Cooked Goose

I got a problem with dating. Not all sorts. I’m not one of those who use words like “courting”. I don’t think you have to be thinking marriage before asking a girl out for dinner and a movie. So don’t clump me in with that group. But when I see a pimply faced thirteen year old who couldn’t find his own butthole with a map, draped on a twelve year old, drowning her in his slobber as he tries to eat her face, I think, “There’s something terribly wrong going on over there.”

First of all, what exactly is dating? No one knows. Everybody is doing it, but nobody knows what it is. And let’s get this straight: Everyone calls it dating, but it’s not just going on dates. It’s having someone be your girlfriend/boyfriend. Yours … my – it’s about possession. A pseudo commitment. And who decides what all this looks like? The majority. Everyone from that thirteen year old kid to Kanye and Kim – they set the status quo.

The whole thing is bought and sold, totally unexamined. It bothers me. But what bothers me more is the pressure it puts on kids. Like I said, dating is really an illusion of commitment where a real commitment does not exist. It’s making yours that which is not yours. Insecurity is built in. The last thing a teenager needs is help feeling insecure. Grasping for security, they’re left reaching and overreaching for a distinguishing mark. “I guess we better get physical.” Hold hands. Hang on each other. Make out … and then there’s unleashed one of the more irreversible forces in the universe – a teenage boy with a hard on. Your average fifteen year old is not prepared to deal with all the stuff swirling around once the spit gets swapped and the “I’ll love you forever” gets dropped.

I don’t know. Can’t we get some sort of legal age limit going? A thirteen year old can’t just walk up and drive a car. Why should he be able to walk up to a girl and say, “You’re mine”? Can we get a petition or something started? Get it on some sort of ballot? What age? I don’t know … how about … how about like twenty-four?

What?