Marriage !

At the beginning of the week we discussed dating and why people date and why some people date. I really loved the discussion that was in class and the insights that my teacher had to share about it. So for part of the blog post we will discuss that and then I want to expound on some stuff I found from the reading. Brother Williams is awesome, and he has a lot of insight regarding the family and uses research to help his students understand these relations better. He asked us good questions about why we date and why we don’t date. He talked about how during his young adult time dating was simply an outing and you went and go to know each other. But now we live in an a world where social expectations have changed drastically. And when you go on a date or even mention you have gone on a date their are some implications. Those implications might mean that you hooked up, or that you both already are dating steadily. When in reality dating should be an opportunity to get to know someone better and to see if they would be a potential good partner. One student in my class mentioned that he is from California and that he went on a date with a girls and several of his friends asked when they started dating or hooking up. He had to clarify that this was a date to just get to know the girl better. With today’s expectations it is getting harder and harder to develop healthy relationships due to the social pressures around us. Even in the BYU-Idaho culture I have seen that a lot of students desire to go out on hang outs a lot. What are your thoughts as to why the culture has changed? Is it a good thing to you or is it a bad thing? For me I view it as a bad thing. As someone who is serious about looking for a potential partner it can be frustrating to see that not everyone else is taking these things as seriously as I would. But I can see how for some people hanging out might be in their comfort zone. 

Now for some stuff from the reading. The question I would like to pose is based off one of the section headers from the chapter. What do we expect in a life partner? I know what I expect. I expect them to be my best friend and to be willing to make life work so that we can have a happy family. Seems simple...right? As I read I understood that there are even more things I desire than my initial answer. Some things that I didn’t realized I looked for (but did subconsciously) was Intelligence, and Character. It is funny to type but it is true: I look for the smart guys. But why do I look for the smart ones? If know they are smart I know they can provide, and I know they are capable of survival. As for character I look for someone who is charismatic and that knows how to be personable. I look for those things because that is what I feel most comfortable with. What are some things you look for? What are your expectations? For me I always thought I just expected a nice guy who is my friend, but as I read in to this chapter I realized that I need to dig deeper. And that the person I end up with needs to be someone that I can share core values with. This class is awesome because I am able to not only learn about family relations but also about the current and future ones I want to create.