Blimey, over 3,000 hits in two days because of those Doctor Who photos! Doctor Who fans may also be interested in the report I did on the Doctor Who press launch for the student magazine Quench, photos and report on the filming of The Idiot’s Lantern, and much more besides. Also, keep an eye on Gair Rhydd and Quench, because an exciting Who-related feature should be hitting the news stands sometime soon!
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.