I enjoyed a conversation the other day with a Christian colleague on dating. While we differ on approaches, we do agree on one thing….dating is an important part of discovering things about yourself and being in tuned with God on choosing a suitable and appropriate mate. Our disagreement came with the approach to dating. She believes in more of a buffet style approach with dating several people at one time, while I tend to have key items that I look for first and test the compatibility by spending time together, one person at a time, maybe two.
She thinks that my style of dating cuts off your universal abundance to all the possibilities. Well I can understand how someone might think that way. I am not even saying that buffet dating is wrong, but there needs to be some level of sensitivity involved in the process. The important thing is that we cannot forget that those “possibilities” are people, they have emotions, feelings, and hearts that they have to deal with long after those gregarious buffeters have moved on to what they consider to be greener grass.
I have been on the receiving end of a buffet dater and let me tell you that it was not a pleasant experience. Actually it was a heart wrenching roller coaster of up and down disappointments. He would talk about building a future together and having kids, and then emotionally retreat for days and even weeks at a time. Then after a while I would hear that he was dating someone else…..and I was supposed to be okay with the fact that he played with the very hopes within my heart that I had toward him? I was not okay, and I wish at some point he would have understood how “not okay” his actions made me – but that is another lesson learned —that you must always self-care your own heart.
Bottomline: If you are buffet dater, then make sure that everyone that you are involved with knows that you date many people at one time. And please, at no point in time should you talk about a future together with any of these people that you are dating unless you are sure that you are willing to work toward a future with that person. While you are exploring the “possibilities” of a mate, again, be sure to be sensitive to the fact that those “possibilities” have feelings and emotions that you need to be considered just as much as yours.
In other words….don’t be an emotional terrorist.
Helen