Courting vs. Dating
August 2, 2009 by Michelle Smith
Filed under Relationships
I’ve been thinking about the notion of courting. What does it mean? Is is a good thing? A bad thing? I mentioned to my boyfriend that I wanted to be “courted,” and he reacted as if it was a bad thing.
I was confused by his reaction at first, but then I thought back to a conversation we’d had about 20 minutes prior on the word “prerequisite” and it occurred to me that it might be one of those words that mean different things to different people.
I looked up the word “courting” and Free Online Dictionary has this:
*To try to gain the love or affections of, especially to seek to marry.
*To attempt to gain the favor of by attention or flattery: a salesperson courting a potential customer.
*To behave so as to attract (a mate).
*To pursue a courtship; woo.
My intent, with the word “courting” is this – I want to be wooed, I want to feel special. 
I mentioned to my boyfriend that I was thinking about pursuing a degree and part of the course load included a small business class. He said that there are free online business classes. Then, he looked them up for me, told me where to find them. That’s woo-worthy to me. He spent time, he did something thoughtful. I felt loved.
I asked some of my friends what they thought about courting and dating. The impression that I got from them was that courting is a sort of pre-dating. Hand-holding, no sex. (Ack. I do not want that). If you look at it that way, then dating would be casual time shared between two people and courting is time spent with the intent of building something serious.
Date for fun. Court for committment.
What do you think? I’m going to take this one to the Blisstree Message Boards. Have you checked out our message boards yet? You haven’t? Go up to the top of the page and click Community. I look forward to seeing you there.
Image credit: Michelle Smith
I think one reason I was successful with online dating was that I looked at every guy I met as someone that was “courting” me rather than dating me. By keeping a relationship platonic, I was able to really get to know many different guys to see if they might be right for me on a deeper level.
I was using your experience when talking to a friend about dating today. She was feeling bad about dating 10 men in a span of time (not a short amount of time) and I told her that was the way to do it. She has to meet a lot of men to be able to really find the right one. I said, that’s what Cherie talks about in her book.
Date for fun. Court for commitment. That’s how I’ve always viewed courting. A lot of times, I think there is a negative connotation associated with courting because it is more traditional, and often time there is no sex involved. I used to hear about “courting” a lot in Christian circles. Not so much these days.
Heather, I heard about a book for Christian daters that a friend found very helpful. It’s in the “Boundaries” series. I’m going to write something up about it soon.
I wish people wouldn’t equate traditional with negative. We all have different values and waiting to have sex is important to many people. What ever works for the individual is all positive as far I am concerned. The trick is to find the person whose values mirror your own.