Old-Fashioned Dating

Does anyone remember good old-fashioned dating?

Okay, not quite as old-fashioned as the above picture would imply -lol; but seriously…

You know a date? Where two people who are stranger got together a neutral place, had these things called conversations and bit by bit got to know each other. If you liked what you were seeing/feeling there would be another date to find out more and so on. If not, after an awkward email/phone call or two, you’d part ways and try again with someone else at some point.

There was no presumption of sex after the third or fourth date; let alone the second or first. The last three dates I went on, it just felt like there was this undercurrent of “going through the motions”. As though the date was only being done as the necessary evil/precursor. And maybe it’s me, but I swear that presumption is worse, with online dates. On my last date from an online site, after an otherwise pleasant evening, when he realized a kiss on the cheek was seriously all he was getting, he was obviously not happy. When I questioned his views on the lead question posted here, he out-and-out asked, “Who the fuck does like that anymore?” Uh, I do.

Has the act of sharing the most intimate parts of one’s physical self become that incredibly depreciated in these past two decades since I was last an active member of the dating scene? Please note, I am not including one-night stands for the intent of fucking for the sake of fucking. Nor for that matter am I knocking those first dates that turn into something more. They are what they are and I have done both, wholeheartedly in the past year of my reemergence into the scene with no regrets what so ever. For all of my very open views on sex and relationships, my date still has to prove he is worthy of me as I would like to think I am proving worthy of him. One date, hell five dates, is not necessarily enough time to be proven of such.

I’m a member of various adult sites, and the assumption there is even worse. Just because as a fellow member of the site, it presumed I must be ready to “play” since we’ve exchanged a couple of emails now does not make it so. What looks good on pixel, doesn’t have shit to do with face-to-face. We may meet and decide there is no chemistry between us; then what? I am quadruple leery of anyone presenting offers to play without first wanting to meet someplace neutral to see if we even like each other first. I have pissed-off plenty of such suitors when their offers are flat-out rejected due to such.

I also know that the assumption of sex is not something exclusively related to “I’m a fat girl – I must be desperate – thus easy” realm, because I know more than enough of my slim sisters going through the same thing. I’ve had conversations with other dating friends male and female and sex after the third date (on average) is –well, a given.

So what’s a gal to do?