Everyone has their own thoughts on dating; thoughts on how they view it, or how they define it. Word usage is such a big thing when even talking about dating, because feelings can attach themselves to words.

In my first dating relationship, I remember the first time I addressed the young lady which I was dating, as my girlfriend, while talking to someone else. Those two words took our relationship to another level, in 1 second! However, though my feelings for her didn’t change in 1 second, how I addressed her changed, and that means something. How I personally viewed dating, and boyfriend/girlfriend…I learned was a little different from her interpretation of those words. Nonetheless, that is just one example that shows how I defined our relationship, in fact, changed the nature of how we both saw our relationship.

One person’s opinions on dating may originate from how they label the one their dating… they may use words such as, boyfriend, girlfriend, or ‘Boo’ – a label that I recently heard one of my friends use while we were talking at the library, and it basically means a FWB (friend with benefits). While another person may not want to put labels on a relationship at all, and maybe just feel like they’re in a ‘committed friendship’, and whatever happens.. happens. While still another may think of all dating as just an ‘uncommitted friendship’ with someone else, and commitment only occurs when someone gets down on one knee and a ring gets placed on her finger :-).

When I grew up, I thought going on a date with someone was simply taking a girl out to eat, and going to a movie afterwards… I didn’t think of holding hands, touching or anything like that… And kissing… PLEASE! I was way too scared to go in for a kiss at the end of the date, LOL! If I kissed her, she would always have to make the first move. I know that’s not the norm, but my life wasn’t near to normal. I was a virgin until my late 20’s, and I grew up with the intention to practice celibacy until marriage. But, uh… that didn’t work out.

Now as an adult, my thoughts on dating I would say are evolving, as well as my expectations on dating relationships. Let’s just say I’m still learning.

To me, I feel one rule of thumb on dating is having an idea to know what you want from a relationship, as well as what the other person wants from you. You need to eliminate as much confusion as possible, and just be honest with yourself on what you want out of the relationship. I recently read a blog on The 9 Types of Pre-Exclusive Relationships, and it was a very interesting read; it went through various different dating relationship titles and defined them.

Dating… I feel, IF YOU WANT TO MAKE THE RELATIONSHIP LAST, this is a good way to go about it. You should view the dating relationship as if you were a track athlete running a long distance race. It’s always better to start off at a good pace, NOT TOO SLOW, because you want to show the other person you’re interested, and NOT TOO FAST, because you want the relationship to build itself naturally, and like in a race you want to pace yourself so that you still have energy left at the finish line. And, when your legs get tired, and your heart starts racing, problems occur, this is the time where you feel like you want to quit. But, if the relationship is special to you, a relationship worth keeping, you should fight through the rough parts of the race to get to the finish line, because in a race is not always about how you start, it’s about how you finish.

Honestly, I could never be someone who dates around… it just takes too much energy to constantly create and maintain meaningful relationships. Time is my most valuable commodity, once it comes, it goes, and I can never get it back. I only spend time with those I love the most, and that’s one reason I could never be happy if I were to constantly engage in dating different girls, at the same time. My feelings towards dating are simple, they are just like the lyrics in a song that my best friend wrote, “Will I find love..will I find her?”