Western concept of dating basically boils down to “try it before you buy it” in every way imaginable.
From reading the forum, one gets the sense that dating is becoming a normal part of finding your spouse among desi Muslims as well. What does desi dating entail? Do people just hang out, watch a movie and have dinner together? Or are things like holding hands, hugging, kissing and so on also par for the course?
Question is for all desi Muslims who have or might go through this. However, it’s especially relavent to those who have married non-Muslims since for them co-habitation is a normal part of finding a life partner.
I have done the dating deal, and I'm done with it. Here's how a date would go usually. Dinner - which is usually awkward. If I'm crunched on time, or the guy is crunched on time, it's more like coffee. Then try to take 1-2 hrs just to chat, which usually winds up at Starbucks. I try to encourage guys to take me to starbucks, no one is gonna feel bad about things not working out and the loss being a 3 dollar capuccino. But have a guy pay for your lobster dinner and he not score --> then you deal with a grumpy face on the ride back to your hotel.
In situations where I've stayed in hotels in the city when visiting the guy (I always try to plan visits with job travel, so I don't feel like I'm wasting money), in a few situations, the guy actually asked to come up. The answer was a flat no. Like seriously?? You're trying to get to know a muslim girl for marriage, or you're here to just horse around? So that would get people annoyed.
Urgh, dating is frikkin ridiculous. I'm not doing it anymore. At this point, it's arranged marriage, and the guy has to go through my parents, his parents, parents meeting up first, and then I'll bother to talk to the guy. No more of this being miss indepedent, it only attracts guys who are in it for the tafreeh.
Dating is for the sake of dating. If it leads to a LT relationship/marriage. Great. If it does not..you move on to someone else.
There wont be any dating as you know it if everyone went out with the conscious intent to find a husband/wife.
There are nuances that need to be considered. Which 'dating' are you talking about? Two people in a relationship (gf/bf ones) are also said to be 'dating'. But such relationship grow naturally over time. They're not uncommon among desi people and yes physical intimacy to varying degrees is usually a given.
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Then there is the kind of 'desi dating' where a person (read woman) is interviewing guys because she's actively searching for a husband. Its simply an alternative to arranged marriage route for her. I can only imagine *'aar ya paar' * in such scenarios - either it leads to an understanding of marriage or nothing at all. I wont call it dating. But then wth does 'dating' mean anyway? Its a term that tells you nothing about the nature of a relationship.
If they're seeing each other holding hands would be common.. a hug and kiss (even if just a peck) wouldn't be rare here either..
I know of a few who slept together before marriage but wouldn't say most western desi couples do.. I also know of a few who did everything bar the actual act itself..
I know of only two couples who properly lived together as opposed to staying over at each others' houses now and again (and didn't hide it) before marriage.. one was an uncle, my mum's brother (his gf was also desi and living in the UK at the time and this was like 30 odd years ago when even the English didn't really approve of it.. My grandparents stopped speaking to him because of it, even for a while after they got married).. The other was much more recent.. a Pakistani guy born and bred here who lived with his english gf but later married her.. His family cut him off completely after trying to get him to dump her.. Think those two are still together..
Dating can totally screw us up. I wouldn't venture into it. I did go on a "date" one time with a colleague because I didn't want to seem like a prude and I didn't want to seem closed minded. He turned out to be a total slime ball and a human octopus. Pardon my french but for some reason a single woman going on a date for a desi man means she'll do anything with him. I guess for him since I agreed to a date because I wanted to be open minded meant I was "modern" and open to anything he wanted. Scum sucking pig face. Never again.
I might have been raised abroad but i'm extremely conservative and traditional. I'm done being open minded and open to new ideas especially when it comes to something like dating or meeting a potential.
I won't say don't do it but I guess be very cautious or I would say go with friends so it's a group thing the first couple times. try it before you buy is overrated and bs.
Mental slaves of the west. Now talking about muslim dating...soon they will ask about muslim alcohol and then muslim cohabitation will follow...how about muslim bikini pageants...oops I forgot you already have them over in that cold pathetic country (Canada)
Alhumdulillah unlike that cold pathetic country Canada, that has Muslim bikini pageants we in the land of the pure are no mental slaves of the west . We have mujras and tawaifs in shahi mohalla, this is our own proud musalmaan pakistani tradition. Takbeer!!!
Meeting a guy for potential marriage to get to know him is being a slave of the West? Pray tell what was Khadijah (R) when she got to know Muhammad (saw) by working with him and then proposed to him rather than vice versa?
The idea of a woman choosing her husband and in order to do that meeting him and talking to him is not equivalent to horsing around like teenagers at a movie theatre in the dark.
Mental slaves of the west. Now talking about muslim dating...soon they will ask about muslim alcohol and then muslim cohabitation will follow...how about muslim bikini pageants...oops I forgot you already have them over in that cold pathetic country (Canada)
Mental slaves of the west. Now talking about muslim dating...soon they will ask about muslim alcohol and then muslim cohabitation will follow...how about muslim bikini pageants...oops I forgot you already have them over in that cold pathetic country (Canada)
There is a difference between dating and getting to know a person before marriage. There is nothing wrong with communicating with a potential spouse with a view to getting married. What's the alternative? Jump into a marriage first hand, not knowing anything at all about the person and spending your life unhappy OR divorced? Doesn't seem sensible to me.
Meeting a guy for potential marriage to get to know him is being a slave of the West? Pray tell what was Khadijah (R) when she got to know Muhammad (saw) by working with him and then proposed to him rather than vice versa?
The idea of a woman choosing her husband and in order to do that meeting him and talking to him is not equivalent to horsing around like teenagers at a movie theatre in the dark.
Hazrat Khadija ra employed him (SAW). The situation and her actions were not at all reflective of what (i think) is being implied in your post.
Yeah she employed him. She got to know him - his character. And based on that made a proposal. And she was way older than him. Already widowed. Can't recall if she had kids from the prior marriage. And she was well beyond what our desans would consider permissable child bearing age...
So she took charge, and made a decision after actually communicating with him. It wasn't an arranged marriage to someone she barely knew. Islamabadi is advocating communication before marriage, aka dating as some of us are referring to it, is being a slave of the west. If you define dating as getting to know someone, then our own historical figures are guilty of it.
There is a difference between dating and getting to know a person before marriage. There is nothing wrong with communicating with a potential spouse with a view to getting married. What's the alternative? Jump into a marriage first hand, not knowing anything at all about the person and spending your life unhappy OR divorced? Doesn't seem sensible to me.
Let's not allow islamabadi's flaming to derail the thread. If you look at his previous posts, that's how he operates
Several people have stated that getting to know the person is entirely alright. That's what the thread is about. How does one go about doing that?
Is it an interview of sorts as uzair has said. Or does it involve rituals of dating practiced in the west as stated explicitly by deeba and alluded to by zafra?
If it's the latter, the religious argument for getting to know your potential spouse goes out the window. After all how can you use religion to justify behaviour that is explicitly prohibited by religion?