While having a much needed girls’ night with one of my besties, we inevitably transitioned from venting about our work week frustrations to discussing our ever changing and utterly confusing romantic engagements. She is dating a guy who is blatantly in love with her but dances around the topic saying everything but those three little words. They see each other more than once a week, are exclusively sexually involved with one another (which he refers to as making love), and they have plans set as far as six months into the future…however, he does not call her his girlfriend and does not refer to them as dating.
I mean, what is dating…really? Some people think you can’t use the term until you are explicitly girlfriend and boyfriend, making it synonymous with in a relationship. Others use it to define a scenario in which essentially you have been on one or more dates with a certain person and you believe that there will be more to come. Of course, there is just the general sense of “going on a date”, which could be used the very first time you have a face to face meeting with a person with the understanding that there is mutual attraction or at least the potential for mutual attraction. Dating is one of those words that falls in the category of “hooking up” since the connotation varies from person to person. To some it’s sex but to others it’s a kiss and it really can fall into the whole gambit in between.
