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Comment by spinningarrow | Hacker News Reader

What sort of structure does dating have in the US? (Genuinely curious, I've never thought about this before)

The idea that a meeting is a date or not has to be clarified. You can’t just have a drink with a colleague, and let the romantic interest to-be-determined. Americans, as I understand it, tend to have “the talk” which is a clear idiom for an actual conversation where they mutually decide to “be exclusive”, i.e. not take dates with other people. Timing, number of dates and all that are also fairly established.

I have regularly seen in several countries in Europe a relationship going from inexistent to committed, public and exclusive in a matter of hours. “Having the talk” is often understood as an intent to break-up (because it sounds like “We need to talk”). Whether a meeting has a romantic interest is never really expressed: it’s generally either obvious or purposely vague than anything. That has lead many American friends in Europe very frustrated with the dating scene, because it comes off as unreadable. Europeans in the US can find the formalism icky, but they generally adapt more easily.

There are also far more differences between European countries (wolf-calls are apparently common in Italy; Scandinavia can come of as the opposite) than with the US — but formalism is certainly the big one.

I'm curious how much of this view comes from watching American movies. At least amongst young Americans, it seems that dating formalities are almost completely non-existent. People are entirely ambiguous and frequently hooking up with multiple people simultaneously.

That was implicit when I described “becoming exclusive”; outside of some universities or a confessed “player” personality, that would not be common in Europe.

I guess I have a different idea of formalism, because American hookup culture seems to be the opposite of formal to me.

American hookup culture != American dating culture

Thanks for this post. As a European I wasn't aware these rules actually existed. I thought they were merely "Hollywood" tropes to have explicit romantic interest in fiction while keeping a G rating.

A lot of it might have started that way —French kissing for instance has a complicated and not well documented history of misunderstood euphemisms– but they have influenced culture and expectations. Most people have lived through less relationships and break-ups in real life than they’ve seen in movies.

European here, this might explain that awkward time when my American girlfriend tried to have the formal talk with me and I thought it wasn't necessary.

This was a very interesting read, thanks for sharing it with us. As an italian, however, I've to say that wolf-calls here are definitely perceived as very rude and as a thing of the past.

What's a wolf-call?

It’s not clearly defined, but it goes from: narrowly, the howling that Tex Avery’s wolf character does when he sees an attractive female to, more generally any equivalent reaction: whistling, clapping, openly appreciative remark.

Practitioners generally describe it as a positive reaction; feminists see it as sexist and objectifying, up classify it as sexual aggression.

> Americans, as I understand it, tend to have “the talk” which is a clear idiom for an actual conversation where they mutually decide to “be exclusive”

American here. Neither I nor, to my knowledge, any of my close friends in relationships have had this "talk" you speak of. In my experience, expectations around monogamy (or not) are not explicit but typically pretty clear from the nature of the relationship.

That's true. In the EU, it's the context of the relationship itself that determines exclusivity, I have never seen people needing to declare it explicitly.

> Whether a meeting has a romantic interest is never really expressed

That's because to most Europeans a meeting is just a meeting, a pleasant way to spend some time in conversation and maybe getting to know a person better. Romantic interest, a friendship, or an acquaintanceship, may develop from that. If it doesn't end up being romantic in nature, that doesn't usually mean the meet-up is considered a failure.

Now, I would contrast that sharply with "player" behavior (as applied to both sexes), which is virtually the same in both the US and the EU.

As someone who is not from EU nor USA, this certainly is a relevation.

As a young American, I don't really agree with this and this is definitely not the norm among my peers. It reminds me of the common misconception that Americans wear their shoes inside. Everywhere I've lived (Midwest) it's generally considered rude to wear your shoes inside, unless it's a dirty environment (e.g. the apartment of some messy college guys) or sometimes a party. I've heard keeping them on is the norm in areas like California / Arizona, though.

I tend to keep my shoes on in someone else's house, unless they are a relative or friend, or unless they say something along the lines of "make yourself at home." Although I don't wear shoes in my own home, I don't think it would be rude if someone else were wearing shoes in my house, maybe just weird. Another determinant is carpet vs hardwood floors: I'm more likely to wear shoes in a house with a lot of hardwood flooring compared to a house with carpeted flooring.

I can see why Americans would be viewed as tending to wear shoes inside, since I've seen a much stricter adherence to not wearing shoes inside in Japan (to the point of having separate footwear for bathrooms).

I'm not sure how much of it is just terminology and how much is an actual difference, but I've found that many (unmarried) couples are still considered "dating" after a few years, whereas here in Europe (e.g. Germany) you would just be considered "a couple" or "together". In my relationship, I only went on a couple of "date" dates in the very beginning. I wouldn't say I'm "dating" my girlfriend although we do occasionally do classical couple activities like going for a nice dinner etc..

In the US it's not unusual to be "dating" multiple people at the same time. This is quite unusual in Britain where dating is much more serial than parallel.

Yeah, why would you do that? What if 2 turn out well!?!

Well if 2 turn out really well, then they'll be cool with sharing :P

I disagree. In the US you may go on dates with multiple people at the same time, but it is very frowned upon to be dating multiple people at the same time.

By the time you are dating, you are no longer going on dates. I think this is part of the confusion.

I'm curious about this as well, I don't understand the "dating isn't that structured" part of his/her post at all.

I think in the UK a lot of relationships have no 'dating' phase at all, people just start spending more time with each other and then one day they're implicitly boyfriend-girlfriend with nothing actually said.

The idea of asking someone to go on something that was expressly a date or to be exclusive would have seemed very stilted and formal to me when I was single.

I'm married and I think I only ever went on two 'dates' with my wife when we started seeing each other. Everything else was far less formal.

This. I went to Uni with a lot of Americans and grew to quite like the whole 'date' idea, it's a lot more common now to ask people out on dates than it used to be.

To me a date seems like a formal interview for the position of romantic partner. Which isn't very sexy or natural. If two people like each other why do you need to set up a formal thing to check that? Just start spending time together like friends.

Dates are a way to spend time with someone that you otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity -- because you don't know each-other, have no friends in common, just met, etc.

People are much more spread out in the US than in Europe, so if you don't intentionally make time to spend with someone you will never see them.

(This doesn't really apply to the cities, but people don't really go on dates in the cities in the US.)

> you don't know each-other, have no friends in common, just met

Why on earth would you be considering a relationship with someone you don't know, have no friends in common, or just met?

You're confusing Dating with Dates (at least in US terminology).

Dating is once someone has become a romantic partner, passing the phase of going on Dates.

If you're going on Dates with someone, you're not Dating. If you're Dating someone, you're not going on Dates. They're mutually exclusive.

Nah I think that's the crux of the issue. You're saying you go on dates, like taking someone out for dinner, in order to work out if you want a relationship with them I'm saying in the EU that it seems weird to us and overly personal to be going out for dinner alone with someone, when you don't have an existing romantic relationship with them. You'd normally get to that stage first, and then start going on dates. So you can see how multiple dating (if that's a real thing in the US or just telly), seems fucked up.

How do I get to that stage if I don't know them yet? And if my existing pool of contacts from the opposite sex is lacking, where do I source these people from?

I've been using Tinder for a few years now and for the most part have had great experiences. My first date is always dinner and drinks, and this is the norm amongst my friends as well (American here)

What would you do in my case?

> How do I get to that stage if I don't know them yet?

I really don't get what you're asking. If you don't know them yet, why are you trying to move towards having a relationship with them at all? Are you just trying to form a relationship with people entirely at random?

That's what's weird about dating culture. There was a woman who wrote an article about US dating culture vs UK dating culture when she moved to the US to go to college, and she said she found it offensive being asked to go on a date by people she didn't know well, as either they were just asking anyone at random and didn't actually care about her, or they were purely asking her out because of her looks, as that's all they had to go on, and that was offensive as well.

In the US it is considered bad form to date someone who is in your close circle -- to the level that it's called "friend-cest" where I am from.

Many Americans believe that by having your romantic relationships come from outside of your circle you're assured that you both remain independent, and it gives your relationship a sort of 'hybrid vigor'. That is, by drawing from a larger social area your relationship gains a greater vitality.

What's more, it is considerably less complicated socially -- e.g. there are no exes to worry about, or if you break up you don't have to worry about friends choosing sides.

It is also considered a very serious faux pas to date someone you work with. That will very often lead to both people being fired if it is discovered by management.

As a result, that means you need to look outside of your social network for romance. Hence, the existence of dates.

That's not generally the US norm. Nothing like that happening around here for instance.

Its not an optimal strategy. Unless the goal is to have arms-length relationships that you expect to fail. Otherwise why all the concern about breakup fallout, ignoring exes efficiently, remaining independent?

If you don't date people you know, or people you work with, then the pool becomes limited to 'complete strangers'. A bad beginning.

Date like you have nothing to lose!

In europe you would just normally talk to each other during group-activities: on a party, maybe during work, wherever.

If you like someone, you would make sure that you meet him or her more often until, at some point, you will start doing things together without any others.

There are no clear rules for this. There are typical dates, like over Tinder, here as well. I guess one of the differences is that we don't define it.

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