"serious" vs. "dating" question

Hi guys,

In the roughly 3 months I've been visiting this site, I've read a fair number of posts concerning "serious" relationships vs. "dating" and I must confess I'm not exactly sure what those phrases refer to, mainly in regards to differences between the two. Granted I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who's only had one realtionship, and I guess I'm still trying to analyze the breakup and figure out what went went wrong. I'm now beginning to realize perhaps because of my inexperience and nievete when it comes to relationships, I had the wrong idea as to how far along our relationship actually was at the time of our breakup.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughs and opinions on what constitutes "serious" vs. "just dating," and how long it generally takes before you feel your relationship has become "serious." I know that its different for everyone, but i'd just like some kind of rough idea.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Mike

How do you feel about her? Or how did you feel?

I think it depends how long you were involved and whether you were exclusive or dating other people. If exclusivity was not discussed then you could say you were just "dating" as in: dating and getting to know each other.

I hope this helps,

A friend once told me that the difference between dating and serious is when dating is done as like friends to the movies and so on together. Like courtship. To get to know one another. With "serious" it means you are choosing both of you as mates are choosing to date exclusively as lovers until you decide to get married.

That makes sense right?.

So, if two people were just dating, could they still have intimacy?

So, if two people were just dating, could they still have intimacy?

thanks for the replies,

Here's a little more background: We were only together for about a 7 weeks, claerly we were still in the 'getting to know you" phase, although towards the end of our relationship (which she broke off) we were,as i saw it, getting more serious. Exclusivity was never discussed, but then I didn't think it need to be, we saw each other frequently, on the days were weren't together there was some kind of communication, and there wan't any time left, or desire for (at least as I saw it) seeing anybody else. What does add a little confusion is that, although we did go out to restaurants and cafes several times, most of our "dates" really involved staying in (usually her house), and simply cuddling in front of a movie, talking, kissing, etc. The big exception to this was our last weekend together, during which we took a day trip out of town, and were literally together the entire time (with the exception of about 2 hours, from friday evening until sunday afternoon. I took this as a sign we really were getting more serious (this weekend also marked the only time in our relationship we were intimate with one another.) Thats all all put down for background here to keep this post from getting any longer than it already is. But feel free to PM me or check my pervious posts if you want more detail of my relationship.

On that note, I would like to raise the point of exclusivity. How common is it for people to, in the erly stages of a relationship, be seeing more than one person? Perhaps I'm putting too much expectaion on first dates, but I personally don't like the idea of seeing multiple people at the same time, even if the realtionships are just in the inital stages of dating. I think its kind of unfair to the people you are seeing that they arer not getting a full effort on your part towards getting to know them. Perhaps this is not the correctway to think about relationships.

Also, fantasia2004's comment makes me ask the same question: how does intimacy figure into "dating" versus a serious relationship. I would think that once intimacy occus (not nessecerily sexual intercourse, but other forms of sexual/intimate contact), that the realtionship has crossed, or at least begun to cross, from merely dating to a more serious commitment. Again, perhaps i'm wrong: I might simply have a very nieve and idealistic view of relationships.

Any coments on these subjects?

My two previous relationships the guy pretty much asked me if we was now a couple after our second date.....werid aye?

Relationships come sooner rather then latter I think as if you both have chemistry then it's natural link.

If your dating for a couple months but not exclustive yet it means your forcing the spark which isn't there.