Rebuilding Rob

https://historyfacts.com/arts-culture/article/surprising-dating-etiquette-from-the-1950s/

I stumbled upon this article yesterday, detailing things that were considered proper dating etiquette in the 1950s. And some parts, this article sounds like it’s more geared towards teenagers or maybe even college age people.

In any event, a lot of it is interesting. The part about the guys paying for everything really comes as no surprise, as many people still expect that today. The point about women not ordering for themselves while it sounds archaic today also tracks for this time.

I did find it interesting that they said that a dinner date wasn’t really the norm back then. I talked about how couples, probably younger couple specifically, but more to doing dates and group activities, and less expensive get-togethers.

Oddly enough, I feel like there is a movement today toward simpler, less expensive dates. Maybe not so much with the younger people, but older single people, such as myself seem to be moving toward the idea of simpler first dates. Activities like getting a coffee or a drink, maybe even going for a walk seem to be more popular among older single people. The rational being that first dates are really about getting to know the other person fancy, more expensive dates can be saved for special occasions and people you are seeing more exclusively.

I’m sure there’s a lot of red pill men who are reading this article thinking “yeah, this is exactly what we need to go back to!“. The problem is, we can’t. We can’t, because we’re not living in that world anymore. The world is much more sophisticated and smaller today than it was then. Both men and women have more options available to them. Back then women were looking for a caretaker. Men were looking for a homemaker. Today, man and women seem to be constantly looking for some greener grass on the other side of the fence. These kinds of articles interest us in the same way that studying ancient interests us. Sometimes it’s just hard to wrap your head around the notion that the world really did exist like this.

I think my biggest take away from this article is a fact that the 1950s was 70 years ago now! I still think of the 50s as some cultural turning point in the 20th century. I think this is because of he advent of Rock & Roll. Of course it could also be because the 1985 movie Back to the Future deals with a teenager traveling back in time and meeting his parents… In 1955.

To put this timespan into another perspective: we are as far from 1954 today as we are from 2094. That thought is more than enough to make a few more of the hairs on Gen X’s collective head turn gray.

What are your thoughts? Are there certain elements of dating in the 1950s that should be brought back into mainstream society today?

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The article “Rob Reads: Surprising Dating Etiquette From the 1950s” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob