great idea and should be utilized more in the shidduch world. Particularly in the shidduch world this type of thing has the potential to go a long way. Why? Let me explain. If you break down the process of trying to find the right person there are two components: The person and the paper. The paper consists of background, family, beliefs, values, etc. - things that can be found out in advance, and written down on paper. The person refers to a combination of chemistry and personality. By “chemistry” I do not simply mean looks, but also the interaction between two people. How do they get along? Are they comfortable with each other? Do they find it easy to talk to each other? Do they understand each other?
In the Western world, aside from blind dating, dating begins with the person and ends with a paper. People meet in social settings, such as parties, bars, weddings, social events, and if two people like each other they will start to date, and then as they get to know each other they discover all of the “paper” parts of the person- where they went to school, their family, their religious, political, and other beliefs. In shidduchim we start with the paper and end with the person. This is better then starting with the person and ending with the paper because otherwise you can develop feelings for someone who is not the right one to share your life with. See my post about that here. Additionally, starting with the person would not work in frum circles because most of us have spent our lives in environments where members of the opposite sex have been separated. Putting tons of singles in the same room results in the girls talking to the girls and the guys talking to the guys. Each one is too scared to approach the other. Those who are accustomed to coed environments do not experience this problem to the same extent. For both these reasons, the “start with the person” method does not work.
The problem with starting with the paper and ending with the person is that as we all know, a person is much more than a paper. Two people can seem exactly the same on paper, yet be drastically different in person. (By the way, the reverse is true. Two people may be similar when you meet them, but after getting to know them you might discover they come from completely different backgrounds and hold different beliefs.)
Speed dating is the perfect synthesis of the two methods- starting with the person and starting with the paper. Although the process begins with the person, it is just a small taste of the person and it quickly leads to the paper. While most “start with the person” experiences are casual and informal, which demands one person to approach another, speed dating is formal and everyone meets everyone. This is all granted that all of the participants are generally on the same page hashkafically.
From my one speed dating experience, I would make the following improvements:
1. It should not be done on shabbos, because it is best for participants to be able to write things down and take notes. Each meeting should be followed by 60 seconds to write down these notes.
2. Ideally, speed dating should be followed by shidduch profiles being made available to participants. Singles should approach shadchanim who are present at the event with a list of those who they were interested in, and then shadchanim should see which two people were interested in each other and then continue from there. This did not happen at the event I was at. I would even go so far as to suggest that perhaps the men simply give a list of those who they were interested in, and then the shadchanim could approach those women to see if they would be open to giving it a shot.
All in all, I had a fun time and enjoyed meeting new people, despite my original skepticism. Have you ever been to a speed-dating event? Would you be open to it or do you think it is a terrible idea?
.
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