What is a date? Or let’s sync the terminology

But before you start reading this article, remember your best date. What was it like for you? Why did you remember it and call it the best?

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If you haven’t had a “best date” yet, don’t worry. Read the article and try to define a date.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a date is “a social meeting planned before it happens, especially between two people who have or might have a romantic relationship”[1].

For a date to happen, you should be interested in each other and enjoy the time spent together. You can go to a cafe or a movie on a date, be in the park, or even walk your dogs together. However, each action does not make a meeting between two people a date. If you went for a walk after a working day or for a run in the morning – you cannot say that you are dating.

It is the interest in each other that makes a meeting a date. You can be as interested in the outside world or the meeting process as you like, but if you leave the meeting and don’t learn anything new about your partner, you’ve just spent time together or hung out [2].

On the other hand, a meeting between two people who do nothing but ask each other questions – alone or in a cafe – is more like a therapy session or a client meeting with a psychologist.

What elements must be present to turn a meeting into a date? Before I go through the individual elements, I want to say – we are all living people, and perhaps just one element will be enough for your date. As you master and practice, you can subtly supplement and enrich dates (and just conversations with each other) with all the elements. So, after you have planned a meeting or received an invitation to a date, it may happen:

Flirting is an excellent prelude to dating. A mental game or a game of imagination, where players send signals to each other and engage each other in communication that is invisible to others. Communication can be verbal and non-verbal – body language, eyes, smells, and casual touches. The object of flirtation can receive double messages – for example, “We are just friends” and “I like you.” This whole game is built to attract attention and understand whether the partner is interested in each other before revealing your interest. It also happens that flirting is absent at the acquaintance stage and then manifests itself in further romantic relationships as a game of two lovers. To be together, remaining in plain sight.

An invitation to a date is already part of courtship. The next step is to go on a date, which can mean that you are open to dating and allow the other person to court you. A date is a legitimate space for you and your partner to express yourself. Signs of attention can be both tangible and intangible. The most popular and widespread attributes of courtship are flowers, compliments, souvenirs, and organizing a date, such as booking a table in a cafe or buying tickets to an event in the city. Politeness and etiquette are constant companions of courtship, but unlike flirting, such communication is relatively straightforward. The comfort of the other person, his/her physical and emotional personal boundaries, and the ability to see and recognize the partner’s role as a girl or a guy in a couple is essential. Mutually, the opportunity to show yourself and present yourself as a potential partner and your ability not to rise but to care for your partner is valuable. 

Interest, ideally, if it includes open communication. A man and a girl ask open questions and try to get to know each other better [3] about their goals for dating and plans for the future. They are ready to open up and frankly answer questions for them, to be vulnerable so that the partner can get to know them better. Open questions, the ability to calmly consider the qualities of another partner – without judging, but contemplating and feeling how much you can complement each other in a couple, trust – all this is possible with emotional intelligence and respect between two people. Deeper feelings can only rise, and it is valuable to discern common meanings and prepare common symbols that the couple can use as a basis for the future. When you go on a date – your desire to learn something new about a potential partner is the emotional setting that can set the right course for the entire meeting.

Role model of a couple. The key difference between a date and having a good time together is that the latter has nothing to do with the process of two individuals forming a couple and subsequent personal relationships. During dates, a man and a woman perceive themselves as a couple for each other and for others. They feel how they look together, how comfortable they are with each other, how their partner reacts to what is happening, and how society reacts to them. That is why, even though some dates can take place alone, spending some dates in society is also valuable. As Waller W. accurately noted, all of these processes within the pair relationship are accentuated by the changes in the attitude of others, who tend to treat the pair as a social unity so far as their association is recognized and approved [3]. The only thing is that some couples can form not because they are approved, but on the contrary – due to rebellion against the society that has formed around them. However, this is a topic for a separate conversation. In this article, I emphasize that we should not underestimate the power of the external environment at the dating stage.

Dating is a social skill, and anyone can master it. With fluency in personal dating skills, we can create space for our choices and make them consciously. When we feel confident in our roles, we can open up and focus on our partner, whether it’s a first date, a new date after a long break, or a date in an already-established long-term relationship. And somewhere amidst the external hustle and bustle, you can feel that connection when you are only for each other.