Fancy a Date?

Some of you will be shocked (or alternatively rolling on the floor, laughing out loud) at such a suggestion. Shak, date? Guffaw. And to be honest, yes, you'd be right to be - I just don't, and never really plan on doing so either. In my opinion, you can get to know someone pretty well without "going steady" thankyouverymuch, although I suppose that in itself doesn't justify not dating in general. It certainly looks fun anyway, eh?

So then why don't I hook up with a honey? Well, for me, it's for a mixture of different reasons really. Religion obviously plays a big part and then there's issues of family and culture. But these reasons are common enough (I know of a few others who hold the same opinions) and I think that if that's all I had it wouldn't be long before I did the whole two-phone-tango.

I mean, personally, I believe that there is room within Islam to sort of (kinda) date, you know, as long as it's within limits. And with respect to family, here too precedents have already been set (and the theory is that my parents had actually expected me to find my own kuri too, which is probably why they procrastinated in finding her for me instead). So I ask again, what's stopping me?

I guess the main barrier for me is that particular sense of romance I have. In a nutshell, I'm not really interested in anything that isn't going to last forever (forever ever? Forever ever??) or at the very least a very long time. And the extremely rational side of me will not settle for a relationship that isn't wholly practical or "realistic" in the first place (which, of course, is totally irrational and unrealistic in itself).

If I was a gentleman, I would claim that I respect relationships far too much to create them so flippantly as one would in the course of dating, but I'm not and so I might suggest that it's more to do with a fear of failing, or ruining some notion of a 100% success rate in these things instead. That still all sounds absurd, so I'll just stick to saying that I'm just a one-and-only-one-girl-ever-for-life kinda guy. And faced with that kind of finality, it's not surprising that I steer clear of anything less.

Still, as I've indicated previously there is an argument saying that dating, whether in the short or long term, does in fact help with personal development - especially with respect to any deeper kind of relationship in the future. However, even if there was some kind of a definite guarantee that having a fling (oh, okay fine: "or more") would make things easier for me later on, I still don't think that I would. I guess I'd rather keep my principles intact than make things easy in the future, but then I'm hoping that there's some kind of extra eventual payoff in doing so too.

Oh and yes, just in case you were wondering there is also that little problem of no one actually wanting me. Sigh, boo hoo, etc.