So Are We Dating?

Last night, I watched an Edward Norton movie- “Keeping The Faith“. Two friends, (a rabbi – Jake and a priest -Brian) get a call from their old friend, Anna. Now, Anna hooks up with Jake and they start having sex. They both agree to keep the relationship on the down low for two reasons – Jake’s vocation and well… they didn’t know how Brian would take it so they decide to keep him out of the loop. On a movie date, Jake runs into his synagogue members and he calls Anna his “buddy”. They have a mock fight as they leave the cinema because she’s supposedly mad at the way he treated her in the presence of other people. They laugh it off saying “It’s a good thing we’re not going out!”

• “I would like us to go steady”

• “Would you go out with me?”

• “Please be my number 1″ *whispers* Someone actually said this to BN’s Jennifer 

So how do relationships start? Back in the days, it was a lot of letters, tapping of Nitel phones and plenty sneaking off during teenagers fellowship, just to name a few. I recall a a few of these as being the official relationhip starters back then:

It is presumed that once the response was “yes”, the relationship is deemed to have commenced from the date of acquiescence. Thus, marks the date upon which anniversaries are based. However, it is not always cut and dried. There are times when both people haven’t actually defined what they’re doing but their relationship has all the elements of “dating” like Jake and Anna in “Keeping The Faith”.
So, when you meet a couple who can’t tell you the date of their “anniversary”, there’s the urge to ask “so how did you know when you guys started dating?” With the age of social media, and what is now referred to as “Setting P”, it is easy to assume (either erroneously or otherwise) that once the both parties have come to some form of understanding that they’re in a relationship.

“Did he ask you out?” “No, not really. But we just kind of evolved and both of us knew where we were going”
I was running this topic by a couple of my friends and they were very cynical (yeah, I know I need to change my friends!) One of them said “Why would you be deluding yourself when the guy hasn’t said specifically that he wants to be in a relationship? Call me old school but if a guy doesn’t toast me in the traditional way, I’m not referring to him as my boyfriend oh! Na there problem dey take start and you’ll start playing roles that you’re not supposed to and now find out that there’s a numero Uno coming from Manchester every weekend to see her man”

My other friend, a guy, said “both of you are adults na! Does anybody still do the whole song and dance ofwill you be my girlfriend? in this day and age? Besides, if you rely on that and throw a tantrum, what’s the guarantee that he hasn’t asked 3 other girls the same questions. Sometimes you just know, deep in your gut that this person is yours”

What do you guys think? When does a relationship actually start? Are you Team Let’s Infer Based on the Facts Before Us? or Team Spell It out Loud and Clear? Oh, and before I forget, what were some of the relationship starting quotes you heard back then?

Let’s discuss

Photo Credit: thegrio.com