Should there be classes on how to date?

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-02-22 05:36am

I've had very few problems forging purely Platonic relationships but when it comes to the field of becoming romantically invovled with female members of this species, my success is all but nonexistant.

Because of this, I wholeheartedly support Mike Wong's proposal.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-02-22 07:35am

I like the idea proposed, but I don't think it should take the form of a "class" and it certainly shouldn't be as late as high school. In my experience, most peoples relationship skills develop at a very young age (2-5 grade) and if a person is still uncomfortable with girls at that age, they will have problems all the way until adulthood.

Instead I think that the best thing to do would be to discourage the fucking gender segregation in elementary schools and let boys and girls become more familiar with one another. This could easily be accomplished with school projects that would pair up boys and girls and get them to work together.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2004-02-22 07:36am

Sounds helpful, and sure beats going into a relationship flailing about like a blind monkey and relying on luck to get you somewhere. Which I'm not knocking, since luck is pretty much what I go on.

Early high school would probably be best, since I would hope that kids haven't really established the kind of deeply emotional relationships that if broken can really damage them yet. Then again given the examples of high school kids I know, I don't know how much they'd get out of it.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2004-02-22 08:38am

Would you believe this has actually been tried before?

Once, while digging around the musty stacks of a library, I came across a textbook for just such a class, complete with quizzes at the end of each chapter, about nothing other than dating and relationships. Copyright 1930 something.

Asked my parents about it, and they said they remembered just such a thing from when they were in high school in the early 1940's.

Hmm.... my parents have married almost 50 years....

My opinion: the biggest problem with dating in high school and later is that boys and girls don't understand that 1) they are operating from different motivations and 2) neither side understands the motivation of the other.

In this, girls are at a slight advantage in that they understand boys/young men are sex-obesseed. Boys don't seem to have a clue where the girls are coming from, though, and don't seem to care unless it causes them pain and discomfort. Frequently, the situation does not improve until much later in adulthood, if at all.

I'm all for social, polical, and legal equality between the sexes, but it's foolish to pretend there aren't real differences. What I think would help the young and horny is have some of those differences explained, or at least outlined, and why it is advantagous in the long run to follow certain customs even if you don't understand them immediately.

I suppose I could launch in a long winded post on my theories of dating and mating, but only if others are interested. Or maybe I'll start a separate thread on it.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-02-22 08:41am

I know such a class would be helpful to me, but again, doubtful if such a class would function, with all the kids that would take it as a joke.

About the suggestion of such a class also explaining terms like loans and how the goverment works, that would also be helpful to many.

Post by **haas mark** » 2004-02-22 08:52am

Responding to OP:

In theory, I would find this a great idea. However, I think it would be completely unviable. Impossible to carry out, because there are just too many kids that don't give a shit. Honestly, if you look into it, there are so many students that couldn't care less about their health classes, so why would they give two shits about relationship skills?

~ver

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2004-02-22 09:08am

I think it's a decent idea, but i imagine there'd be a legal minefield with either it not being diverse enough, like being around 1 man and 1 woman, and the gay-rights groups setting off a load of hell, and if gay dating alternative classes occurred, they'd say it was segregation, if the gays got any attention, the right would rise up and claim the government is promoting homosexuality, blah blah blah.

Post by **haas mark** » 2004-02-22 09:14am

Rye wrote:I think it's a decent idea, but i imagine there'd be a legal minefield with either it not being diverse enough, like being around 1 man and 1 woman, and the gay-rights groups setting off a load of hell, and if gay dating alternative classes occurred, they'd say it was segregation, if the gays got any attention, the right would rise up and claim the government is promoting homosexuality, blah blah blah.

You know, that just what's fucked up about it.. the adults would care more than the kids would.. and that's sad..

~ver

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2004-02-22 10:15am

Wha?

We do learn relationship skills in school. There's only one way to learn relationship skills, and that's to have a relationship. Just as those hokey 'interpersonal skills' wokrshops in the workplace are useless compared to interacting with actual people, so learning relationships by the book is equally useless.

If you want kids to learn relationship/dating/interpersonal skills, then lay off all the homework, coursework and shit, and let kids interact with each other.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2004-02-22 10:45am

I'm with InnerBrat on this one... I think this stuff can't be taught, and the "hard way" is the best way to learn. You want to brush up on relationship skills? Get one. Simple as. People today get more than enough hand-holding in life.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2004-02-22 10:51am

In fact, this reminds me... In my college there is a course for the true idiots (some of them have learning difficulties, but most of them are truely lazy and idiotic people with no problems) called "Life Skills", and those people get taught how to wash themselves, how to dress properly, how to use a microwave, how to use public transport, etc. Generally, students feel that this course is insulting and degrading, especially the ones who have to take it, and I feel that a "dating class" would be viewed the same way. I know I'd view it the same way, it's hand-holding.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2004-02-22 11:47am

Maybe we'd just have Communications class. Instead of just dating and communicating with the other sex, it'd help students in other facets of their lives. Like communicating with parents, surviving the hellish high school environment, helping them take on the rigors of puberty, teaching them the things necessary to avoid making stupid decisions later in life, communicating with the government, managing your money and stuff, etc.

Hm... that's a lot of stuff, maybe we can separate this stuff into "sub-classes" or something. Grading won't be via tests but more on essays, oral exams, maybe group work perhaps? But this stuff might not do so well when the class is composed of lots of people.

Maybe instead of teachers we'd have councillors and instead of a real class this would be more like a... umm... I don't really know how to say it... More like some training thinggy... (I'm at a loss for words). Maybe these classes would take place in the summer or something.

And it won't be viewed as something degrading because most of these things are real issues for every teen. But you'd never know.

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2004-02-22 12:45pm

It would be nice to think that all the stupid problems could be weeded out, but they're common sense, girl I know's boyfriend is a major twat and didnt even spend their 1 year anniversary together, but thats not really tips on How to Date, more like How to be a Decent Human Being.

I dont know whether dating classes would have helped me back in school, I don't think they would have, I wasnt particularly interested cos I knew that I was a geek as far as most were concerned and the friends I hung out with I didnt think of in relationship terms.

Now it seems I'm on the edge of a relationship which is 4 months and 9000km away, and frankly, I have no idea what I'm doing and intend to just play it by ear. Maybe that's the way it should be?

justifier · Post by **justifier** » 2004-02-22 12:51pm

The Kernel wrote:I like the idea proposed, but I don't think it should take the form of a "class" and it certainly shouldn't be as late as high school. In my experience, most peoples relationship skills develop at a very young age (2-5 grade) and if a person is still uncomfortable with girls at that age, they will have problems all the way until adulthood.

Instead I think that the best thing to do would be to discourage the fucking gender segregation in elementary schools and let boys and girls become more familiar with one another. This could easily be accomplished with school projects that would pair up boys and girls and get them to work together.

Come to think of my elementary teachers made us form separate boys and girls lines and lunchtables, those bastards.

****
Oh and the reason that most people think health classes are a joke is because they are. They taught us that drugs are bad...mmkay, that unprotected sex is bad, and that one always leads to the other, also smoking. Besides my teacher was a huge, ignorant homophobe that showed it a lot.

Light Side points gained.

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2004-02-22 01:09pm

Darth Wong wrote:The objective of high school is to educate people and prepare them for the real world, right? Well, how many people graduate high school with no relationship skills?

Like me -- I didn't date until after college.

Darth Wong wrote:While it's true that you can only learn certain things through experience, knowledge does not hurt. What do you think? Is this idea crazy?

Think it's a good idea, although the curriculum would definitely be a subject of debate...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-02-22 01:31pm

InnerBrat wrote:Wha?

We do learn relationship skills in school. There's only one way to learn relationship skills, and that's to have a relationship. Just as those hokey 'interpersonal skills' wokrshops in the workplace are useless compared to interacting with actual people, so learning relationships by the book is equally useless.

Not true. Going through case studies involving other people makes it clear that your own feelings are not unique, and gives you ideas on how to resolve issues. At the risk of condescension, after 12 years of marriage I know more about maintaining long-term relationships than you do. There are things that you can learn from the examples and ideas of others that you will not necessarily figure out on your own. And the really hard way to find things out is to get married and then divorced, often leaving kids behind in the wreckage of your failed relationship. You might very well learn a lot in this process, but the social damage wrought by such a learning process is something best avoided if at all possible.

If you want kids to learn relationship/dating/interpersonal skills, then lay off all the homework, coursework and shit, and let kids interact with each other.

This theory has been attempted already. Near-50% divorce rate.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-02-22 02:25pm

If done properly I would support some sort of a relationship class, but as other people said, it will just end up like the stupid health classes that end up being counterproductive wastes of time. Hell, I partly blame my former school's health classes for the high pregnancy rate there, since all they basically said was, "Drugs are bad, and sex outside of marriage is bad, and don't use birth control because it doesn't work and you'll end up pregnant anyway." That last part was supposed to be so they could convince us little kiddies to be abstinent, but instead it meant that the people who were having sex anyway figured that condoms didn't work so why bother, and out popped the next generation of the intellectually stunted.

And what would hopeless nerds like me do? Probably the same thing I did with all my other throwaway 'classes;' ignore them. But at least I knew a bunch of adults I could talk frankly to about these things (my parents, for instance; only one of my official teachers was counted among this group), and they could advice me more in ten minutes than any of the inevitably dumbed-down school Communications and Relationships classes could in an entire semester.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2004-02-22 02:25pm

A lot of the "kids not taking it seriously" is really a marketing problem. Which is more interesting to the average horny young male:

1) Interpersonal Skills and Gender Relationships

2) How to Be Popular With Girls

And I disagree that the only way to learn about relationships is by having one. First objection: if all you have is a series of bad relationships you aren't learning anything (except for how to relate badly). Second, generations of people have relied upon the advice and experience of, for lack of a better term, "elders", in managing long term relationships, particularly marriage.

And sometimes it's the stupidiest little things that can derail you. Take whining, for instance. Get an upset woman it's like having an air raid siren winding up --- whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeee. It drives men homicidal. Why do women do that? I haven't a fucking clue, but they do, it's like it's hardwired into their systems or something. And the man usually screams something along the lines of "Shut up that fucking irritating noise you bitch!" and things go rapidly down hill. At the end of it all, he's an insensitive bastard, she's a crazy bitch, no one understands anyone, and everyone is unhappy.

Guys, you want a trick that really shuts off the whine? Here it is: Grit your teeth, look her in the eye, and say "Honey, take a deep breath and tell me, as calmly as you can, why you're so upset" See, a lot of muscles have to tense up to produce a whine, and deep breath tends to relax muscles, and relaxed muscles turn off the whine (usually - we're dealing with people here so nothing works 100% of the time). And ladies, if you feel/hear yourself starting to whine YOU take the deep breath, because to men a whine is like fingernails on a blackboard - he's no longer hearing you, just the noise. Goddamn, took me about 15 years to figure that one out, I wish someone had told me that when I was 15.

Educating folks on how to get along isn't for the folks who already know this - it's for the ones who don't. And it's very obvious to me that a LOT of folks who think they know what they're doing don't.

Of course, even if such a class was set up it probably would be hijacked by all the nutjobs with an agenda out there.

Post by **haas mark** » 2004-02-22 02:33pm

Broomstick wrote:And I disagree that the only way to learn about relationships is by having one. First objection: if all you have is a series of bad relationships you aren't learning anything (except for how to relate badly).

That's not necessarily true.. take a look at women who try and try and try to get out of abusive relationships, but end up in them anyway.

Second, generations of people have relied upon the advice and experience of, for lack of a better term, "elders", in managing long term relationships, particularly marriage.

This I agree with, but there are points of having relationships that you can't learn without having them. Wong never said, "you cannot learn anything about relationships without having them."

<snip>

And most of the time, it's immature idiots that act like that.

bitch bitch bitch moan moan moan

Deal with it?

Educating folks on how to get along isn't for the folks who already know this - it's for the ones who don't. And it's very obvious to me that a LOT of folks who think they know what they're doing don't.

Again, it would be like the health classes that no one pays attention to.

Of course, even if such a class was set up it probably would be hijacked by all the nutjobs with an agenda out there.

Again, it would be like the parents caring more defining their children's lives than letting their children do it for themselves.

~ver

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-02-22 03:02pm

this sounds like a good idea in theory. but another aspect you'd need to look at is would it be a mandatory course, or would it be strictly optional? if it's a strictly optional course, then the kids that volunteer to take it may wind up the target of derision by those that think it's a waste of time and don't take it,, and eventually they might give up, possibly making things worse than before.

alot of it would also depend on how the course is structured and what exactly gets taught. . . .which is fairly obvious. a course by itself can teach you alot of things, (though not as much as actual experience sometimes), but if anyone teaches it, they should have alot of practical experience dealing with long term relationships themselves. and it might be a bit hard to find qualified teachers with the necessary experience in the area. . . . .considering the high divorce rate

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2004-02-22 03:22pm

Darth Wong wrote:Not true. Going through case studies involving other people makes it clear that your own feelings are not unique, and gives you ideas on how to resolve issues.

Don't we sort of already do that in PSE classes?

At the risk of condescension, after 12 years of marriage I know more about maintaining long-term relationships than you do.

Wrong. You know more about maintaining a long term relationship with Rebecca than I do. You'd be stumped if you woke up tomorrow and found yourself married to someone else.

Basically what you're saying, though, is that experience is more important than theory, which is exactly my point.
If I spent a week interviewing and talking to people who had been married for 12 years and came back to you, who would know more about maintaining a long term relationship? You.

There are things that you can learn from the examples and ideas of others that you will not necessarily figure out on your own.

And the examples and ideas of others are available by talking to them. Not by being sat down by an authority figure and told "this is how relationships work". I know more about how relationships work by observing my own and other people's than any one else does.

And the really hard way to find things out is to get married and then divorced, often leaving kids behind in the wreckage of your failed relationship. You might very well learn a lot in this process, but the social damage wrought by such a learning process is something best avoided if at all possible.

If you want kids to learn relationship/dating/interpersonal skills, then lay off all the homework, coursework and shit, and let kids interact with each other.
This theory has been attempted already. Near-50% divorce rate.

I agree that (messy) divorces can be hard on the people involved (children and partners), but I don't see how an hour a week theory class is going to make a difference, and how you can blame high divorce rates with lack of interpersonal skills alone.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-02-22 03:24pm

Great idea, but I'm not sure if it would be feasable.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-02-22 03:24pm

I think it would be a good idea. Instead of just focusing on dating & relationships, we should get rid of those seperate sex-ed and health classes and put the material into this new class. It would become a class in "life skills" if you will and deal with the issues faced by teenage kids and present them with case studies, general guidelines and ways of properly dealing with things. If you can get good teachers and teach this properly, I think it could be of great benefit to kids. Think about all the advice & stories that some members here have given out to our younger less experienced members, if you could somehow teach all that info to kids it would be invaluable. If I had SD.net to guide me through my youth I'd be so much better off in terms of social skills and relating to the opposite sex.

PrinceofLowLight · Post by **PrinceofLowLight** » 2004-02-22 03:48pm

While I do think it would either end up as a joke class, or a tool for subtle brainwashing by higher-ups, I don't object to this in principle. Experience isn't necessarily the best teacher, especially in things like this where experimentation can lead to Very Bad Things. Flat-out telling people is great. I've actually learned more about the winding throught processes of the fairer sex from the various relationship threads on this board than a number of rather intimate relationships I've had in reality. Like neoloong, I've relied mostly on luck, which really hasn't been a bad method so far. The actual details on what's going on up there is a mystery. I can't figure it out with the little hints given. The women aren't talking on the subject. The only things I've learned from my experiences with women are:

1. (When I say this, I say it with the greatest respect for women) You broads are all fucking insane. Their thought processes couldn't be further removed from mine if they were Venusian sulphur miners.

2. Interacting on any meaningful mental level with a woman is like rolling a die. Sometimes the result is very good. Sometimes the result is very bad. And you have no hope of influencing the outcome unless you happen to be a Jedi.

3. Unlike most other important skills an adult must have, effective cunnilingus is both easy and fun to learn.

A scholarly class on the subject would be two big barrels of useful.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-02-22 05:08pm

InnerBrat wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Not true. Going through case studies involving other people makes it clear that your own feelings are not unique, and gives you ideas on how to resolve issues.
Don't we sort of already do that in PSE classes?

No.

At the risk of condescension, after 12 years of marriage I know more about maintaining long-term relationships than you do.
Wrong. You know more about maintaining a long term relationship with Rebecca than I do. You'd be stumped if you woke up tomorrow and found yourself married to someone else.

I would still be armed with far more useful knowledge than a 16 year old kid.

Basically what you're saying, though, is that experience is more important than theory, which is exactly my point.

No, your (mistaken) point is to draw a false dilemma between the two, as if we must choose between one or the other rather than accepting that both are a good idea.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Should there be classes on how to date?

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