The Ever-Changing Rules of Dating

In an age of internet dating services and fast-paced living, the rules of dating have changed drastically for American singles. Whether you are a man or a woman, there is no doubt that the rules of dating are far more complicated than they were a generation or so ago, and that is a fact. There is no simple way around it. The old social norms, where the man paid, and called, where the woman waited to be pursued, and never made the first move, had many flaws. They were really unfair, both to women who had more dominant personalities, and to men who would rather take a more passive role, but they did make things easier for everyone to understand. Back then, the rules of dating were clear, and understood by everyone, but now everything is different. No matter what relationship advice you have received, it is a simple fact that things are much more complicated now than they have ever been, at least at the beginning.

Of course, there are many dating services available to try to help clarify the rules of dating for you. If, for example, you go to a speed dating event, everything is really simple. You are required to do nothing but to talk for a few minutes to a variety of potential matches. Hopefully, you will find people with similar tastes to you, either more traditional, or more modern, and from there, the rules of dating will sort themselves out. But, in reality this is no guarantee that dating rules will be any less difficult than otherwise.

Whether or not social norms will stabilize and make the rules of dating easier to decode is an open question, but one thing is for sure: not knowing what is the proper thing to do on a date is a matter of some great anxiety for men and women alike. There are advice columnists and writers who make their whole career off of people's dating anxiety, and each of them have their different approach to rules of dating. No matter where you go to look for it, you will never find a satisfactory guide to etiquette, because we are in such an informal culture. I guess that the key is to always act comfortable and at ease. Anyone can make a mistake, but if you are at ease, then your manner can put other people at ease so that, even if you do not have a perfect grasp of the rules of dating, your date can still be a success.

_{This page was last updated on Monday, August 28, 2006}