How do you date?
Recently had a conversation with a good friend about dating, and it had me curious about how everyone on Beehaw approaches dating. Tell me a bit about how you date! Here's a few prompts/thoughts I'm curious about:
- How long does it take for you to know if you're attracted to someone (sexually, romantically, emotionally, shared interests, etc)?
- What do you like to do when you date and does it change depending on how many dates you've been on or how well you know the person?
- Once you start dating someone, how long does it take you to understand whether you want to date the person long term or whether it's not going to work out?
- Do you only date people you meet in real life or do you use dating apps? How do you approach going from stranger to dating them?
- What's most important in deciding whether you want to date someone? Do they need to have an interest in activities you enjoy, shared values, emotional intelligence, a certain kind of humor, or something else?
- Is there something you don't understand about dating and want to share your frustration?
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I wasn't going to comment on this because I've been in a monogamous relationship for 15 years at this point, but one thing I noticed in the comments is really interesting to me.
Pretty much everybody is saying they know they're attracted to someone physically/sexually right away, and that was not my experience when I was dating regularly. Maybe I'm odd, but I always found that most of the time I would get to know a person first and then I would start to notice things about them that I found attractive and kind of mold my way of thinking and looking at them around those things that I was attracted to in them. Sure, there were exceptions, there are people out there where I was just like - damn everything about that person is hot (my wife being one of those) - but I dated women with a wide variety of physical features and really the only commonality was that I liked being around them. The physical stuff was secondary (although still important) for me.
Maybe you're a Demisexual. For me, I can experience initial sexual attraction to people, but I never act on it. But my actual relationships have been similar to you: I knew them first as acquaintances/friends, we'd hang out, then I'd develop an attraction. My longest relationship was that way. We were simply friends for some months. Well, she liked me as I found out later, but I didn't pick up on it (typical guy). Wasn't until one evening we were hanging out a restaurant just chitchatting, enjoying each other's company, that I also noticed how attractive she was and started letting my mind wander to the possibilities. And I had a GF at the time! And that relationship developed a similar way, too.
Maybe? But it doesn't quite feel right. Not sure how to explain it, though. It's more that my ability to be attracted to someone is pretty malleable if I like them?