Debating dating

St Valentine’s Day has just come round again - but is dating the best way to pursue romance?

For Little Miss Blind Date

Unlike bungee jumping without a harness, climbing into a tank with a shark, or auditioning for Big Brother, dating is something everyone should try at least once.

However nerve-wracking it may be, dating is one of the most enjoyable ways of getting to know someone new. Instead of stumbling home at the end of Rubber Duck and waking up the next morning with a hangover of apocalyptic proportions and an unfamiliar other (now if only I could remember their name…) and then wondering why they don’t call or text, dating allows you to spend time with someone you feel attracted to and find out more about what you have in common.

The biggest challenge of dating is overcoming the fear. First, you must pluck up the courage to ask out the object of your affection while facing the prospect of being turned down by them or stared at as if you’ve sprouted horns. Once on the date, you might find that, actually, you have nothing in common. Maybe the other person is more interested than you are or, even worse, that you like them more than they like you.

But everyone is different; even if neither of you want to go on future dates, you’ve spent time getting to know someone potentially very interesting that you can say ‘hi’ to in the pub or on Facebook. Dating helps you to deal with your nerves and gives you the opportunity to be yourself. It also helps you decide what you want from a future partner.

Yes, it takes nerves and yes, it might not work out. There’s always the chance you’ll have one too many, trip up, belch or insist on telling that ‘hilarious’ story about the time you and your housemates stole a traffic cone, but dating is just a bit of fun. Even if it goes completely wrong, you’ll (hopefully) leave with your dignity intact and the courage to do it again.

Against Caleb Woodbridge

The trouble with dating is that, generally speaking, it’s an individualistic, consumerist and self-centred method of relationships. Now people can mean different things by “dating”, and some manage to date unselfishly. But our habits and culture of dating lend themselves very readily to selfishness rather than love.

Dating is usually about finding the person I find attractive, who I like and who will give me pleasure. Dating treats people like a product to be returned to the store if I don’t like them. But the paradox of hedonism is that whoever seeks happiness for its own sake will never be happy; we need something to be happy about. We won’t find real happiness in relationships if we start by seeking our own satisfaction. Love is its most hedonistic by giving up hedonism: love is finding pleasure not in your own happiness but in the happiness of your beloved.

Our culture is also relentlessly individualistic. Dating is just you and the person you fancy, usually divorced from any kind of normal social situation. There’s a place for privacy, but all our relationships exist in a wider social context. It’s far healthier to begin with getting to know someone as part of a wider friendship group, and moving on to romance supported and helped by our friends, and dare I say it, family.

Dating is usually a series of casual, commitment-free liaisons. Commitment gives meaning and security to relationships. True romance involves both pleasure and purpose, duty and delight, hand in hand with one another. Where there is love, or we are seeking to develop love, commitment is not a cage, but a delight.

Love is not about finding some mystical soul-mate. Fancying someone, having a crush on someone, being “in love” is good soil in which to grow genuine love, but it needs to be cultivated. The best environment to do so is not dating as usually practiced, but one of commitment, community and mutual giving.