This is because you are complaining about being able to get a date and you are lowering your chances of having a second date.
Actually, I'm not really complaining about being able to get a date. I would prefer to get married without ever going on a date at all.
If getting a date were all I cared about, I would just ask anyone. I don't WANT to marry just anyone, so I'm not going to ask just anyone. And I am through with putting forth all the effort.
Imagine telling a girlfriend, "Okay, next time you pay, call me..."
Exactly. Just imagine it! Isn't it a liberating notion?
I think my date splitting idea makes FAR more sense than the "guy has to set up and pay for all the dates and if the girl doesn't want to date him she makes up stupid excuses and ditches him and doesn't return phone calls and he's just supposed to guess" (and entirely sexist) system now in place. Of course it would have to be explained somehow ahead of time, not just dropped in at the end of the first date. I'm still working on how best to do that.
Will I actually use this idea personally? Right now, I think I shall. When it comes down to it though in emotional things logic goes right out the window, so even though it makes sense to me now, who knows. And I currently think if a girl is so ingrained in this system that SUCKS that she would be too closed-minded to consider my idea, then she doesn't deserve me.
Why don't I want to work the system instead of fighting it? I don't want to just get married. I want to get married to someone who can get along with ME. And I am NOT desperate enough to want to change myself. I like myself fine the way I am, thank you very much.
I never said my society-wide ideas were actually practical to implement. I'm just saying that if such a system were already in place and accepted by everyone, it would work a heck of a lot better than what we have now. I have an idea, people who are married should wear rings so you can tell they're married! Nah, we'll never convince everyone so why even mention the idea.
Anyway my complaint is twofold: the difficulty of FINDING someone I want to date in the first place, and secondly that dating sucks as a preparation for marriage.
(There was a story in the Mormon SF anthology
Washed by a Wave of Wind that explored the church setting up three-month "for time" tryout temple sealings. Am I the only one who thought that would actually be an idea worth taking seriously?)
Stacer:
You have to understand--and perhaps you're different, but very few guys know this till it happens to them--when a girl asks a guy out, he gets all nervous: "Oh, wow, she must like me a lot, I'm not ready for that, I don't like her like that" etc. And they run scared. When all the girl is thinking is what a guy would be thinking had he asked her out the first time--that she'd like to hang out with him more, get to know him. But a girl asking a guy out--nothing good has ever come of it, in my experience.
Maybe that's the problem there. Girls don't know what guys want from dates. If a guy asks a girl out, she thinks he'd like to hang out with her more, get to know her? That ain't what it means for me. I have no desire to date someone I just want to hang out with. Any girl I ask out starts off as someone I want to marry.
"Oh, wow, he must like me a lot, I'm not ready for that, I don't like him like that"--I think this is exactly what girls should be thinking when a guy asks them out. That or "Oh, wow, he must like me a lot, I'm ready for that, I like him like that."
I think dating should be something ONLY people who are specifically wanting to get married should be allowed to do. Anyone who thinks that's ridiculous please suggest something else that only people who want to get married can do so that we can sift through the chaff.
If I ask someone out and she sees no potential marriage, she should say no! Or at least tell me up front "I don't see any potential now, but I'll let you know after the date whether I see any then." Asking me out for date #2 would be accepted as admission of perceived potential. (Of course, the incompetence of dating as mate potential measuring stick then factors in. The deck is stacked, and the dealer isn't friendly.)
One thing I've learned in my life: if a guy is interested in me, he'll ask me out. And usually they don't ask me out, so I just have to assume that I'm not the type of girl guys are interested in. As I've ranted about before, I can be the "friend-girl" all I want, but they never want more.
On the other hand, in this regard, I take the same sort of evidence you see and come to exactly the same conclusion as you (but not about you).
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Right now the best way to me to find someone to marry seems to be: blind luck, and/or divine intervention. And you can't be anxiously engaged in either one of those. (These also seem the best ways to get a job.)