I Kissed Dating Goodbye, by Joshua Harris

As I just wrote in an email to a friend about this book,

"So, I just finished it, and I think I approve, overall. I also feel very chastened, mostly because in several of my past relationships, I knew pretty early that marriage wasn't going to be an option, and I kept going in them, for various reasons.

My two (small) problems with it are these: I think I've learned a lot from my dating relationships, things about myself and what I want and how a marriage should be that I couldn't have learned in a friendship. Now, of course, there was also heartbreak in those relationships, and lots of pain, but I think, in general, I'd say the pain was worth the learning (and I think at least one of my exes would too, considering he went straight from me to his fiancee, who is basically my opposite). I'd use those experiences to argue that maybe giving up dating altogether is the wrong idea, and maybe people should give up dating for dating's sake.

Second, I'm not exactly sure how to think about an abstract state of "ready for marriage." I think his advice is really solid for high schoolers and early college students who are definitely not in a good position to marry, but what about older singles? I like to think of myself as ready for marriage (at least as much as one can be, in the abstract sense), so how am I supposed to know whether I can get involved with someone or not? And sometimes, even if someone doesn't seem like a person you'd want to marry, you learn things about them through dating that change your mind. I guess Harris would say that you could learn those same things through friendship and then courtship. So maybe this point isn't valid at all.

A lot of my reaction, of course, is informed by my relationship with X--had I been listening to Harris, I never would have gotten involved. And I think Harris would approve of that. But despite all the suffering (still) associated with our relationship, I don't regret getting involved. So I guess there Harris and I just differ on how beneficial a failed dating relationship can be."