When you’re hanging out with somebody, when is it considered a date, as opposed to just hanging out?
I had a discussion this afternoon with a friend, and we were tossing around ideas about it. I felt it was an interesting topic, that many of us have thought about, and it should be discussed further.
Let’s start at the beginning; what is a date?
I would like to define a date as a plan to hang out with somebody, who you have a romantic interest in, and are interested in feeling out in person. The crucial part of that sentence is the “in person” ending.
It is evident social media has changed the way we meet, and get to know, potential love interests. Whether it’s through meeting people online, through facebook, or one of the still-wrongly-stigmatized dating websites, the game has changed.
You can get to know somebody very well through online interactions. I’ve had close friends I had never met in person, and whether I met them through social media, chatting, or online video games, some of those friendships were much stronger then some of the face-to-face friendships I had.
Let’s get back to the topic of dating. When you make plans with somebody, how do you know if it’s a date? Well, sometimes you get that funny, sometimes awkward, moment when one of the daters(datees?) will joke about how it is a date, which solidifies it as a date most of the time. Aside from that, it’s actually hard to tell.
I’ve gone out for coffee, or a movie, or a walk, with several girls, and was not sure if it was a date. I’ve had feelings for some of them, some of them had feelings for me, but does that make it a date?
I don’t know if there is a way to tell what is, and was it not, a date.
The better question to ask is whether it needs to be classified as a date for it to be romantically significant. I don’t think it does.