[itsthejb]

3. Some amount of people don’t want to feel like the dating process is an interview process, of attempting to insert a “bum” into a “seat”, of finding a “candidate” to fill a “role”. Of course that doesn’t stop it from still _being that_, it’s just that some people are fully comfortable with an upfront, obvious and formal selection process, but many people are not, and want the process to have some amount of an “organic” feel to it.

As with anything with dating, since you have no idea of what a new person’s criteria is, and they may not know either, and since there’s often a certain poker game involved in revealing those intentions, most people seem to opt for feeling it out as they go along. Honestly I think this is fine, it’s just that you have to give each other enough time and space for that, and that’s often a problem

[em-bee]

it depends how we meet. if i meet someone through a dating site or some other matchmaking process, i would want to known soon whether we have similar goals in life. and if the goals line up we can go deeper and explore our relationship. if not, we can keep looking for someone else.

but i actually feel that dating itself is not a good approach to find a partner. it is an artificial situation disconnected from your normal life.

it would be better to be able to pick your partner from among your friends, and then spending time with that friend and others as you get to know each other more. many qualities, interests and goals will naturally reveal themselves and common interests and goals will cause you to spend more time together.

dating makes this difficult because you are switching from relaxed activities with friends to a very formal meeting with high expectations where not getting invited for a second date counts as a failure without much hope for another chance.