Dating

      So today I had a little surprise :) So I have a missionary, he has been faithfully serving in Long Beach, California for the past year and a half. (Which means he comes home to me in six and a half months!!) But I got my weekly letter on Saturday so I was not expecting a letter for another week, well me and my roommate Jami went to check the mail just for the heck of it today and guess who got a letter!! I'm not supposed to open it til Valentines Day, which is in three days, but he opened his Christmas present early, so I opened my Valentines letter early. Hehe :) He's such a sweetie! He wrote me scriptures that reminded him of me.  I love getting surprises like that! He's the best!!  
     Okay so that doesn't entirely relate to what we talked about today... But it made my day so I had to share :) We talked about dating. Again, I’m going to pull from my other family class. I think I will probably be doing that for the rest of the semester.. But dating! Okay, so we talked about a few different aspects of dating. Did you know that, we tend to like people that live or work near us, and I forget the statistic but like around one-third (I think) of people marry people that live within a few blocks of their house. Why is that? Well, it used to be because there wasn’t the means to meet as many people that lived further away, but also the saying “opposites attract” is actually false. We tend to go for people that are similar to ourselves. We find that we can relate to them better, of course they have to have some differences, especially things that will make our weaknesses become strengths, but if we are complete opposites then we will not have any common ground to begin to relate.

                I love BYUI because people actually date here! I think it is a lost thing in my town in Georgia, but not just there, dating is becoming a lost thing around the world. People are hanging out, not dating. In order to be a date it must pass the three P’s- planned, paid for, and paired off. (Which if you are familiar with the Proclamation to the World, you will recognize that those are similar to the three P’s of a man’s duty.. Preside, Provide, and Protect…  Fun fact..) When you are young and in high school, hanging out is totally fine! You do not have to go on these paired off dates, in fact group dates are better! But when you get to the college age you need to start getting out of the hanging out stage and get into the dating stage.  Even still, they can and should be group dates, just have some single dates to know if you can be alone with the person.

                What are the purposes of dating? We date of course to find our future eternal companion, but we should not be looking for that on our first dates. We should date lots of people and lots of different types of people to learn what kinds of people and the traits of people that we like and want to be with. We also date for recreation, companionship, status attainment, socialization, and intimacy (or as Brother Williams calls it in-ta-my-mate). But intimacy just means sharing something with someone, being with someone, it does not mean sex necessarily.

                Dating is not just about selecting a partner, it is about learning yourself, and then learning and growing together. Dating is an important and exciting step in life. And I’m really excited to be at that time in my life!! J

Okayy!! Have a great week!!

Peace and blessing.