Dating Blogs...Over Rated or Truly Helpful?

The other night after I got done with my round of reading all the blogs I follow, I had an interesting thought. Not really a new thought, but one that I hadn't thought super hard about before.

We over-complicate dating. How? By trying to give too much advice.

I've always thought dating was much more complicated than it should be. Especially being out at BYU and seeing how screwed up the dating scene is. I'm convinced that it's about the same 25% of the population that is going on dates all the time. (I get that number from my experience sophomore year...any given weekend it was the one same roommate out of the four of us who was on a date...usually with a different boy every time.) I won't get into any logistics of why I think that is, but rather I will tell you what I think dating should be.

Dating should be a guy seeing a girl--a friend, acquaintance, or perhaps even a stranger--and thinking, "Hmm she's attractive and I think I would enjoy spending time with her," and then asking her on a date. The girl should be flattered that a guy is interested enough to invest an hour or two and perhaps even a little bit of moolah and go out with him having an optimistic attitude of having an enjoyable time, whether she's likewise interested in the guy or not. After the date, each can individually evaluate how they thought it went and perhaps think about future intentions and let it either progress from there or be done and call it a nice time with a friend.

But, this is obviously not how it is in real life, and there's not really any way to get people to start seeing dating in such a way. Oh how I wish there was a way to uncomplicate it though.

For the past several months I have been following the Anti-Austen Blog. At first I loved it. I was addicted. I was enchanted. I thought these girls were geniuses and amazing.

And then I don't know if I just really opened my eyes or if the quality of their blogging declined or what, but I became a bit disenchanted. I don't mean to dis on them at all. I still read their blog and I enjoy it and they do have good insights sometimes, but I'm just saying I'm not an adoring fan like I once would have claimed to be.

The thing that really triggered my thinking on this subject today was that on their past couple of posts, the Anti-Austens linked to a couple other blogs: Dudes Discussing Dating and The Brothers' Guide to Guys. Of these three blogs I have mentioned, I think that the most useful would be The Brothers' Guide. It's brand new so there's only a handful of posts, but so far they seem pretty clean cut and to the point. And actual helpful tips and lessons. For example, they have already touched on lessons such as door step scenes, post-date texts, and a very basic overview of the "four flirty senses." But even so...I think that with all of this "Dating Help" we are in fact doing the exact opposite of their intention and we're complicating it.

It makes people, males and females both, over think and try to analyze everything, which just drives everyone crazy. And I think that all of this advice bouncing around just makes it worse. People are either generalizing when they make all of their suggestions, or they are specific to what they think or like. Well, let me tell you something...everyone thinks and feels differently about most things, and especially about dating and relationships. Each person has their own lists of likes and dislikes, and making all of these suggestions and do's and don'ts just doesn't always help everyone in the end. For example...I have learned through experience that baking isn't an automatic free pass into a man's heart. All of those times in Relief Society where they told us all you had to do was give a guy baked goods to spark interest....lies.

But, despite knowing that these things don't always work, does that make anyone less interested in reading all of these dating and relationship blogs and advice columns? Nope. Sure doesn't. It does make me grateful for my 18 month hiatus that I'm about to take from the dating game though. And upon my return...we'll see if I'll have to study up to start playing these games again. I'm kinda banking on not.....