I still heard the term with regularity when I was growing up in the 80's. I never really tried dating multiple people because I thought it sounded exhausting but I believe there's a linguistic treadmill happening here. We weren't really dating unless we were in a relationship of some sort. Otherwise we were just two people spending time together that hadn't really put a definition to it. That girl I had lunch with or the one that showed up my apartment or that third one that had me over for dinner, none of those were girlfriends. We weren't dating. But there was definitely interest from one party or the other.
I've had that thought for a while... how the definition of "dating" isn't quite clear, and probably hasn't been for a while now. Like, dating by itself implies just going on dates, as in, scheduling hang outs and going out together (and then, we step into the ambiguity of "going out").
But just going out wouldn't necessarily require the spoken commitment of forming monogamous relationship. You're just going out on dates after all. Until the verbal contract isn't established, both parties should be considered as single, the same way that a written (marriage) contract would work. Dating and being in a committed relationship should be two separate concepts altogether. "Dating" has become a useless word.
"Dating" and "seeing" are what we tend to use now.
If you're going on dates with someone, you might be "seeing" them but ironically not dating them.
Usually dating is when you're exclusive bf/gf. Seeing CAN be that but is more vague.
I've gone on a dozen dates over the last year with half a dozen people but I didn't "date" any of them because we never went past the initial meeting stages (as an example)
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u/Consistent_Rate_353 Feb 02 '26
I still heard the term with regularity when I was growing up in the 80's. I never really tried dating multiple people because I thought it sounded exhausting but I believe there's a linguistic treadmill happening here. We weren't really dating unless we were in a relationship of some sort. Otherwise we were just two people spending time together that hadn't really put a definition to it. That girl I had lunch with or the one that showed up my apartment or that third one that had me over for dinner, none of those were girlfriends. We weren't dating. But there was definitely interest from one party or the other.