Dating
When you've reached my age, it's hard not to be amused by the dating anxieties of adolescents. But when you've reached my age, it's impossible not to be terrified by the dating anxieties of adults in their thirties and forties who haven’t yet connected with someone suitable.
The Western nations have been in the forefront of the reengineering of relations between the sexes, as they have with so many other things, and all of them appear to be suffering the consequences. Substantial populations of middle-aged singles have developed in both America and Western Europe. These populations have much in common: below average health, below average savings, below average self-esteem, and a common approach to finding Mister or Miss Right whose ineffectiveness produces frenzy.
The roots of the agonies flowering among us reach back a fair number of years, to a time when arranged marriages were still considered the norm and divorce was so unthinkable that many men committed suicide rather than have it known that their wives had left them.
Many factors are blended into this one: personal mobility, the family diaspora, higher education, the gradual emancipation of women by technology and the liberalization of beliefs about their competence, and most recently the sexual revolution, the destigmatization of divorce, and the respect accorded to the advocates of gender-war feminism.
I shan't go into a minute analysis of how each of these things has helped to lay our current dating minefields. Anyone with intelligence enough to understand the essays at this site need only have these things suggested to his attention, and he'll do the rest himself. What I want to address is how to best orient yourself for these hardships, should you happen to be one of the unfortunate adults I mentioned above.
Don't worry. I'm not about to propound some completely off-the-wall newfangled way of relating to the opposite sex. I'm not quite arrogant enough for that. I have something else in mind: the use of the old rules of social dealing as personal sustenance and armor.
Here are the most important struts of that structure, in the context of dating:
A gentleman may legitimately ask an unattached lady to whom he has been properly introduced for a date, provided he does so privately, and with reference to no consideration other than the pleasure of her company.
A lady is expected to respond graciously to a request for a date, though not necessarily in the affirmative, and not necessarily with her real reason for declining. For lack of another, "I expect to be unavailable" will always serve.
A gentleman never takes offense from being refused. If the refusal includes offensive observations, it was not made by a lady, and the gentleman can count himself lucky to have been refused.
Three consecutive refusals constitute a permanent negative response. Further requests wouldn't exactly be rude, but they would be foolish. In some circles they would license one's perceived inadequacies for public discussion.
Neither a gentleman nor a lady ever gives offense intentionally.
Just a moment's reflection on how nicely these rules interlock and support one another will persuade you that there's wisdom here. It's not my wisdom; it's the way Anglo-American society handled the exploration of romantic possibility for a couple of centuries, at least. It was composed by trial and error among millions of people, and it served very well.
In my opinion, it worked for two reasons above all others:
It allowed people to refrain from discussing their reasons for rejecting one another, and:
Since it assigned roles to the participants that were unaffected by their specific identities, it permitted a rejected suitor to take comfort in having played by the rules.
In short, by requiring us to show respect for one another, it allowed us to conserve our self-respect.
Have I said that a lady must never ask a gentleman for a date? I have not. But she who elects the masculine role -- the active suitor -- also assumes the risks of rejection. Moreover, she is less well protected by the rest of the convention than she would otherwise be.
Have I said that a gentleman must never approach a stranger, a woman to whom he has not been introduced by someone who knows them both? Why, yes, I have. No decent man accosts a woman who doesn't know him with an intimate request. What reason would he have to do so, other than her raw physical attributes? Should those be enough? If so, he is a cad, reason enough for her to snub him.
Have I said that no other methods will work at all? I have not. This one is well proven, buttressed with logic, experience, and the special strengths of a longstanding tradition. If other methods have failed you, you might consider it.
Ladies, remember this especially: The rules are links in a chain. You cannot break any one without severing the chain and losing its protection. This is especially true of the rule against making offensive observations about a suitor.