Relationships

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So when wife and I hung out at my place or at her moms place, that was a date? Or when we drove to a dance place to dance, that was a date too? We never went to movies, and if we ate out together it was because we were hungry, not to date.

I'd say a better definition of a date is a meeting where you haven't decided that you are a couple, and where you want to check the other part out. That's a date to me. If you have went past the "checking out phase", then it is no longer a date. I always did the checking out nonverbally, and not on dates. If I went out with somebody then I had always went past the checking out phase, so then it wasn't a date, rather a couple going to some event.



If that's the case, then you have done an awfully bad job with the checking out phase.



That never happened to me.

Come to think of it: I didn't really go on too many "dates" per se. Usually, the two of us would get together, implicitly tell ourselves that we are together, THEN go out places together.

Yes those were dates.

Married couples have date nights even, so dates isn't limit to non couples.

But in the past you said you don't do a checking out phase you just stared at women from a distant for years.

Lots of women suggest hanging out at their place to get to know each other, which would be a date.

You must have a very unusual definition of what a date is.

Wikipedias definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating





Note the use of "assessing" and "evaluate". Once you have decided to be exclusive with somebody, you no longer are dating. Thus, what I described above with wife was not dating, as I had already made that decision.



That's the checking out phase where I check their persistence and observe their behavior towards me and others. If you do this long enough, you can also be close to 100% certain that there is a mutual interest, and thus when you move to the next stage, it won't be one-sided, there will typically be no additional check-out, and it certainly will not be stalking.

Besides, I cannot handle being rejected in dating, so I'd never subject myself to such horrors.

This is confusing.

Why? I cannot date because that's too intensive and will create too strong feelings for the girl, and if she then decides to reject me, I simply cannot move on in a long time. I'm certainly not alone in that respect, rather this seems to be common enough for neurodiverse people. The usual "solution" is to learn to accept rejection (wonder if anybody succeeded with that?) or to try to not get too strong feelings too early (that might work for some). However, it appears I "solved" this issue already as a teenager by using observation instead of dating. Back then I lacked essential information about how to advance it, but I have that information now.

Observation really replaces dating, and so when I advance it now I'm exclusive from the start. That's similar to how dating typically ends by a verbal agreement to be exclusive. Thus, with wife, as soon as I made contact with her the first time after having observed her for 3-4 months, I also made the decision to be exclusive. That's why the following meetings were not dates.