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Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 3:04:51 AM
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FindCaleb
Posts: 9
Joined: 5/11/2008
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Hi Everyone,
Question for you guys. I'm having trouble with my girlfriend. We're both Christians and trying to sort out if God has our future together. I guess I'm a bit old fashioned or something. I find that I want to make sure we work well "as friends" and develop that side of the relationship before I dive right into a romantic relationship. I've just had trouble in the past dating girls because the chemistry was right but then realizing that I got along with friends then I did with my own romantic girlfriend. It has lead me to believe that a solid "friendship" would be a better base for a budding relationship.
But...
That doesn't seem to go over well with girls. It didn't work too well with my ex girlfriend either. Its not that I'm only looking for a "friend" that we one day pursue a dating relationship. I'd just like to slow down all of the wonderful butterflies of dating until I can see if we actually like to be around each other. Is this possible? Am I crazy in thinking this? My girlfriend is feeling like I don't show those things to her enough, and I feel like they will be there but I'm trying not to rush it...
Oy, any thoughts?
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 8:45:06 AM
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slushie
Posts: 2307
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How long have you guys been dating?
I think it's great that you want to make sure that you guys have a solid friendship before, but...
Can you get to know the person as a friend AND date her at the same time? You can spend time talking to her and learning about her day at the same time as asking her out to dinner. (by the way, the dinner would just be... dinner, not to fancy with the flowers and trappings). I think that maybe your girlfriend sometimes doubts whether you really want to pursue her or not.
_____________________________
Testify to Love
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 9:04:22 AM
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Cloak
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What you're doing is Very wise and I commend it FindCaleb! Take your time and don't rush things and please be Honest with your gf and convey to her your intentions about these things and your anticipations so that she is well-aware of what's going on instead of having high expectations and then feeling disappointed.
Christian relationships should be taken seriously and taking the time to think and ponder is very thoughtful, and even if you think you want to date more than one woman at the same time, there should be no problem with that. Just be honest about it with these ladies, so that they don't have unfounded hopes.
Blessings!
_____________________________
And My God shall meet ALL Your Needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4: 19)
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 9:22:27 AM
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Focusing
Posts: 5324
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Personally, I firmly believe in being friends first ... so I think what you are doing is great!
A relationship between a man and a woman is not based strictly on romance. There needs to be a solid base of friendship. And the foundation must be Christ.
_____________________________
Smiling diffuses other emotions that are not good for evangelism - offtheisland's wise words of wisdom
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 9:37:59 AM
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slushie
Posts: 2307
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Wait.... did you tell her that you wanted to pursue a friendship first?
_____________________________
Testify to Love
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 9:56:36 AM
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Focusing
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Excellent point slushie! Communication is extremely important.
_____________________________
Smiling diffuses other emotions that are not good for evangelism - offtheisland's wise words of wisdom
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 12:15:13 PM
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pbaribeault
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Can you tell me, in exact practical terms, what the difference to you is between having a girlfriend and having a friend who is a girl?
My thought is that there is a commitment about being bf/gf that means that you don't date others unless or until you call off the relationship between you. Also, the idea is that in between dates, you are still relationship building.
A few decades back there used to be the concept of "dating" (often going out together, when there was an opportunity) and "going steady" (an exclusive relationship involving commitment and growing emotional attachment). I think people sometimes use "seeing each other" these days to describe that pre-commitment phase that still involves 'dates'.
Perhaps that is what you would be interested in experiencing, with the dates satisfying the butterfly-ness and desire for 'romance' without being all tied up in building the relationship. Maybe your GF would be interested in this kind of re-definition. ("I don't think I know you well enough to be bf/gf, but I'm interested in going on dates and 'seeing each other' for a while, if you are willing to do that instead.")
I'm all for friendship before dating, but you can't go back in time. If you are dating her, and don't want to do so any longer, you will need to break up appropriately. At that point I see little chance of that (possible) friendship going later into the dating field again.
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 2:29:24 PM
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ChoirDJ
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pbaribeault sort of touched on where I was going with this. In this day and age, the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" imply that the relationship is beyond the "friend who happens to be a member of the opposite sex" stage. A friend who is a girl is someone that you are simply building a frienship with, getting to know, better, hanging out for casual times together and such. A "girlfriend" is someone you think you might want to marry so you make an official committment to pursue the other person with this in mind. If you don't feel the latter about your "girlfriend" then she shouldn't be your "girlfriend" because in her mind this sets up false perceptions about where the relationship is truly headed.
Could it be that you "setting off" something in a woman's mind that you don't intend to set off by asking her to be your girlfriend?
_____________________________
"Sin will take you further than you intended to go, keep you there longer than you intended to stay, and cost you more than you intended to spend." Got it?
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 4:41:50 PM
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preserved
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Sounds like you did not sit down and discuss with her that you wanted to build on a friendship with her first before jumping into a relationship...
The question is...if you were looking for friendship first...how did she become your girlfriend? Seems to me that you should sought the frienship first before becoming a couple? That is perhaps where the confusion on her and perhaps others in coming into play.....
Do not consider the person as your girlfriend until you are clear of the friendship you are seeking.
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 5:23:09 PM
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DreadPirateRandy
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My girlfriend is my best friend. We started off as friends, like a normal relationship, and it developed and blossomed into something beyond measure.
Communication is the key that unlocks the chest of understanding the female species. My girlfriend and I talk about everything, whenever there's a problem, or something is simply bugging us, we talk it out together. It works, and it's the ingredient for a strong relationship.
Make it a point to tell her that you're interested in knowing who she is. Try establishing that side of the relationship verbally.
quote:
ORIGINAL: FindCaleb
I find that I want to make sure we work well "as friends" and develop that side of the relationship before I dive right into a romantic relationship.
I've always thought that in order to establish a romantic relationship, you must have a relationship outside of that as friends. Otherwise, the romanticness would seem useless unless there was a common interest in each other.
quote:
It has lead me to believe that a solid "friendship" would be a better base for a budding relationship.
Of course. Friendship is the beginning of a relationship. It develops over time. It's the same way with love.
quote:
I'd just like to slow down all of the wonderful butterflies of dating until I can see if we actually like to be around each other. Is this possible?
Have you tried just hanging out and just doing normal activities minus any romantic intention? Bowling, for instance, would be a good way to interact in a non-romantic way. Especially when your girlfriend completely destroys you.... 
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I'm bringing sleazy back.
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 6:34:08 PM
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jaimestarcross
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It's possible ... but you have to do that BEFORE entering into a boyfriend & girlfriend relationship... when that occurs, you are into romantic love by then and many girls will think you aren't wanting a serious relationship if you try to go back to being "Friends''... where I'm from that's like a kiss of death!
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 7:40:16 PM
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Elena1030
Posts: 738
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From: Music City, USA
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FindCaleb,
I totally get what you're saying.
It's not that you want to go back to being "just friends."
It's that you don't want the development of the various aspects of your pair bond to be out of proportion to one another. That is, you want the spiritual, emotional, social, and physical aspects to develop at relatively the same rate and to the same strength in the same interval.
Even going bowling, whether you're being touchy-feely all over each other or not, can being emotionally romantic for the guy or the gal if the person concentrates on that aspect of the time together. For example, even when I am just crushing on someone, I am sooooo guilty of this: focusing the entire time (almost the entire time) of the outing on enjoying the high of being together, on staring at him longingly, on the little fairytales in my head, on evaluating how things are going. ALL of this is just going on in my head!!!
So... perhaps you are examining your own thought life and are considering your ways -- how your speech and behavior ought to line up with the thought life you want to have --- so that one aspect (thoughts, speech, and behavior/actions) undergirds the other. And now you've got some ideas of how the two of you should carry out your relationship in order for the bond to develop at a healthy, wise, considered pace, rather than a hasty, "the high of infatuation"-filled, headlong-into-disaster pace.
Yes?
OK.
So... now you have to explain this to your girlfriend in a way that she can understand, that helps her get inside your thought processes a bit more. This exercise in communication can also help strengthen your relationship, so let's dive in!
* Ask her what she understood from what you've told her about this taking-things-more-slowly proposition.
* Clarify, gently and kindly (certainly not condescendingly or patronizingly), what you meant.
* Provide at least one detailed example of each:
(1) how an experience in the relationship sped things up too fast
AND
(2a) how an experience in the relationship kept things at a "just right" pace
or (2b) how a future, hypothetical experience would keep things at a "just right" pace
Doing this step is illustrating your point, rather than merely stating it. You've probably got to paint her a picture so that she understands the content and the message of what you're trying to communicate.
Here is examples from one of my past relationships:
Cooking together was fine. Eating together in his apt at night was fine. It was my problem that I spent a lot of that time thinking how fun it was to do stuff that married people do, except we're not married. Not his problem. My emotional attachment to him developed much faster than my actual knowing him as an actual person. (I enjoyed my little fantasy world more than I actually enjoyed dating him. Not that he was terrible. But my pretending was a whole lot safer and more enjoyable to me. Yeah, that's not healthy, I know.)
Staying in his home after dinner and hanging out.......and making out.......totally NOT fine. We both should have chosen to go ahead and end our outing after dinner or to go elsewhere to talk. That problem was both our responsibilities.
Spending more time making out than talking and getting to know each other (or doing something together that would show each other who we are and what our characters are) sped up the development of the physical side of our pair bond, while the spiritual/emotional/social side(s) lagged behind.
Our situation felt out of proportion.... as if there were two relationships existing within one reality. Bizarre.
But that's what happens when you let the lovey-dovey, movie, fairy-tale, infatuation stage get the focus.
Make sense?
I hope this is what you were talking about..... and that what I've said here helps you and your girlfriend....and other readers as well.
Blessings as you seek to develop this relationship prayerfully under God's authority and blessing and to His glory, with much wisdom, that bears good and healthy fruit!
_____________________________
"We're not odd, we're just over-expressive."—Helen in Howard's End
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 7:44:37 PM
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FindCaleb
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all good things you guys. To answer some of your questions, I didn't make it terribly clear that I wanted to see how we work as friends first. We kind of jumped into "Dating". My reasoning behind that is: too many times guys these days "hang out" with a girl never stating their intentions. Then the poor girl ends up at a movie or coffee 1-on-1 with the guy and she has no idea if he is even interested in her. (believe me I've been there...).
My thought was that guys need to state their intentions with a girl. (Most girls confirm this. Guys will ask girls to "meet up" or "hang out" and they dont know if it is a date or not..) So I was trying to avoid that and I really was interested in dating her. We had great chemistry and mutual interests and both Christians. But now I feel like we haven't established a solid friendship first... Maybe I should rethink asking girls to "hang out"... :)
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 8:07:26 PM
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Elena1030
Posts: 738
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From: Music City, USA
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Yeah. I agree. It doesn't have to be an either/or thing --- either dating or just friends. There is a stage in between.
If you're interested in a gal romantically and can see yourself dating her, but you still don't know her well enough to say that you have a solid friendship, then say that. Or something like it.
I imagine it going kinda like this:
"FabooGal, I think you're great. I'm really enjoying getting to know you, and I'd like to get to know you better, with a view to transitioning into dating officially if we decide that's wise and good. What do you think? Do you feel the same way or similarly?"
And then you'd "vision cast" with her....
"Here's how I see our friendship/relationship going: [describe the tenor of the relationship, its character, and what the stages are and how fast/slow it progresses]. Does that sound anything like what you've had in mind? What do you have in mind?"
You might read some of the articles over at Boundless.org (and blog posts at The Line: boundlessline.org). They've spent a lot of time and typing discussing how guys should initiate and how to do that appropriately, honestly, and with intentionality. In fact, I think it was either Ted Slater (the editor) or Steve Watters who described how he and his gal "vision-cast" about how they wanted to carry out their relationship. That type of communication was just right --- not so set in stone that their path was prescribed for them but with enough of a parameter that they could see how their thoughts, speech, and actions during their friendship stage, dating stage, courting stage, and engagement stage lined up with the values, goals, and priorities they had described as their vision.
I think Boundless's resources will help you a bunch!*
* Boundless is Focus on the Family's Webzine for young adults.
Blessings!
< Message edited by Elena1030 -- 6/24/2008 8:15:45 PM >
_____________________________
"We're not odd, we're just over-expressive."—Helen in Howard's End
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/24/2008 8:28:45 PM
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LivingParadox
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I think it's a good idea to put reasonable bounderies on getting to know someone. Friends are a excellent place to start -- you just don't want to get stuck here if your intention is romantic.
Being a female, I'd encourage you to have the conversation -- in a positive way let her know you really, really like her but also want to take it slow on the romantic side because you want to know her better -- BUT you are saying this because you ARE interested in her. She may sigh relief a little too for an old fashion guy how actually wants to get to know her before it gets too serious.
Invite her to go with you to run errands on a Saturday or a free outdoor festival --- lots of things that aren't dates --but you'd do with "friends". And the cool thing is you'll be showing the "real" you not a pre-packaged date night.
Try to direct approach -- it works.
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/25/2008 1:07:57 PM
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blackhat
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Yeah, you didn't establish things to begin with... So now, it sounds like you are trying to return to the "strictly friends" stage. I think you can still date her AND get to know her as a friend. For instance, take her out for a walk (that takes care of the romance bit), and have a meaningful conversation with her about stuff that matters to the both of you.
There's also something you need to remember: TIME! She shouldn't feel like she's waiting for you to come around. Time is precious.
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/25/2008 4:43:05 PM
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FindCaleb
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Hey everyone,
thanks for the advice. Elena1030 you are dead on with where we are. Hopefully I can get her to see I'm just trying to focus attention on the "friendship" side of the relationship because some of the emotional, romantic sides are already farther. Its not a bad thing, but needs attention! I'll have to check out boundless.org.
again, thanks for your help everyone!!
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/27/2008 7:50:58 PM
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mariaangel
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Yea if u have a strong friendship before u go onto dating, ur romantic relationship can only get stronger. Well thats my experience from my male friends telling me about their dates with girls or asking me for advice on how to talk to girls.
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RE: Building a friendship first before dating.. - 6/28/2008 2:30:37 PM
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ta_mosquito
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