Today I asked a boy on a date. Although it may seem strange that I, an eighteen-year-old girl, has taken the initiative and made the first move, it was necessary. Why you ask? Because I don’t believe that driving around every once in awhile or hanging out at someone’s parents’ house is a good enough basis for me to decide if I like someone enough to pursue a relationship with them. Amid the confusion of having his masculinity challenged or something along the lines of that, he agreed, but not before asking if I wore the pants now. Honestly, what’s the issue with girls being the ones who ask guys on dates? We aren’t all going to sit around forever, picking flower petals and wishing that one day maybe he’ll notice us. We as young women have the chance to be go-getters, and honestly, why shouldn’t we.

Aside from that, why have the majority of boys decided to stop asking girls on dates? Speaking of girls being go-getters, we need to stop settling for guys who won’t even step their game up long enough to think of a more interesting way to get to know us (I know, I’m guilty too). “Netflix and chill?” or (shout out to all my Mandeville, LA people out there), “yo, lakefront?” aren’t exactly worthy of being titled a date. Yes, I’m 100% deciding to rant about this because my good friend Samantha wrote an article today titled “Make America Date Again”, and I realized that it really is a problem. Yes, I agree that having movie nights are fun every once in awhile, but if you’re trying to really get to know someone and really decide if you might want a relationship with them, don’t settle for some lame excuse for a date.

To sum everything up, everyone, boys, and girls, should probably step up their standards a bit and maybe we can avoid this confusion of “no it doesn’t matter we were only talking” and “but we were talking! Why would they do that?!” The dating world has become a hazy gray area of nobody really knowing what’s going on. Maybe if we could all try a little harder in letting others know that we are actually interesting in pursuing something more with them, we would have less heartbreak over that guy or girl that you never actually got into a relationship with but you were totally like talking for like a month and you don’t know why they would get with someone else because it was so obvious to you that y’all were a thing. We’ve all been there. We need to make it obvious to everyone that we’re interested in someone. If you like someone you should want to show them off! Hanging out or driving around instead of actually going out with someone has transformed from a clear sign that you should distance yourself from them to a widely accepted form of showing affection. If you like someone, take them out, show them off, and on the flip side, be flattered when others want to show you off! So what if a girl asks a guy on a date, that doesn’t matter in the end.

“Take me to New Orleans for the day”. A simple request that has thus far been more satisfying than any invitation to drive around for a while.