I was talking with some friends the other day and we all agreed that it would be fundamentally weird for us to ask a girl out on a date in the traditional sense. Obviously dates still exist. But do they exist as they once did, as a certain trial before becoming a couple? I don't think so.

In observing college age relationships they usually follow a certain process. Two parties display sexual interest, they hang out repeatedly with people and by themselves, they have sex, they stop having sex with other people, they become a "thing," they go out together. The term date never comes up. Perhaps the one on one time count as dates, but most of the times they are anything but formal. In the traditional sense I consider a date when a guy takes out a girl and offers to do the paying.

Which brings up another point, can't we get rid of that tradition at this point? In all likelihood, a girl I'm seeing has as much, if not more, money than me. So why can't she pay? And yet I feel tugged by tradition. Obviously it's still a nice gesture on the occasion, but paying every time is unfair to me and possibly even demeaning to the lady. But maybe that is a testament to the old concept of dating, and now with the eradication of that term we are seeing a transition to a time when I don't have to pay.

 The classical date structure was you pick up a girl, you take her out, you take her home, etc. In hanging out one on one away from friends and families you confront the sexual attraction face on. But perhaps today the date has changed because we admit that the sexual attraction no longer needs a formatted vehicle, it can exist in many shapes and sizes.

But without the date how do we know when the trial period ends and the dating has begun? My friends and I agree that asking a girl to be a girlfriend is just "so passe" so middle-school even, but I guess it is still required, maybe the mark of an actual relationship now is the facebook status.

I wonder if this is just a college thing and the dating ritual still exists in force for the late twenty somethings.  Or maybe I am wrong and girls my age wouldn't laugh if they heard a strapping young gentleman such as myself ask them for a date.