Dating? What is that?

I've often found myself wondering why I don't date more. I mean, am I not attractive or something?

I wandered through Junior High and High School and I saw the couples. I saw them everywhere and I saw my acquaintances becoming part of those couples. In Junior High it was gross. I couldn't stand it. I mean who really wants to see you making out with your girlfriend/boyfriend in the hall at age 13? Definitely not me.

But then came High school. I used to have fantasies that some boy would ask me out before I was 16 and then I would have to politely turn him down, but such was not the case. All fantasies aside I didn't really want to date at 15, and I knew that for the boys my age I was more of a confidant and someone to ask for advice than someone to ask out on a date. Of course, I'm told that some day those qualities that made me a great wing woman will make me a great wife. The people who have told me this were not male, they were female, so really what do they know?

When a guy called me to ask me on my very first date he unwisely told me that I was the third in line. Two other girls had already turned him down. Now, all you great males out there, this is not the way to do it. I didn't particularly mind of course, it didn't matter to me that I was not first choice. I did not really care, I was mostly just super happy that I had actually been asked on a date. But needless to say this hurt my self esteem a little.

This happened time and time again as I worked my way through high school. I was the girl that didn't go on casual dates. and not because I didn't want to. I can count on two hands the number of casual dates that I went on as a high school student. and 3/4 of those dates I asked the boy out and organized my girlfriends and planned the date. I hated the culture where people didn't date different people and so I did something about it. It wasn't not often that I was asked on a date and treated to a night where I didn't have to plan. And most of the dates I was asked on by a guy, who did the planning, were dance dates. So throughout high school I tried to change the culture.

My high school was known for being slightly cliquey. Everyone who has ever heard of Davis High will protest and say that we are extremely cliquey, but I never saw it that way, mainly because I was a bouncer. I jumped from one group to another and I met a lot of people. I wasn't particularly close to a lot of people, but I made it a point to make friends with others. Well during my senior year I was getting mighty sick of people and their comfort zones. So I got together with my best friend and some acquaintances and we got this brilliant idea to to a group date blind date. We each drew someone else's name and we found a date for them. It was great fun. One of the greatest dates I have ever been on.

But still my poor self-esteem took hits through High school. My Junior year I wasn't asked to Homecoming, which shouldn't hurt. It really shouldn't. But to a 16-year-old, it did. However Tess (one of my friends who also didn't get asked) and I brushed it off. We went to see the Avengers. But still my self-esteem took a hit. I watched some of my closer friends get into relationships, where they guy was an utter sweetheart, or an utter jerk. I've watched the cute couples and wanted something like that. I wanted something real and sweet. Someone to talk to, someone who would listen and share as well. I still want that I guess.

Have I mentioned that I'm a hopeless romantic?

But that was never what I got nor did I really want it as a 17 year old who didn't even know what college to attend until the day before the decision needed to be made.

As I moved away to college though, I deluded myself into thinking that the college dating scene would be different. I was wrong. If nothing else men ask women on less dates in college. Because in college (at least in Utah) most of the male attending higher education are (1)returned missionaries who are ready to get married and are therefore looking for "future wife material" and only ask girls out who they think they have a shot at eternity with, (2) young men going to a year of college before going on a mission (a disappearing breed, most young men are leaving right after high school), or (3) those who I would rather not date (sorry, harsh, but true). Soooo really the dating scene up here is all about getting married. I've watched it.

So college hasn't really been different. If nothing else it means I date less. I've been on two dates in the last 12 months. And they were with the same guy, one who fits into the subset 1 up above. and I'm simply not ready for marriage. Just to put it in perspective. I was well aware after this guy asked me out that he was interested. Which I was not prepared for. As I've said before, I'm not the type of girl that men find attractive. Or if they do they don't say anything to me about it. Not one male but my dad had ever come right out and told me that I was beautiful. Not even my brothers. And then this guy came along.

He was in my ward, and until the day he asked me out I had never spoken to him. But he had seen me, and listened to me and heard some of my deepest stories. Don't get me wrong, He's not a stalker. I'm one of the Gospel Doctrine teachers in my ward and as a result I get up in front of my ward every three weeks and share something of myself with them. So he'd seen me, but I hadn't seen him.

Anyway, so he asked me out and we went on a date and we texted a lot and we got to get to know each other. He was thoughtful and sweet and very much what I'd always pictured in a boyfriend, or a guy I was dating. But I began to freak out, because I didn't know what I was feeling. I hadn't ever been in a relationship with a guy before. I hadn't held a man's hand that wasn't my dad, or my brother to make him feel uncomfortable :). I've never been in a relationship.

So as I could see that he was getting more attached, and that he was in earnest about being with me I began to panic. I was at work for 10 hours one day working on a huge project with a whole team. And that day I had been feeling particularly weird about the whole thing, and my brain tends to work overdrive and think all the time. So I whenever I was working on a part of this project by myself and I wasn't distracted by the beautiful people I work with I was left to wrestle with my own brain. I wasn't ready for a relationship. At 18 I was not ready. My brain worked so hard on this and was so out of its league that I had a panic attack. Yes. I had a panic attack about in a relationship. It didn't feel right. If I was supposed to be in a relationship with this wonderful, sweet guy, I wouldn't feel so panicked everytime he called beautiful, or did something sweet for me, or texted me to see how my day was going. But I did. and it was weird.

So I still haven't really been in a relationship. But I have held a guy's hand now. So baby steps?

But still I live in student housing, near a college campus and I attend a Singles ward. So I am literally surrounded by couples. My best friend / roommate up here is getting married at the end of the summer to a guy that I introduced her to. Because by pure happenstance I was in a class with his roommates. One of our other roommates is getting married as well. I am surrounded. And all it makes me feel is longing.

I realize that I am only 19. I also acknowledge the fact that I REALLY don't want to be married right now. I'm not ready, I haven't seen enough of the world. I haven't experienced enough. But that doesn't stop the longing. I still long to be with someone who will talk with me, to have someone who will put his arm around me and hold me close, because sometimes all I really need is a hug.

But enough from the hopeless romantic in me.

Dating, I feel, is becoming a lost art. and the hang out is beginning to take its place. Heck, it's already taken a place. But because dating is becoming a lost art there are a lot of girls out there who feel slighted and lack self esteem because guys don't ask them out.

There are times I want to shake the young men in high school. The ones who say they don't want to go to the dances because they have no one to ask. I guarantee that there some girl out there, probably one right in front of your face who hasn't been asked, who wants to be asked, and who feels hurt and not pretty because she hasn't been asked. All I ask is that you look further than the end of your own nose and help a girl feel loved, wanted, and needed.

Don't let anyone slip through the cracks. Even the girls who ask: Dating? What the heck is that?