Relationships: Dating vs Hanging Out

Relationships are so much fun and always promising when you're in it for the right reasons. Being single I sometimes visit dating sites around the Internet. I start to daydream about the fun and exciting possibilities that lay ahead once I find the right girl. All things considered. I know it's best to go slow, to take it one day at a time. However, that is easier said than done.

Sometimes I tell myself if a person is going to be fun or not, I'll sense it when I'm with that person the first time we're out together. Then the daydream comes to a screeching halt, and my reality check says, you have to keep it real. She's not going to be delivered to your doorstep in a big beautiful gift box with a pretty yellow ribbon tide around it.

Yes these things take time and you should use that time to work on you. To tweek areas you need strengthened. It could be having more confidence in yourself, or establishing an exercise routine to get rid of that belly you're getting. Once you're on track you'll need to decide what you want to do.

So what should I do?

I've had to ask myself this question, and the answer is always the same. You have to date until you think you've found the right girl. Date? But that has swings, big drops, curves, frustration, you name it! Why can't I just meet her in a superm
arket, know she's the one and be lucky enough that she chooses me too? That happens but you can't count on it. You have to go out with her about two years before you'll really know enough about her to decide. However, that doesn't sound right either. You mean I have to date her two years to find out if she is the wrong person, and then I have to let her go? That could become a lot of 'two year screenings' not to mention the pain and suffering in the separations. So what should I do?

I think the anxiety and nervousness sets in because of the word 'date'. 

In today's world when I hear that word, a little switch in my mind flips to rejection. Rejection is what I don't want to think about. The word date seems to put conditions on the possibilities that I get so excited about.

So I trained myself to think in terms of 'hanging out', and poof, stress is gone.  

I can work with hanging out. Under those conditions neither of us is expecting anything from the other but their company and the fun in running around with them. It's a win win.

When you're dating someone you are looking for something and making a lot of judgement calls, some of them actually accurate. When dating, sometimes something happens that shouldn't have, and you aren't clear. And when you proceed with a relation like that trouble is usually looming down the road.

Why do they want to know how much money you make if you're only dating?

If all we're doing is hanging out then it doesn't bother me if things don't work out, and that's easier for both of us because we're not together for things to work out on an emotional level. I would hang-out with most of the girls I see on dating sites until they ask: How much money do you make? I think a guy should be banking paper before seeking a wife, but if all he is doing is dating, wouldn't it be 'gold digging' to ask how much money he makes before a date? Really it's true, that question is actually in the profile of many dating sites.

Must we be making $100,000.00 a year just to hang out with a girl from a dating site? The girls there seem to think so. Maybe these sites are looking at it this way: The girl you are hanging out with might turn into the girl you want, and you'll be ready based on how much money you make! No, then there's the question of, what if I've not decided yet, what's money got to do with anything? You see, there is where it gets to be complicated for me. So I've come to a conclusion.

No dating sites! I'll develop my charm affect, let their own intuition alert them of my interest, play the cat a mouse game, and if one I like catches me, or I catch her, then I'm cool. And so far it's working like a charm. There you go fella's. Good luck!