Big or Small, What Counts as a Date

The most exciting thing on your mind? Friday happens to be date night! The one night you and your partner take to put aside all of the work-related parts of life and have a good meal and a good time. You begin to wonder where you will go, or what you will do. After all, you and your partner are still getting to know each other, and ideas of a perfect date night haven’t really been a topic of discussion, so you find yourself questioning, what really does count as a date?

Dates through media and movies over the years, have been pictured to be somewhat of a “big deal”. Many times dates are portrayed as the man coming to pick up his girlfriend, then they head off to a somewhat fancy restaurant. Fairly simple and easy to accomplish…

but WHAT really is a date?

What is the purpose of dating? Are there certain expectations of what dating is, or what it should be? When we think about ourselves as people in general, we are as diverse as the flowers and trees that grow around us. We also all have different point-of-views. With that in mind, does that mean that we all must follow the same formula that media and stereotypes suggest? Or does it matter what we do on a date to constitute it as a “real date”?

While the idea of dinner and a movie is great, dating is a time to get to know someone on a deeper level.

A time to seek their inner person and find the qualities you like, and that they like about you! In doing so, you are working to try and find the person you can spend the rest of your life with. A person you know that you can count on in good times and bad. So, a date can be quite literally anything! A date can be something as simple as taking a picnic lunch to the park and looking at the clouds. Going to the beach and playing in the waves. Grabbing a quick bite to-go and eating on the way to an event or aquarium. It doesn’t have to be a formal affair. Some of the best dates are simplistic and not fancy at all. Even something as simple as coffee and watching the sunset or spending time with a group of friends together. A date is a date if it gives you and your love interest time to be together and learn something about each other. It helps to see your potential partner in different situations. How will they act? Do they perhaps have more patience than you do in certain areas? Maybe one night you cook dinner together and you notice they are creative and have a knack for adding something to a recipe. Or perhaps while with friends you see a more playful side that unleashes a sense of humor you didn’t know was there before. You learn so much by doing different things together. That is the beautiful part of the dating period. So much learning and fun to be had, all the while falling more and more in love with your partner and their unique quirks.

The world of dating is vast with as many possibilities as your imagination will allow. From small coffee dates to the big dinner and movie dates and everything in between. What makes a date, is you and your partner, enjoying each other’s company and learning more and more as time goes by. That is what makes it special, and what makes it mean the most.