Let’s lighten up and have fun dating! Even if nothing gets serious, we can still enjoy ourselves, right? Most men totally feel this way. One of the reasons women feel so much pressure when they date is because they immediately try to size up their date as a future spouse.

Okay. Guilty. I’ve noticed a lot of singles, including myself, tend to put too much pressure on getting married. We get too serious too fast in our heads. So, we may either find all sorts of flaws or we think they’re so amazing, we know our hearts are already somewhat attached. Either way, our minds race into the future. Like I said, I’m guilty of it too! I’ve noticed since I’m always in the future, I don’t enjoy the present moment quite as much. I’m noticing that this day by day, moment by moment living is really the way to go, even in our relationships with the opposite sex.

What if we went about getting to know people a different way, with a different intention? Experiment. What if went into every friendship/date/relationship without our minds racing off thinking about marriage? Meaning, we just go into the situation getting to know the person better. I really think that we’d all be better off! The worst thing that could happen is that the guy ends up just being our friend. And what’s wrong with that? Aren’t people worth getting to know just for the sake of bonding and sharing life together?

Women especially tend to ask “marriage-minded questions” all too soon and all to frequently. Or as one man said, “After two or three dates they always want to talk about settling down. I want to go out with someone who’s fun, not someone who is desperate to find the right genes for her baby.”

You don’t want to give this impression! Instead you want to send the message: I want to get to know you. Not because I have an aching desire to be married and to be someone’s wife, and you might be a possible candidate. You’re not just a potential spouse because I’m dying to fill a role in my life. What biological clock? What? Really? My friends are all married? I don’t care. I just want to get to know you.

Any conversation with these following subjects in the first couple of dates immediately signals that your primary intentions for making his acquaintance is to size him up to see if he fits the role of husband:

family’s medical history
intentions regarding marriage and children
career prospects

But you rationalize:
“But I don’t want to waste my time! I want to know what his intentions are. I want him to know what I want! I’m not getting any younger!”

Let me ask you, let me ask myself! Is it really a waste of time getting to know someone deeply? Isn’t caring deeply for other human beings and being cared for in return really what we all crave? Friendship is the stuff we all want. Add some electricity and sparks and you’ve got something amazing. Or as someone once said, “Love is friendship set on fire.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to dog marriage. Marriage can be a wonderful thing, (so I’ve heard) but now I’m really starting to see that it’s just a continuation of a deep friendship with someone, someone who you want by your side more than anybody else. Someone you have enough things in common with to build a life on and possibly share with another generation of human beings but also someone you share enough differences with to keep each other continually growing, discovering and learning. Marriage is just a public announcement of a commitment you already share. A deep friendship is the basis of that commitment. So why do we put so much emphasis on the public announcement and the new title? Isn’t the ongoing friendship what really matters?

Right now I’m single, but I can honestly tell you that I hardly ever feel lonely.(except after watching romantic comedies!) Is this because I don’t crave companionship or have a libido? Hell no! (to put it lightly) I just know that even if I don’t have a significant other, I have at least a handful of significant friends who I know care for me deeply and will be there for me through thick and thin. Marriage is this thing I want, but I don’t feel that I need to focus on it in my friendships and relationships with men because it’s an institution that’s pretty universally ingrained on the majority of people’s hearts to want and desire. I really think that the majority of people crave that intimacy that marriage provides. And if they don’t want that, I’m pretty sure you’ll find it out pretty early on in the game. People don’t usually hide what they want, especially guys. They’re pretty straight forward. And yes, we may not be getting any younger, but the older we get, the more guys are afraid that we’re just trying to get to know them because we feel the pressure from ourselves and others to get married. They don’t want to just be the guy to fill a role. If you do get married to them, they want to know it’s because you want to be with them, not just the idea of having a husband.

Somewhere along the way, you changed. You started thinking of time as something that was running out. You started focusing on the destination–marriage– and you stopped enjoying yourself along the way. -Nita Tucker

We can all take the pressure off of dating if we stop focusing so much on marriage as a destination and just focus on building deep relationships with others… and having fun!