Chapter 8 Blog

David Komorowski
Chapter 8 Blog
Summary: In chapter 8 dating is brought into a brand new light in the sense that we take something that most people have done at some point in their life (whether sub/consciously) and we are studying it objectively when all in all it is a very subjective thing for most people because of how many feelings are involved within the process—it can be stressful to make one angry or easy to make one elated at any point in time. More specifically, the beginning of this chapter starts with talking about the reasons we date, which are manifest and latent; intended/unintended. These reasons can include material things such as money or a good job from a spouse or just for sexual arousal or social benefits of talking to other people.
After this the chapter goes into talking about types of dating which include traditional, “real dates”, getting together, and hooking up. Along with that we look at coming of age traditions and institutional settings that children experience which lead them to date or help them to socialize in the world. For example bar mitzvahs are looked at for the Jewish community as well as quinceaneras for Latino communities. As for the institutional settings that “growing up” takes place we look at proms, dinner dates, etc.
Forms of dating them come into play when the chapter talks about mail-order brides, speed dating, online dating, professional matchmakers, cyber dating, etc. After this is talked about we then turn the theory behind dating which, as said before, it turns more into an objective science. The main theories spoken about are Filter Theory and Social Exchange Theory. These, from my interpretation, seem to speak about filtering a dating partner on various levels as well as weighing the pros and cons of choosing them as a partner over other potential candidates. This is spoken about over various cultures as well as how their dating methods are similar as well as different. As in chapter 7 this chapter seems to end on a negative note in speaking about the bad aspects of dating such as violence, date rape, peer pressure, and breaking up.

What I learned: What I learned was something that has been coming up in many sociology classes; The Filter Theory. I believe some people would look at it and think to themselvse that Filter Theory (or practicing it consciously) can be pretty superficial. I, on the other hand, do not. In looking at filter theory I thought of real life examples and could imagine one for every level. Most interesting to me was the race and ethnicity level which I think happens more than most realize. In the cathedral there is a hallway on the ground floor in which many non-english speakers are learning every day to ease more into our culture. I know this not only because I see cliques of Indian, Pakistani, Korean, etc. but because I had a speaking partner for my cross-cultural linguistics class over the summer. I had a Korean girl as a partner and I will say that there was not only an extremely big language barrier but culture barrier as well seeing as she had not seen anything in America until six months before we met. I believe one can somewhat start to see the picture I’m trying to paint. Language divides people, cultures divide people, and most of us (I believe) don’t speak to non-English speakers very often, and that’s only one level of filter theory. Imagine if we broke down all five.

What could’ve been better: This chapter to me made me feel the same way about the previous chapter which doesn’t surprise me much because both seem to be on a similar page. I believe this to be true because one was about sexual expression and the other about how/why we choose a certain partner to date which I believe somewhat goes hand in hand. With that being said I believe that although this chapter was very informal on the studies being done out in the “real world” about dating that it is not entirely accurate. I say this because it seems to me that a lot generalizations are made in which I believe so many people would have such different opinions on. For example on the subject of hooking up, “Hooking up refers to physical encounters, no strings attached.” Now I look at this as an extremely general statement. I think older people may think it means only kissing, younger people using it could mean making out or having sex, and with that I believe strings can be attached on “hooking up.” For example say people do “hook up” and they decide to do it several times in the sense that the book explains it. These people still are not dating but one gets jealous because the other is seeing other people. The one who is seeing other people says, “We’re just hooking up.” To me it sounds like hooking up has turned into a form of dating. When this comes into play that one person is emotionally upset over “hooking up” then I think that the no strings attached statement is kind of irrelevant at this point.
Now I do not believe the entire book is like this and can somewhat assume why the books makes statements like this. First off, the book couldn’t be thousands of pages long and take the time to explain every intricacy because nobody would dare to read it. Along with that I believe the goal of Sociology as a science comes into play. The goal being to learn about human interaction but to do it in a general sense that can explain most of the phenomenon we’re trying to study. With the phenomenon being dating, I believe there are so many more intricacies of dating than the book explains but then again they are all extremely subjective—reasons for being jealous, anger at a dating partner, cheating, stealing money, or anything that happens between two or more people—which are all affected by time, culture, age, sex, sexual orientation, etc. I think that with that being said we, not only as sociologists but as people growing up in this world, should take everything we hear about studies with a little caution and maybe find things out for ourselves as well. I think it goes to show that everything cannot be learned in books but must be practiced and tested. After all, that is the entire point of science; testing current theories and proving or disproving them.