Description
1.
Dating is one of the most exciting periods of your life. Suddenly, there are new horizons
before you, friendships flower, your personality blooms, and your sense of being a
desirable person worthy of affection becomes real. This is a time of great exhilaration,
splendor, and discovery. To live it fully is to enjoy one of life’s most delightful
experiences.
To miss out on dating is a shame and a waste, especially when there is still time to do
something about it. Dating is an art, and like all arts it must be cultivated to give results.
Approach it with honesty, enthusiasm, energy, and it begins to take form. And soon you
have answers to the questions that were worrying you.
Long before you actually start dating, you dream about it. Wistfully, you see other
fellows and girls out together on dates, laughing, talking, going places, having a
seemingly effortless, wonderful time. Before you ever get a date, you see yourself as the
gallant hero or the glamorous heroine of a romantic situation. You imagine all the right
words and actions so easily, so vividly, that you can hardly wait to start dating. Yet,
somewhere inside you anticipate the awkward moments when you will stand tongue-tied
and clumsy before some very special person, finding that dating is anything but
wonderful. And so you swing between eagerness and anxiety, impatient to try your wings
at one moment, and afraid of a take-off in the next.
When you consider the nature of dating, this emotional see-sawing is quite
understandable. For dating fun is different from the fun a boy has playing ball with the
fellows or the joy a girl knows confiding in her closest chum. In dating you are involved
with persons of the other sex. You are learning about these other special people. And in
the process you are also discovering a great deal about yourself. You are on the threshold
of a new kind of experience that is grown-up, romantic, and full of promise for your life
ahead as a full-fledged adult.
Probably you are wondering when you can start participating in this new exciting
experience. For some of you the answer will be easy. If you belong to a closely knit
group that does everything together, having dates within that circle of familiar friends
will come naturally and simply. But for the majority of young people the answer is not so
easy.
OVERCOMING BASHFULNESS
Shyness with members of the other sex is common among young people. You are not
alone in this problem. Getting over self-consciousness to the point where you can relax
and be friendly with those you most admire is a challenge. The more thrilled you are with
the presence of the other person, the more likely you are to be embarrassed, it seems. But
with experience you gradually become more comfortable with the opposite sex. Then, as
you develop poise and self-confidence, you discover and put into practice more and more
of the art of dating. How to develop that poise and confidence is the question.
Since girls grow up sooner, and are ready for dates before boys of their age and grade
generally are, a particular problem for a teen-age girl is how to get a bashful boy to notice
her. This is why girls’ clubs so often center around planning boy-girl activities. Many a
shy boy has come out of himself at a well-planned party. With encouragement he finds
that he can carry on a conversation and have fun in a mixed group. 2
OFF TO A GOOD START
Soon he, too, is ready for dates, usually first with the girl who was friendly and
approachable while he was getting up his courage to ask her.
A fellow needs to be reasonably sure a girl wants to go out with him before he asks her.
So it’s a girl’s responsibility to let a boy know that she is interested in him, without
behaving so boldly that she scares him off.
