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Controversial opinion: The concept of a 'date' is an american romantic film import for a lot of other cultures. If I go back 10 years in my home country any wo
by DoingIsLearning 4y ago
Controversial opinion: The concept of a 'date' is an american romantic film import for a lot of other cultures.
If I go back 10 years in my home country any woman would shut down your conversation if you asked her on a _one-on-one_ 'date', the implication alone would question her 'virtue'/intentions.
One-on-one interaction would naturally occur as the casual hanging out with shared groups of friends or parties. I honestly don't really see it as backwards if anything I think it really takes the pressure off from the two people to somehow keep interesting conversation for long periods of time.
- Invictus0 4y agoWhat is your home country?
- shankr 4y agoI think you can say it's more "western" concept than American because the same concept exists in European countries also.
- Bayart 4y agoI've never been to an American style date in my life, nor do I do know anyone who does it. At least in France it far out of regular habits. The place for getting to know each other is usually a friends group.
- shankr 4y agoYeah the details might differ but courting ladies has been in European culture for a long time. I am not saying Europeans date exactly way Americans do. Still there are lot of similarities - like people starting dating in high school, going to clubs/bars to meet or yeah going to some common friend's house.
- prvit 4y agoWhat is an “American style date”? I’ve been to a plenty of dates in France, it’s not unusual for two people to go out to dinner and get to know each other.
- sgustard 4y agoThe point is, a private one-on-one meeting is usually a required precursor to marriage and children. Casual group hangouts don't jump to that step.
- NoGravitas 4y agoNot in America or Europe in recent history. But 100 or 150 years ago here, group meetings (e.g., church, one family visiting another) could certainly lead to an offer of marriage (and request for paternal permission). Private one-on-one meetings would have been highly discouraged except under controlled conditions.
- etrautmann 4y agoWhat's your point? Is that past with arranged marriages and lack of courtship somehow better than two people getting to know each other one on one?
- NoGravitas 4y agoNot at all. Just saying that one on one meetings aren't the only way of doing things, and that it's not true that group meetings can't lead to marriage.
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoFair, my point isn't that dating does not occur but that dating is not agreed upon as lightly. You basically have to build a very strong rapport and infatuation to the point that you are both sure you have something you both want to pursue. Whereas the american/european dating scene is much more casual about the 'seriousness' of a date.
- rokhayakebe 4y ago"Usually" is the keyword.
- bannedbybros 4y ago
- twawaaay 4y agoIt may be an American import in your country, but dating has been popular in many countries and almost entire western world throughout last century. For example, I come from Poland and one on one dating has been hugely popular throughout Poland even while it was part of Soviet bloc, even though American culture was all but banned here. And in many countries you get only local culture and "American import" in the form of movies and music.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoWhat culture doesn't have a way to meet up with potential partners? Unless they have some substitute like arranged marriages this doesn't bode well for the country however. I mean if people don't have kids then the species is all dead in 3 generations or so. However if they're making up for it in their 30s and 40s it's fine.
- kingcharles 4y agoIn lots of Muslim countries dating is frowned upon, and that is a significant percentage of the world's population.
- pessimizer 4y agoYou can have people in your life that you never intentionally make an appointment to eat food together alone with. You can eventually marry those people and have children with them, having never had a "date."
- Etheryte 4y agoI'm not sure where you're from, but dating as a concept is a very widely spread phenomenon and it isn't some kind of an Americanism.
- refulgentis 4y agoI'm Muslim, I know where OP is coming from, but...the HN thread where people vigorously debated whether the idea of interacting with people they might eventually have romantic interest in is "American" is a top 10 HN moment for me, and I've been here 14 years.
- pessimizer 4y agoI'm interacting with you now. Are we on a date? Dating is a ritual interaction, it's not just term for any interaction. A tell that it is new is that the name is meaningless; it's just a term for an appointment that got wrapped up in a bunch of connotations that became denotations. Also see "go out" or "go with."
- refulgentis 4y agoNo, a comment reply isn't a date: i.e. not a interaction that signals you have continued proactive interest in me Ask me to some in person interaction and it becomes ambiguous. Alternatively, replying to me often and making flattering comments.
- robert_foss 4y agoAs a Swede who lived in NA, it definitely seemed like an Americanism.
- prvit 4y agoYep, Nordic countries you skip the “dates” and go straight to casual sex, if that works out well enough you might go out for dinner together.
- izzydata 4y agoA date is a pretty vague concept. You don't need to sit down at a restaurant together and eat dinner. It could just be going on a walk and having a chat. Except in a slightly more intimate way than friends.
- kstenerud 4y agoIt is a big part of Japanese culture, so the findings in the article are significant.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoIt's an import in Japan as well. A generation or two ago, matchmaking/arranged marriage (omiai) was still the order of the day.
- franciscop 4y agoApparently one step of omiai while evaluating each other was "Toward the end of the meeting, the potential couple were often advised to go off to spend some time alone, in order to get better acquainted.", which on its own pretty much sounds like the modern concept of dating. I've seen big changes in a generation or two in Spain and the UK, while we don't "date" anymore, we just "hang out" with another person we are interested on. Dates over here seem outdated and too serious, something our parents did. However in Japan, they can mean a more casual out of two people of opposite sex, to the point that a couple can also go on a date after being married (which doesn't make sense if you see dating strictly as the precursor of finding a significant other).
- rasz 4y agoso is Christmas kfc
- Joeboy 4y agoI'm an old British person and "dating" does sound kind of American to me. People would "go out" together, which I guess is similar but is more like "starting a relationship" than "trying people out with a view to maybe starting a relationship". Which I don't think we really had a term for. I think "dating" in that sense only started seeming commonplace with online dating. Of course people would do things with people they were romantically interested in, but you'd ask if they wanted to go and watch a film, not whether they wanted to go on a date.
- superchink 4y ago“Doing things with people you are romantically interested in” is what dating means, whether you use the term actively or not. More context can be found here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating
- Joeboy 4y agoDoes there not have to be some sort of overt mutual acknowledgement that it's that kind of date, in order for it to be "dating"?
- NoGravitas 4y agoThe uncertainty over whether something is a date is a common trope in media.
- rxhernandez 4y agoNope. It's possible to not even realize you were dating until after the fact.
- Veen 4y agoSame here. I'm early 40s and the idea of dating in the American sense seems odd to me. I've met all my romantic partners at parties or through gatherings at friend's houses. Relationships start off as acquaintances and develop organically as we spend time together. It wouldn't occur to me to ask someone I barely know out on a date. Of course, once a mutual interest has been established, we go and do stuff together on our own, but I'd think of that as "going out for dinner with X" or "going hiking with X", but I wouldn't call it dating.
- mc32 4y agoWe don't have to go by the English translation of what the question was. We can see it in their demographic statistics that they are delaying marriage and are having fewer children. So, your argument becomes academic.
- waffleiron 4y ago> "We can see it in their demographic statistics that they are delaying marriage and are having fewer children. " This doesn't always mean less dating though, people could date a lot but be less willing to commit.
- rokhayakebe 4y agoThere is some truth to this statement. You could be "dating," but you are not about to pick someone and go to a restaurant or movie alone.
- zozbot234 4y ago> One-on-one interaction would naturally occur as the casual hanging out with shared groups of friends or parties. Modern America, by and large, does not have the shared spaces and sense of community where these interactions could occur. As Robert Putnam said it, we're literally 'Bowling Alone'. "Dates" are a band-aid, their only positive is they avoid the alternative of universal inceldom.
- charlie0 4y agoThis. I've traveled to South America and without exception, there was always at least a town square or something similar where people can congregate. Many times there are music events or other types of festivities on the weekends and cheap vendors with wares or selling a quick bite of food. In this type of environment, it's a lot easier to say hello and even chat with strangers. Kids can go play with other kids. It's awesome and I definitely get that feel of community. The closest thing we have to that in America that I've personally experienced, is the American shopping mall. Where we all gather for the purposes of....materialism and consumption??? Not knocking on consumerism, but it's definitely not the same as lively public town square. At any rate, the heyday for shopping malls has passed. Maybe it's just because I'm an introvert and don't get out much, but other than actual festivals, I can't think of any places here in America that foster the same sense of community as those public spaces I encountered in South America.
- zozbot234 4y agoIn America, congregating in a public place for no outwardly visible purpose is called "loitering" and comes with a built-in assumption that you must be up to no good somehow. The signs of a thoroughly broken society.
- treis 4y agoThis is ridiculous. Parks in my city are full of people just hanging out.
- 4y ago
- monological 4y agoDating in the west almost feels like an interview these days, at least in the Bay Area. “So where do you see yourself in 5-10 years”? What’s next, you going to ask me to invert a binary tree?
- rayiner 4y agoHasn’t it always been? When my mom came back from my cousin’s wedding, the first three things she said were: the wife is a civil engineer, she’s pretty, and she’s Muslim (like our whole family) but not fundamentalist. Right to the point.
- spacemadness 4y agoEveryone needs to make sure you are beyond gainfully employed so they can live some semblance of a normal life if you both decide to stick around the bay.
- etrautmann 4y agoThis somehow seems true, sadly
- kirubakaran 4y agohttps://faangshaadi.com/ https://faangshaadi.com/ I want to believe it's satire, but then there's Poe's Law...
- codemunk3 4y agoIt's satire. Click on the disclaimer on the bottom right
- kirubakaran 4y agoAh thanks, I have closure now.
- zozbot234 4y ago"Let's hear your rehearsed 25-seconds elevator pitch."
- dfxm12 4y agoControversial opinion: The concept of a 'date' is an american romantic film import for a lot of other cultures. While I'm not totally immersed in Japanese culture, I do watch a lot of random movies from all over and some Japanese films like My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday do center around (ostensibly) 20 year olds going on dates as I, someone from another culture, understand them... Plus, from the article, we only know that people were asked and self-reported if they've ever been on a date. Date could mean different things to different respondents, no?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- swat535 4y agoYes, I grew up in Iran and we don't really have dates" in the western sense. Similarly there is no such thing as a man and a woman casually going out for tea (coffee is very fancy lol) as "friends". If you did that, people would simply assume you are a couple. Platonic relationships would only manifest itself in groups and never in a one-on-one setting. Solo activities are rare over there anyway.. Regarding marriage, _both_ families have to meet and approve (once the couple decided they want to get married) and there is custom that the man, along with his family, visit the bride's and ask for "permission". This could only happen if she had initially said yes privately; You can't just show up and have the family force her into a marriage for example. As you can see, it is very different culturally.. though many western elements are trickling down to younger generation so these days there is kind of weird blend.. Incidentally, when I met my fiance (she is from Spain) in Canada, I did it the Iranian way.. went to her house with my parents and asked her family if they would permit me to marry her. Even though she had assured me it doesn't matter, I insisted that it was important for me to ask for her father's blessings, which of course he very much appreciated! He also loved the fact that I had converted to Catholicism so we arranged a traditional marriage in a Church along with a nice mix of Persian/Spanish celebration thereafter.
- cstrahan 4y ago> One-on-one interaction would naturally occur as the casual hanging out with shared groups of friends or parties. I honestly don't really see it as backwards if anything I think it really takes the pressure off from the two people to somehow keep interesting conversation for long periods of time. The problem I see is the poor odds of finding someone within your extended friend group attractive, in terms of personality, character, physical qualities, etc. I suspect others must feel similarly, because I think we wouldn't have people dating strangers if they were satisfied with the options within their social circle. If I'm romantically uninterested in 499 out of 500 women in my age group, I'd have to get extremely lucky to have my social circle grow to include someone I would consider dating. So instead, I pursue any opportunities as they arise; from experience (all long term romantic relationships): the coffee shop, in line to the ticketing kiosk at the airport, online dating, etc. I imagine I'm not alone.
- blindmute 4y agoA lot of cultures, but not really Japan. I lived in Japan for about 3 years, and went on many dates. It is common and normal. Japan has problems with its men, not with importing culture