How people date has changed radically through
the years. Chaperones and arranged marriages
are things of the past. Dating a number of people
simultaneously until you could focus on one has
become much less popular due to time involvement
and sexual issues focusing on easily transmittable
and potentially fatal diseases.
The idea of dating one person for awhile until
you either marry or find a reason to move on has
become much more common than at any other
time in human history. While having some obvious
health advantages, serial dating has much
more room for intensity that can be difficult in
the early days of getting to know someone,
lethargy about moving on when faced with the
daunting task of starting over, and mixed and
incompatible messages about the future of any
particular situation.
If I ran the dating world, I would have males and
females hang out in groups for long periods of
time without pairing off. Once the pairings
began, I would encourage multiple pairings (not
necessarily sexual) to allow knowledge of each
other as well as self to proceed with little pressure
to “decide.” Because of the emphasis on
commitment (prematurely as far as I’m concerned),
if things aren’t going swimmingly, there
is a tendency to move on to the next relationship
rather than the next stage of a relationship or to
remain in a relationship that has become static,
because moving on is not possible and moving
out seems too scary and uncertain.
Serial dating is moving on to the next person
rather than the next stage. Simultaneous dating
allows more time with less intensity to explore
who each of you is and what each of you wants
as long as the relationships are not sexual until
both partners are prepared for commitment and
exclusivity. This more restrained approach
allows for self-awareness, friendship, trust, and
compatibility to precede sexual involvement.