Dating for Recovering Fundies

[senda wales]

(08-07-2011 02:16 PM)HACker105 Wrote:  I don't mean to hijack this thread but it has good points, but what does one do who never bought into it? Granted I am a fundamentalist NOT the extra nonsense. I never believed in casual dating.. halp SFL.

Until this past Friday, I did not believe in casual dating. That was until someone from my mixed martial arts gym spontaneously asked if I'd like to see a movie with him afterwards. I did. We also got dinner first. And ice cream afterwards. He paid for all of the food (even when I insisted on paying my part) and was really reluctant to let me pay for the movie tickets (I had gift certificates, which are difficult to argue with). He kept complimenting me on how I looked and kept saying he had fun and was really concerned that I was having fun. He also leaned close to me the whole time in the movie theater. (Turns out that muscular people aren't quite as cushy as, well, the average person.) He asked for my phone number afterwards.

We didn't call it a date, but to me that sounds like a casual date. It wasn't serious, and we made no commitments. But I enjoyed his company, and I think he enjoyed mine, but probably not enough for either of us to get into serious dating. We said hi to each other at the gym the next day and we were friendly and cool, but that was that. Fun, spontaneous, and no pressure. Aside from the internal fundy pressure and general anxieties about dating that caused me get nervous a few times during the evening, which he immediately noticed because he's a people person and he was paying a lot of attention to me. All of which made me even more nervous and self-conscious and guilty about my fundy past. Thus inspiring this thread.

What I learned from this is: one of the best ways to get over fundy hang-ups (like not believing in casual dating) is to just go and do things contrary to fundy rules and find out it's not so bad. Dating doesn't have to be marriage-minded. Sometimes it's just exploring and enjoying other people's company. The main principle I keep in mind is to always treat people with respect and not as mere sex objects. That's why I draw the line at casual sex and hook-ups, but that's just me.