A Final Word on Dating

To The Women on Dating

Young women, resist too much hanging out, and encourage dates that are simple, inexpensive, and frequent. Don’t make it easy for young men to hang out in a setting where you women provide the food. Don’t subsidize freeloaders. An occasional group activity is OK, but when you see men who make hanging out their primary interaction with the opposite sex, I think you should lock the pantry and bolt the front door.

If you do this, you should also hang up a sign, “Will open for individual dates,” or something like that. And, young women, please make it easier for these shy males to ask for a simple, inexpensive date. Part of making it easier is to avoid implying that a date is something very serious. If we are to persuade young men to ask for dates more frequently, we must establish a mutual expectation that to go on a date is not to imply a continuing commitment. Finally, young women, if you turn down a date, be kind. Otherwise you may crush a nervous and shy questioner and destroy him as a potential dater, and that could hurt some other sister.

- Dallin H. Oaks

To The Men on Dating

Men have the initiative, and you men should get on with it. If you don’t know what a date is, perhaps this definition will help. I heard it from my 18-year-old granddaughter. A “date” must pass the test of three p’s: (1) planned ahead, (2) paid for, and (3) paired off.

…Simple and more frequent dates allow both men and women to “shop around” in a way that allows extensive evaluation of the prospects. The old-fashioned date was a wonderful way to get acquainted with a member of the opposite sex. It encouraged conversation. It allowed you to see how you treat others and how you are treated in a one-on-one situation. It gave opportunities to learn how to initiate and sustain a mature relationship. None of that happens in hanging out.

-Dallin H. Oaks

A List of Date Ideas For You- A List Complied by asking college students what their best dates have been. Thanks to everyone who helped the cause.

Make Dinner Together

Picnic Date

Breakfast Date

Fast Food Progressive Dinner (Taco Bell for the appetizer, Subway for Main Course, Jamba for a smoothie.)

Interactive Museum

Roast Marshmallows/ S’mores

Smoothie Experimenting Date

Cookie Making/ Delivering

Volunteer Date

Ice Blocking

Flying a Kite

Study Date (Take a tablecloth, electric candle, and chocolate kisses to the library. Spread them out and study)

Hike

College Sporting Event

Competitive Sporting Date (Basketball, Volleyball, Tennis games, Bowling)

Competitive Video Game Date

Scavenger Hunt Date

Mini Golf

Pumpkin Carving Competition

Biking

Christmas Ornament Making Date

Shovel and Old Ladies sidewalk then have Hot Chocolate

Sledding

Go to a new restaurant and split a decadent dessert!

Tye Dye Socks

Go Star Gazing

Tandem Bike Ride

Get Mentos and Diet Coke and Put on a Fountain Show

Have a Decades Date (Dress up like you are from the 40’s or 50’s or 60’s ect. Eat a food from the era. Listen to music from the era. Love the era.)

Have A Wildlife Tee Shirt Date

Go Carts

Archery

Sit on the Roof and watch the sun go down or look at the stars and listen to the song Up on the Roof

Have a budgeted date. You can only spend $5 get creative

Going to the beach like in the late afternoon and hiking this hill and watching the sun set into the ocean.

Hitting glow stick juice covered golf balls off a cliff or into a lake after dusk.

Playing broom hockey on Utah lake.

Dinner at the Canon Center then walk to the bell tower and make banana boats on the lights with tin foil. Then walk over to DT field and watch a movie on a laptop.

Dinner where ever, Planetarium show on campus. Return to apartment and make 2-liter water rockets while watching Space Jam (or any other space themed movie) and then launch the rockets using a launcher.

Take the date on a semi short but long enough hike and then have a back pack with a little stove and cook up some natural tea (boil cinnamon sticks in water, add sugar), enjoy the company and the scenery.

Before dinner, go around, in the mall perhaps, and take a bunch of pictures together, get them developed, and then during dinner, write some funny captions on the back of the pictures. Then put them into a little photo album and give it to the girl at the end of the date.

I like simplicity, nothing too complicated.