I don't like dating

I have a friend in my Spanish class named Adriana. (She'll never read this.) She's nineteen and wants to be a math teacher. She works at in-n-out, and recently she bought a 1300 macbook. Her wallpaper on her computer is a picture of her and her boyfriend sharing a kiss, in a heart.

i make friends alright. i treat people as independent beings. I don't push too hard. I make my kind of jokes, and if we sorta click on that front we're okay. I've yet to meet more than a handful of people who share my sense of humor. I think that person will be my first relationship and really good friend.

Dating is forced friendship to me. If friendships were arranged like dates are, less people would be interested. Meet at this time, to talk to someone you don't know, and see if you want to be friends with them. What are the chances of that happening?

I don't want to become "a guy" in someone's mind. I don't want to be grouped with other "guys". I'm me. I'm not a dot on a checklist.

But maybe that's my unwillingness to succumb to the mob and lose my individuality. After all, everyone's such a special snowflake--including me. Right?

I'm not a gentleman. I don't like that word. To me, it's role an actor plays; an outdated, outmoded, narrow assertion of identity. I don't like what it represents: a 1950s, misogynistic, boy and girl, wholesome gee-whiz road to propriety and a church wedding. Not that I'm necessarily against religious rituals; I'm just not so strongly for them. And I don't think that kind of courtship necessarily represents honor or respect for another person, either. Anyone can be a gentleman if they pretend hard enough--and really want something.

I don't like pointless rituals. I believe in questioning behavior and acting with a purpose. If the purpose is dumb, I dislike the action. If I believe the purpose is cruel, misleads, or cheats, I dislike the action. Dating is dumb. I dislike going on dates.

What if it was called something else? Hanging out with a friend, for instance.

I don't want to be "a guy." I want to be a friend. My friend and I are in a relationship. We're hanging out tonight. The rules are different.

If I were to ever be in a relationship, it must be with someone I'm pretty comfortable with. It must be with someone I've spoken to for a while, someone whom I'm friends with, who shares certain attitudes and senses of humor with me. There's this girl at my school, Ana, right? ... anyway.

I've always half-jokingly said that my first real, solid relationship will be with be with someone I work with, because in that scenario I'll see them everyday and we can talk everyday. Otherwise, because I don't like to intrude on people's lives, bother them, make unfair statements or revelations, I try to stick by myself.

I don't like the dating rules. They don't promote friendship or sincerity. They're dance steps; they're not spontaneous; they're a game already played. they're trite, too specific, too constrained by White Western, ideal middle-class culture, to expand and include the myriad range of human expression in mating and hanging out. the rules of dating demand precision, not comfort.

maybe i haven't met someone I want to dance with yet. maybe, but what if I hate dancing? what if I want to just go watch a movie?

What if, unknowingly, I can't even escape the confines of dating at all?