In her recent post, Tiffany posed an interesting question about adults having a “committee” to decide whether they like someone. I’d have to say that I think this occurs as a result of repeated failure in dating and relationships. When we start to lose faith in our own decision making we lean on friends and family to be our Simon, Randy and Paula to find out who we should take to Hollywood.
This “committee” is made up of the people who we turn to when things don’t work out. It’s the shoulders that we cry on or the ones we brag to about a new date. When relationships fail we turn to friends and family for support or even advice. These same people are the ones we turn to when a new dating prospect has our attention and we are looking for approval.
Of course, none of this makes much sense. We are adults and are fully capable of making decisions on our own. The problem is that with all of the games and rules, dating has become obfuscated and not nearly as simple as it should be. We get coaching on how to act, how to lure someone in and read books to determine whether someone is “just that into you”. It makes me wonder how small a percentage of genuine people are acting on their own without someone behind the curtain pulling the strings or making the decisions.
Experience tells me that it is sometimes ex-lovers or “wanna be” lovers who are behind the scenes making the decision. How do you compete with that? If a woman is polling a group of men who want her for themselves I simply can’t see them saying, “Oh he’s a keeper”. But the bigger question would be why she would even turn to these people for the “yay” or “nay”.
