Questions to Ask on a Date?

While I don’t know much about dating, I do enjoy looking at articles with fun date ideas – because sometimes the activities mentioned seem like good ideas whether you have a date or not!

We know that a first date can be awkward. What do you talk about? I especially don’t care for small talk, so the conversation would probably become uncomfortable for me quite quickly. In my thought process, I don’t really care how many facts about you I can recite, because knowing about you isn’t the same as knowing you. That’s partly what distinguishes our relationships to our friends versus our celebrity crushes. Learn as much as you want about Jennifer Lawrence, but unless you take her out for pizza and spend time with her, chances are you won’t really know her that well.

That being said, I came up with the following list of questions that will guarantee success on any first date you go on.

Actually I have no idea if these are any good; these are just questions I’ve thought about in my spare time when my brain has nothing better to do.

If you were granted three wishes, what would you wish for?

If you had a completely empty day ahead of you, how would you spend it?

Were you to pick any job besides the one you have, what would you want to do?

Do you like sweet, salty, or spicy foods?

What is one of your favorite places to go in town?

If you could pick any era to live in, past, present, or future, what would you pick?

What is something you don’t want to live without?

What is something you’re thankful for today?

What, if anything, do you want to change about the world?

Who do you want to be in the future?

When is your favorite time of day?

Where do you go to relax?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop? (answer: the world will never know)

What’s the strangest question you’ve been asked on a first date?

*Disclaimer: Katherine Hill is not liable for any rejections or failures that result from using this list of questions, so please do not sue her. Side affects may include queasy stomach, palm sweating, frequent trips to the bathroom, and uncomfortable silences.

Why a Ring?

Chances are if you’re from generation Y – or even generation X – you’ve probably seen it. The engagement announcements, the pictures of the fancy ring. Don’t get me wrong, I love admiring people’s rings. I think rings are beautiful. I just wonder what the hype about them is.

Yes, a quick Google search will reveal that a ring symbolizes eternal love, the commitment to marriage. Although according to Wikipedia, “Historically, the wedding ring was connected to the exchange of valuables at the moment of the wedding rather than a symbol of eternal love and devotion. It is a relic of the times when marriage was a contract between families, not individual lovers.”

My conflict about the wedding ring isn’t a sense of belonging or devotion to somebody; my conflict is about the practicality of wearing a ring in general. I love admiring jewelry on other people, but for me, any sort of ring is uncomfortable. And what about when people go to the bathroom and wash their hands after? Isn’t that putting a lot of wear and tear on the ring? Suppose you’re making meatloaf and mixing the raw meat with your bare hands? To wear a ring in a situation like that just sounds really gross to me. What about gardening if you don’t wear gloves? Suppose you’re a painter and you get paint on the ring? I wouldn’t wear a $5,000 dress to paint a house, so why would I wear a $5,000 piece of jewelry only to have to pay more money to get it cleaned after?

(I don’t really know what the going rate for rings is…I’m just throwing around numbers)

Yes, I know that wearing a ring can show that you’re not single, that you’re devoted to someone else. And yes, that can be a very good thing. But technically, shouldn’t the way you act in your everyday life show that you’re devoted to someone? I’m not trying to put anyone down here, I’m genuinely trying to figure this out.

Of my many concerns about getting married someday, one is having to wear a piece of jewelry that someone spent a ridiculous amount of money on that I don’t even like. God have mercy on the man who gets stuck with me.

How Does One Make Friends?

Recently I’ve been reading a book that talks about relationships, and one thing that stood out to me was the observation of how relationships (of any sort) are made. The person who tries to make friends for the sake of having friends will likely have trouble building those relationships. If, on the other hand, one makes friends through mutual interests, then the relationship can develop.

This is why people become friends with those they take classes with, or work with, or are in a club with. They are people uniting for a cause. The relationship between two given people develops not when they are focusing solely on each other, but rather focusing on a mutual passion or interest, something outside themselves.

This is not to say that you can’t focus at all on the other person. It can be good to just take time to talk with someone. But what do you talk about? Often conversations between friends will gravitate toward topics that interest both parties.

I am not saying that the only way to make friends is to join a club. But this was an aspect of friendship that the book I’m reading pointed out in a way I hadn’t thought about before. Perhaps one reason I’ve had trouble making friends is that I try too hard to be likable to everyone. I don’t want to have opinions so strong that I drive those of a different mindset away. But if I don’t identify with anything, then no one will want to identify with me.

However, I have also experienced a different challenge: I may become friendly with people I take a class with, but as soon as the class is over, the relationships are over. We no longer have that common purpose to bring us together, and so we go our separate ways. I suppose the marks of a deep, lasting friendship are not based on what brings people together, but rather what keeps them together.

What is it, then, that keeps people together? In my experience, what draws me to a person may be a common interest (“You like such and such? Me too!”), but what keeps me drawn to the person is a change of focus from the interest to the person behind the interest. It could be that we have a myriad of common traits, or hardly any at all. Sometimes what draws me to a person is not how we’re similar, but how we’re different.

Shared interests then grow into shared experiences, which in turn creates shared feelings, resulting in a shared connection. How deep that connection reaches may be an indicator of how long the relationship lasts. Often the more personal the experience (whether good or bad), the deeper the connection.

These are my thoughts on the development of relationships (of any kind). Perhaps with this sorting out of my thoughts I am better able to understand how to connect with people and ultimately, better understand myself.