Love and Dating

In Greek there are four different definitions of love. These are:

Storge- The love from a parent to child, in which the needs of the child literally become the needs of the parent.

Philia- Is brotherly kindness and a warm and close relationship that has similar characteristics of intimacy.

Eros- This is where the term 'erotic' comes from, a love between men and women and includes a romantic love.

Agape- A love towards the fellow man, regardless of prior knowledge of them. This is also known as charity.
 

Because many people misattribute the form of love that they feel they often do not have the love that can sustain a committed relationship. This is also why there are "3 P's" of dating so a couple can really get to know each other. These are: planned, paid for, and paired off. These go in relation to the general obligations of a husband which are to preside, provide, and protect the family.
 

These are shown before marriage by the model of dating, courtship, and engagement. Dating should only develop into an exclusive relationship of courtship when the couple is in consideration of marriage and the courtship into engagement when they are certain of marriage.

Homo-sexuality

Homo-sexuality is a very touchy topic to discuss. I think the reason it is so touchy is because there is no evidence to prove it is or is not biological. So before you get mad at the topic, please just read about the theories associated with it.

Here is the most common theory associated with homo-sexuality: “They were just born gay”. This is usually thought to mean that they cannot overcome it, or it is easier to choose to be that way, and others believe it is biological. These thoughts make people believe that they can only be satisfied with the same sex and therefore ask for a redefinition of marriage and the family.
 

Another, more accurate, theory is “Exotic becomes Erotic” this doesn’t necessarily mean in a romantic way, but merely as friends. An example of this is a young boy with more feminine qualities than usual who hangs out with females because the other boys do not accept him. By the time he reaches middle school about age 11, which is when most children want to get to know the children they have not hung out with. Not always, but sometimes, this can become more exaggerated when they are older, and the child wanting to be accepted becomes romanticized feelings.

Another contributing factor to same-sex attraction is sexual abuse. 68% of homo-sexual men who were molested said they were not attracted to men until after they were molested. As for women; over 60% of homo-sexual women were happily married, and then after problems arose they divorced and the women decided to become homo-sexual after the divorce, although they never believed so before.

Gender Differences

This might seem like a pointless post because obviously men and women are different. But aside from that, these are some differences. Men are generally more aggressive, this is for their role as protectors and providers. And women are more sensitive and responsive because traditionally they nurture the children.

This is a list of masculine and feminine traits:

Masculine

Spatial orientation (remembering north, east, south, west)

Aggressive and competitive

Focused (forgetting what does not matter at the time)

Problem solving (Which is why most men are better at math in school)

Feminine

Emotional

Verbal communication (putting thoughts into words)

Recognizing nonverbal cues (tone of voice, body language)

Observant (reading in-between the lines and making connections between people, places, or things)

Multi-tasking (aware of what is going on with multiple things at once)

Questioning (includes questions at the end of sentences; such as, don’t you think?)

Qualifying (gives hints for others to know how to respond; sort of, maybe, really)

One study found that men are more comfortable to share personal matters with women than other men. This is because women are more expressive in behavior (giving off emotional support and more loyalty) as oppose to instrumental (engaging in activities that are non-emotional). This is in addition to the nonverbal cues in conversation. This is most easily explained with the words “I love you”, which could mean sarcasm, indifference (saying only to please another), disbelief, true devotion, etc.

It may seem like some of these traits are more preferable than others, although they all have different positives and negatives attached to them. These differences are of averages of men and women. It is clear that not all men have all those masculine traits, nor do women have all the feminine traits.

Social Class

There are different things that go into higher or lower social classes; in my class we discussed the factors which are: amount of money, location of living, education or skills, social connections. These factors are all related to the family we are all born into. Our social class is not always determined by family, although it is more difficult for one to gain the education or skills to obtain the other factors of social class. The functions of family are also related to social class. By family functions I mean the support system families provide for one another; these are: providing for children, teaching about life (values or socialization with others), providing security, safety, belonging and love. When in a social class that demands more time from the parents it is difficult for them to teach their children and to provide the same amount of security and safety. This is not to say that someone is definatly going to have the same family function as their parents. These are simply the correlations between social class and family.