01. Atheist Republic Nesletter: Dating As An Atheist (014)

When I was a little girl, thinking about dating was akin to thinking about a garufalump. What's a garufalump? Exactly! Not only did I not know many people who were dating, I also didn't receive much practical guidance about forming those kinds of relationships. The concept itself was completely elusive to my tween imagination. I don't think it really got much better even later into my teens. I've now been happily married for over 15 years to my first "true love" and have two daughters, the older of whom will be dating in the next few years (gulp), and dating still looms as mysterious and large as that garufalump. After spending a great deal of time with many young adults, and single older adults, my sense is that my feelings about dating aren't rare, even for people who have dated for decades, and even (maybe especially) today, in the age of Cosmopolitan Magazine, the Bachelor, and Hookup dot com (or whatever those sites are). Relationships are messy. It...