Dating and Intimacy

This week was really interesting. We learned about dating and intimacy. The first day we talked about the Law of Attraction. There are four principles to the Law of Attraction.

1. Physical Attraction: There were two parts to physical attraction social theory and biological theory. Social theory was the idea that if you associate with people viewed as beautiful or powerful then you gain a higher status. The theory I found the most interesting was the biological theory. Men look at the ability to bear and care for offspring and women look for the ability to protect and provide. In class we talked about the hip to waist ratio which is 0.8 or small waist and larger hips. It turns out that it is the best ratio for being more fertile. Someone in class said "It's all about having babies." I thought that was hysterical.

2. Proximity: The closer you live with someone, the more opportunity for romantic relationship. this explains why so many people have met future spouses at Jacob Lake. Jacob Lake Inn is a place in the middle of the Kaibab forest and one of the rules when working there is that we can't date any of our fellow employees. It is a pretty secluded place and we all get really close and there have been at least two couples from there that have or are getting married, and several others that have dated each other after working there. It's proximity in a nutshell.

3. Similarities: It's the opposite to the saying opposites attract. People tend to be attracted to people that they are more alike. What are some similarities to myself that I would find attractive? Definitely religion, standards, and goals. I also like people that share my sense of humor and can make me laugh. I find a good sense of humor extremely attractive.

4. Familiarity: People are attracted to traits that are familiar. This can apply to having heard of the person. I heard a story and I'm not sure if it would fall in to this category or a previous one. A friend of mine was telling me her brother married someone that looks a lot like her. so much so that when my friend, her brother, and sister in law are together people think it was her brother that married into the family, not his wife.

We also spent a lot of time talking about hanging out. Hanging out is what is replacing dating, it is when a bunch of people from both genders have spontaneous, informal, get-togethers. One of my favorite terms for hanging out I heard from Elder Scott, he called it "idleness in flux". Hanging out requires no commitment and it could be one of the reasons young adult marry at a later age. I found a talk by Elder Oaks talking about dating vs. hanging out. It is called Dating Versus Hanging Out. We also talked about the purposes of dating, which includes socialization, recreation, and finding intimacy and companionship. Basically, now I want to date. We read a quote by President Spencer W. Kimball and he said that we should find our eccentricities and try to eliminate them and that would help. I'm working on it.

I think this is a funny video when thinking about dating.

We also talked about how to build intimacy. I found this extremely valuable because I feel like I lack in this area. I feel that I to often keep things at a superficial level and that it takes a while for me to get personal and extremely difficult to get to a stage of intimacy. Communication seems to be one of the vital components to building intimacy and I don't think I communicate enough. I'm working on it and I've gotten a lot better. I'll keep working on it.