How To Avoid Dating Isolation

Those squirmy couples—you know who they are. They show so much PDA, they make you feel like you walked into the wrong hotel room.  I'm not talking about normal, discreet, modest signs of affection. I'm talking about excessive hugging, kissing, lap sitting, even footsies under the table which they think nobody else can see. These people act like nobody else is in the room or like they wish nobody was. This ends up coming true because once they get started everybody else wants to get out.

Thirty years ago, when I was dating my husband, I must now confess...

That was NOT us. My sister told me that, unlike other particularly ardent couples we knew, Greg and I were safe to be around. Strangely, we owed our social safety to an Italian friend, a member of possibly the most publicly affectionate race ever bred.

Our Italian relationship guide

This particular Italian was Greg's favorite teacher. Early on in our relationship, since we were away at school and not around family, Greg went to him for advice. Who better than an Italian, right? What he said was not what either of us expected.

"You are in love. Love wishes to bear fruit. Let it bear fruit among your friends. Spend a lot of time together with your friends. You must share your love with others." And he didn't mean making out in front of them. He meant talking with them, joking with them, enjoying their friendship as a couple.

At the time, I took it to mean that he was cautioning us against temptations to unchastity, which is a definite thing when you are in your twenties. So we followed his advice. We found that yes, if you are having fun with your friends time passes quickly and you don't focus on the waiting. Being purposefully around friends kept us from being one of those Your Love Is my Drug couples, as my sister noticed. But more than that, and maybe this was our teacher's real point, it helped us form our affections in a context that was bigger than just the two of us.

It isn't just us two, and it never will be

Because, as much as it is normal for couples to be into each other—just the two of us—it isn't just the two of you. It never was. You still have parents, siblings, friends, and will hopefully someday have kids. Those relationships will be the larger context for your marital relationship. In a healthy marriage, those relationships don't compete with yours, they enhance it.

Those couples who seem oblivious to the boundaries of social etiquette with too much PDA, maybe have more than just being in love going on. At best, they are immature and clueless. This should correct itself in time. At worst, they could have a deep, unhealthy insecurity and they use public displays of affection to constantly prove to themselves that they are worth loving. Soon possessiveness and jealousy follow. Then, they start preventing each other from seeing friends and family. Before you know it, you've got a case of abuse.

Dating and developing your relationship around your friends gives you advantages. Dr. Ray Guarendi says a key indicator of whether you are dating someone who is good for you is what your friends think about the person. "That’s huge. Friends and parents can see stuff while you’re blinded by emotion." Parents and friends can also help you get out when you are ready.

What do the others think?

It's also just more fun to date around your friends. This may not be obvious at first. It would seem more fun to see just the person and only the person. As I said, those relationships enhance yours. We had some great times with our friends those thirty years ago. We are still friends with some of them to this day. And even the ones we hardly ever see, we are always glad to share news of. We're still in touch with our Italian friend too and will always be grateful for his influence during our courtship. Greg and I share these friends and these memories. A joy shared is doubled.

Funny, we once thought our Italian friend's advice was about keeping us apart. It really helped make us closer and still does.