It was a group fellowship, and there was no place for pairing off into couples within this group... If a couple were to pair off from the rest of the group, they would have lost their contact from the other members and consequently their position in the circle of friends. We non-daters, who knew little or nothing about dating ourselves, were passing judgment on daters' actions. It acted as an ego booster. I became the crowd clown, the group jester. In this capacity, I became the cupid and 'confidant' of the group. I fell in 'love' not once, but many times, with different girls who were unattainable, if not only because of my physical appearance, because they were unconscious of my condition, even unconscious of my being a boy. Because of my apparent indifference, my laughing face, no one worried about me, but I felt like a eunuch. I looked a little like one, too.
Going Steady
To uncover prestige considerations in adolescent dating, Herman (1955) asked
students, "Which of the dating patterns did the most popular high school students
engage in?" The largest proportion (36 percent) of replies checked going steady, as
opposed to 9 percent who indicated that the most popular students engaged in
"completely playing the field." Only those students for whom marriage is feasible and
desirable shortly after high school engage in the marriage-oriented type of going
steady. Of the students who indicated that at least one of their high school years was
characterized by going steady (52 percent), only about 9 percent said they seriously
contemplated marriage before their senior year of high school, and 24 percent said
they did so as seniors in high school. On the other hand, most students (students who
have no such expectations of imminent marriage) engaged in a dalliance type of
steady relationship (Sorensen, 1973). Even the college-bound high school adolescent
permits himself to become involved in adolescent-type steady relationships.
I began to seriously date her, more or less thinking that it was time
I started to settle down, which is a mistake I feel most high school
people make who plan on going to college.
But if a steady relationship is not marriage-oriented, there remains the question
of why it has become a dominant dating practice in modern adolescent culture.
Certain reasons seem to be expressed repeatedly by teenagers. They include: peer
group recognition and acceptance, that most important social activities require
participation of dating couples, one must date to rate, dating security or participation
insurance (including participation in sexual intimacy), and discomfort involved in
being a participant in the fiercely competitive business of dating (Herman, 1955), like
the "serial polygamist" in the fourth of the examples following (Sorensen, 1973).
The main reason I did go steady is that I felt secure and
comfortable in our relationship. It was new, exciting, and eventful.
I asked her to go steady because of group pressure from buddies
who were going steady. I asked her to go steady because her
parents were going to be gone for two weeks, and I thought I could
take advantage of the situation. I heard that when a person goes
steady, the girl is more willing sexually.
There were other girls that I wanted to take out, but the security of
always having a date and the prospect of better and better sex kept
me from doing so.
I have had no desire to 'play the field.' As long as a certain girl is
willing to go on dates with me, I will take her out. It is only when
she refuses to date, and I am forced to find another girl, that I pay
any attention to anyone else.
Many students say that they believe they mature or learn to adjust, and that in
general, they are educated by their steady experiences. On the other hand, many
steadies face emotional and psychological problems growing out of the steady
relationship (Crist, 1953). Adolescents often find it difficult to make adjustments to
the expectations and intimate associations of going steady. The desire for security and
predictability of social activity, and the expectations of peers, often make it very
difficult to dissolve a steady relationship.
Our friends and teachers respected us as a couple. And it seemed
we got the whole school upset when we fought.
He was becoming very jealous and angry with me each time I
talked to a boy other than him. He threatened that if I didn't
behave like I was going steady, we would break up. This began to
bother me, and soon I started to avoid talking with other boys, thus
losing contact with my other classmates.
Later we broke off our relationship because she wanted more
independence and I could not stand not to have her exclusively. It
would be too painful if we only went together part of the time.
Perhaps I should have listened to my friends who said, "You've got
to fuck 'em or lose 'em. They all want it."
I went steady for six months although I only liked him for about
four months. I knew I didn't want to be tied down, but I didn't know
exactly how to tell him.
I was almost threatened into remaining with her for the rest of the
year by a girl who told me that: 'if you ever broke up with her, there
wouldn't be a girl in the school who would go out with you.' This
kind of threat, although too much to be actually believed, affected
me so that I was almost scared to break off things.
Cameron and Kenkel (1960) found in an Iowa study that 82 percent of the girls
and 71 percent of the boys reported to have at one time or another been involved in a
steady relationship. At one extreme, about 10 percent of both sexes had gone steady
for less than a week, and about 30 percent of the girls and 14 percent of the boys had
at one time gone steady for two weeks or less.
With each one of these 'flames,' I (an eighth grader) felt that there
would never be another quite like the last, and I was extremely
heartbroken when the whole affair was completely over and they
would no longer ask me for a date.
On the other hand, 11 percent of the girls and 6 percent of the boys reported a going
steady relationship of over two years-longer than many engagements.