Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

A conversation with a good friend turned to dating, and she confessed she felt guilty that she'd not made her relationship clear to the ward. In trying to understand this guilt, I'd stated that I felt it perfectly reasonable to keep one's options open, as such an annunciation could have stifled opportunities down the road. She disagreed, stating that once dating, other options should be kept closed. To me, I would think that stage comes upon engagement.

Looking back, I've seen this somewhat often and it makes little sense to me. So I open it up here: at what point in a relationship should a couple no longer keep there eyes out for better prospects?

I think it's sort of shady when people are hesitant to disclose their relationship status. Also, if you are wanting to keep your options open, you probably aren't very committed to your current relationship.

I had a roommate who did not believe in the "boyfriend" stage. She had a guy who was crazy about her (she eventually married him), but she felt like closing off other opportunities was a bad idea until she knew he could be "the one". So the poor guy put up with her while she went on other random dates whenever she had the opportunity. For almost a year. I think she decided to be exclusive with him like a month before he proposed. Maybe as an engineering major she was just too left brained for dating . . .

As for me, I don't see any reason to announce "I'M OFF THE MARKET!" on a loudspeaker or anything. If people ask, say you are in a relationship at the moment. If they don't ask, they don't care. And when dealing with a ward rumor mill and a boyfriend you aren't totally sure about, maybe keeping it quiet is a good way to go so you don't have to re-announce "COME GET ME!" when you are done with your current boyfriend.

But thebigcheese has a point. If you are hiding the status on purpose, that's a bad sign.

Tao wrote:[A]t what point in a relationship should a couple no longer keep there eyes out for better prospects?

I think up until you're engaged, you should keep your eyes out for better prospects. Dating (exclusively) implies the commitment that you won't date someone else at the same time, but it does not imply that you won't date anyone else ever. (That's marriage, not dating.) You shouldn't flirt with someone else, you shouldn't start any of the other things that lead up to dating someone else, but if you realize that the person you're dating isn't what you're looking for, break up. The whole point of dating is to try things out with someone and see if they work, without a long-term commitment.

I agree with thebigcheese and TheAnswerIs42 that you shouldn't avoid disclosing your relationship status, but that you also don't have to announce it to the ward in fast and testimony meeting or something. Though I have known people to do this.

(Also, 42, I dated someone with a dating philosophy similar to your roommate. It was definitely a way of thinking I hadn't run into before. She was as artistic as can be, though, so I don't think it's just engineers with that mindset. )

Yeah, I'm with Laser Jock. If I'm on a date, I consider myself committed to spend time getting to know that guy for the evening and not be looking around to see who else might walk by. If I'm in a relationship, I consider myself committed to getting to know that guy without actively looking for someone else to cuddle with or flirt with until the guy and I break off the relationship. I can see how it might happen that someone else might catch my eye while I'm in a relationship, but if I were to be actively looking for other options, I would feel like I had big loyalty and commitment issues.

I agree.

Sorry for the hiatus.

thebigcheese wrote:Also, if you are wanting to keep your options open, you probably aren't very committed to your current relationship.

I think this is part of what I'm wondering. Why does commitment seem to be such a goal? It seems to me the only way a relationship prospers from early commitment is if that one happens to be the one that works out eternally. And it can be horribly detramental otherwise.

TheAnswerIs42 wrote:I had a roommate who did not believe in the "boyfriend" stage. ... I think she decided to be exclusive with him like a month before he proposed.

This makes more sense to me than what I often see. I guess it kind of ties into the "long courtship, short engagement" thread, but if you've decided to stand pat on the hand you've been dealt when there are still draw phases yet to come, then you might as well play stud. Get engaged, get married, get on with life. But if you've an opportunity to improve on what you've got, why wouldn't you?

Laser Jock wrote:You shouldn't flirt with someone else, you shouldn't start any of the other things that lead up to dating someone else,...

I guess this makes sense, as commitment is obviously a major element of marriage, and dates are testing the qualities expected in a marriage. Yet when not in each other's immediate vacinity, or perhaps in a situation where such actions would not be in conflict, I guess I don't see why not?

Commitment is important in relationships that don't end in marriage as well. There are things you learn about a person when you are in a committed relationship with them that you would never learn otherwise. If you need specifics, I can give specifics, but it is time for me to go to work, so I'll leave it at that.

This, Tao, is why I'm glad that Sauron's mission gave me permission to shop around. I wouldn't have otherwise. And though I didn't spend a whole lot of time with other guys before realizing that, yes, Sauron was definitely the one I wanted, I needed that time. To get over my fears of choosing "the wrong one" and to show me just how special my relationship with Sauron was.

I needed that.

I also think long-distance relationships are great for separating the wheat from the chaff.

I think that demonstrating commitment prior to marriage can help to reduce problems in marriage. If you've always been looking for the better option, then it will be difficult to stop after you're married.

Unit of Energy wrote:I think that demonstrating commitment prior to marriage can help to reduce problems in marriage. If you've always been looking for the better option, then it will be difficult to stop after you're married.

Is not that, then, the purpose of the engagement period? A time to shift gears, so to speak?

krebscout wrote:I also think long-distance relationships are great for separating the wheat from the chaff.

I, too, think that this factors in no small amount to my thoughts on the matter.

Marduk wrote:Commitment is important in relationships that don't end in marriage as well. There are things you learn about a person when you are in a committed relationship with them that you would never learn otherwise. If you need specifics, I can give specifics, but it is time for me to go to work, so I'll leave it at that.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter, as I tend to draw a blank here. What information would you need on another man's wife, as my roommate so bluntly put it?

People act differently when they are in committed relationships than when they are not. They reveal their "true self" so to speak; specifically, what their expectations of a relationship are, how much time they expect to spend with each other, what their demands of each other are, how much financial expectations are in line, and so on. There are things we may expect of a girlfriend that we would never expect of someone we were simply dating (of course, there are things we demand of a spouse that we would never demand of a boyfriend, but at least that much commitment gives us a better idea).

And even if you don't buy any of that, being in a committed but not married relationship gives us time to practice fidelity without the more serious consequences that are present when those commitments are broken in marriage (obviously we won't be having sex with anyone, girl/boyfriend included, but that's not all there is to fidelity).

I'm with Marduk. I think I would like to be in a committed relationship before I agree to get engaged to someone. I don't think that you close the door to other options the minute you start dating, but I think at some point a couple should agree that they are going to date exclusively. But I also don't think that you need to announce from the pulpit that you're dating someone. If someone asks you out, you can just tell them you're dating someone exclusively right now.

Marduk wrote:People act differently when they are in committed relationships than when they are not. They reveal their "true self" so to speak; ...

Why would this be? and at what point in a relationship should that change?

NerdGirl wrote:I'm with Marduk. I think I would like to be in a committed relationship before I agree to get engaged to someone. I don't think that you close the door to other options the minute you start dating, but I think at some point a couple should agree that they are going to date exclusively.

When would you say this should happen? And how does it differ in your mind from engagement?

Please don't think me anti-commitment. Far from it, I think I tend to be too quick in the matter as often as not. And this seems to be more and more the expected norm. Yet turning to study it out I can find no healthy purpose for the current trend, and quite a few unhealthy results.

Tao wrote:

NerdGirl wrote:I'm with Marduk. I think I would like to be in a committed relationship before I agree to get engaged to someone. I don't think that you close the door to other options the minute you start dating, but I think at some point a couple should agree that they are going to date exclusively.

When would you say this should happen? And how does it differ in your mind from engagement?

I would say it should happen after the couple has been dating each other consistently for at least a few months (although this will vary), they know each other well and are comfortable with each other, and they're interested in exploring whether or not they should get married. Maybe after they've realized that they love each other? For me the difference between that and engagement is that engagement means you are intending to get married, but dating exclusively means you are trying to decide if you should get married.

NerdGirl wrote:I would say it should happen after the couple has been dating each other consistently for at least a few months (although this will vary), they know each other well and are comfortable with each other, and they're interested in exploring whether or not they should get married. Maybe after they've realized that they love each other? For me the difference between that and engagement is that engagement means you are intending to get married, but dating exclusively means you are trying to decide if you should get married.

I'm curious: does this mean, then, that you'd be fine consistently dating a guy (for several months) and be close to telling him "I love you," and have him still be dating other girls too?

I've never approached it that way, and I'm curious how many girls would be okay with guys doing so.

Personally, I think I would be, although I wouldn't be surprised if many other girls felt differently. As long as he was open about with me and whoever else he was dating. So in practice my theory probably doesn't work at all, but I think the point of dating should be to shop around to figure out who you want to get serious, and then you get serious once you've figured it out. I don't like the idea of getting serious with someone you've been on a couple of dates on, then you realize it's going nowhere and you have a big break up scene, then repeat. I really like the idea of dating casually until you know someone really well.

Yeah, that is why my policy has always been not to ask anyone out until I already know them fairly well. That way, I don't even date someone unless I'm fairly sure there's enough there to foment a relationship.

Marduk wrote:Yeah, that is why my policy has always been not to ask anyone out until I already know them fairly well. That way, I don't even date someone unless I'm fairly sure there's enough there to foment a relationship.

Heh, that's pretty much my policy in a nutshell as well. Unfortunately, not only is it less effective, it is pretty much exactly what we are counseled against.

I don't know what the happy medium is. Part of what has been influencing my thoughts is the news of a friend of the family who, at the age of 15, has had two seperate classmates, (out of a class of ~200) suicide over breaking up with their girlfriends.

Obviously that is quite an extreme, but I can see minor threads of it all around in our dating culture. Far too many times it seems you find individuals (or roommates, faugh!) trying out last names and picking out wedding colors after the first date.

While it makes sense logically to me to keep options open clear up till engagement, I had the impression that that philosophy was not common. Hence this discussion; where does the line get drawn?