I was listening to the Morning Hot Tub on Hot 89.9 on my drive into work yesterday and heard an interesting statistic that got me to thinking.
Mauler said that eHarmony had recently done a study that showed single people on average dated six people at the same time!!
Now as I listened to this it sort of pissed me off as I was thinking who was the SOB that was dating my 6 potential partners and thus depriving me of their company but then came the twist, you just know there had to be a twist with me involved right?
eHarmony says dating defined in the here and now includes text only relationships and not the old standard definition of actually meeting someone face to face for a series of activities like drinks, a movie, dinner, or walking the dog. No, that last one isn’t some code for making nasty, get your mind out of the gutter as I'm trying to broaden my target market for the blog, my former marketing professors at SDSU would be proud that I'm actually using some of the materials they tried so hard to impart to me over the course of my studies.
So my question is do you consider a text only relationship to actually be dating?
I can see if you are in a long distance relationship how texting can be part of the process you employ to keep things fresh and on the go but in and of itself texting only seems to a real stretch of the definition of dating in my mind.
Maybe that is a generational thing on my part given my age but I'd like to think I'm open minded enough to give all possibilities a fair shake before making my mind up one way or another. In this approach I can thank the last two women who really meant anything to me for giving me some insight in how to approach and deal with life. That saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks is complete bullshit, this old dog learned more tricks over the past ten years than he cares to count.
One advantage that was noted for the text only relationship is that when that connection is no longer there that you can ghost the other person and vanish when you want things to be over without the usual drama associated with breaking up with someone face to face or over the phone.
Can you really develop and feel that kind of connection from just texting so much that you actually think you are in a real relationship?
People are visual creatures, men especially so, and I don't think I could ever see myself meeting someone through a text site and developing feelings for them that I could ever put on the same level that I have when seeing someone face to face....there is just something intrinsic to being able to sit across from that person while sharing brunch and seeing the twinkle in her eyes when you are talking. The ability to reach over and touch hands can never be replaced by the click of a keyboard nor could the sound of her laugh when you have one of those rare witty moments be surpassed by the sound of an incoming text.
No, in my rather small world I'm going to go out on a limb, a rather strong one I hope given I'm still working on my pear shape, and say that any relationship that is based entirely on texting is not a real relationship and therefore can't be considered dating.
Texting can be part of the process, along with telephone calls, but it can't the only medium used to develop or sustain a dating relationship. I've used both in the past but as part of a real relationship that involved us actually coming into physical contact with one another, and once more let me remind you to get your mind out of the gutter as I didn't mean making the beast with two backs....ok, this time I did mean it that way lol
So how do you define dating and would you ever be tempted to just have a text only relationship with someone? Nope, not an offer to exchange cell numbers folks but nice try lol
My name is Marcus and I like to date in the here and now with some eye contact.
It feels like it has been awhile since I made a musical suggestion so give a listen to "Perfectly Perfect" by Simple Plan........the title says it all and than some
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