Alright people! Here it is, you know it was going to come up. I'm of the age that, apparently should be about done with dating and settling down with a spouse, according to almost everyone around me. Of course the problem is...I'm not. Not even close. I can't even convince myself to accomplish that first part. You know, dating. Does anyone even know what dating means anymore? I know I don't...What people understand as dating seems to vary from person to person. What I understand to be a date seems to be completely different from what people around me classify as a date.

What I personally classify as dating, according to my limited memory, is that two people establish TOGETHER that BOTH PEOPLE are interested enough in one another to go on a DATE (emphasis on actually saying it is a date there). The party that invited the other plans some sort of activity and refreshment and the two of them spend at least a couple of hours doing said activity and getting to know one another. This can also allow for more than one couple to share in the activity, though in this situation I was under the impression that you need to stay focused on the person you are specifically on a date with.

With the previous paragraph as my definition, my expectation of my dating life was, basically, to never go on a date...Ever. For me to become interested in someone enough to personally want to go on a date with them we must first be friends. I have never had a crush on anyone who I was not friends with already. None of my friends, however, ever showed signs of being interested in me and I was okay with that. There was no way two of us were going to decide there was enough interest to go on a "date" anytime soon. So I settled into my seemingly accurate prediction of never dating.

As if out of nowhere, when I turned 16 a boy I barely recognized as someone I had met before asked me on a "date". I was confused at first...date? I didn't even know him! How could he want to date me? Did date mean something else? I accepted his invitation and developed a new understanding on what "date" meant. Two people that don't necessarily have any romantic interest in one another doing a specifically planed date activity with one another. My date also didn't necessarily stay focused on me and flirted with others, which didn't bother me since I wasn't interested in him. With this new understanding I went on a couple more "dates" with friends I wasn't interested in just for fun.

Now that I'm in college, date seems to have taken on yet another variation. Two people doing an activity together. Whether or not anyone previously specified that activity was date or not. I still prefer my original definition. If I'm going by that I have still had no dates. Honestly I'm okay with that.