THE WAITING GAME

by Jeffrey Hilton

Shortly after returning from my mission I became very familiar with what I call the waiting game. I had been on the equivalent of ten dates with a girl and she was still unsure about whether or not she wanted us to be in a relationship. She went out of state on vacation for a whole month. I missed her dearly and felt I had to await her return to know what would come of the two of us. She was gone all of September and ironically it was when “Wake me up when September ends,” by Green Day had first started to get airtime on the radio. Around that time my Sister-in-law decided to set me up on a blind date. The date was almost made without me and a few days later I cancelled it feeling it would be unfair to the girl I was waiting for.

After every member of my family teamed up to get me to go on this date and it was reported that my sister-in-law’s friend was heart broken, I finally agreed to go. When I went on the date I was baffled by this girl’s lack of interest. As a last resort to gage if she had really been as heart broken as I had been told she had, I asked her on a second date. She then explained to me that because she is waiting for a guy she at that time had a crush on to ask her out, she had a one-date policy with other guys. There both of us sat, willing to go on dates, but not willing to let anything come of it because we had closed ourselves off to just one person.

September finally ended and I met up with the girl I’d been waiting a month for. She told me she had decided it is best for us to just be friends. There I had wasted a month of my life that could have been spent finding someone else. Eventually my September date got her man, but they aren’t together anymore and she will never get the time back she spent waiting for him.

Since then I have met lots of singles that are playing this same waiting game. Like me they inadvertently make going on dates a pointless activity. Others are forced to join the waiting game because romance can only come from a date with someone who is already waiting for you and only you to ask them on a date. The amount of trial and error pursuance is higher than with dating because there may only be one right choice. Most are falling in love outside the date system because it has become so uncommon. Most are waiting for someone who is waiting for someone else. Some are even waiting for someone who doesn’t want to date or have a relationship with anyone during a long phase of their life.

It has been the experience of some guys that if he asks a girl on a date she will consider the two of them in a relationship. He doesn’t want to have to break up with a girl after one date so he doesn’t ask a girl out until he has found one he is sure he wants a relationship with. When he chooses a girl he will wait as long as it takes for a relationship with this girl. If she is unavailable or uninterested he will still wait.

These guys are mistaken. Most guys who ask a girl on a date are in fact a second choice. If a girl expects a relationship it means the guy is lucky enough to be her first choice. Each guy is competing for her interest whether they intend to or not.

When I went on my date with that girl in September she had already chosen some other guy as her preference. If I had been able to really impress her, she might have changed her mind and made me her first choice. She had a one-date policy just incase someone else could measure up to her first choice.

With a lot of men as well as women they will wait as long as it takes for an opportunity to be in a relationship with their first choice. Some people will make a person their first choice assuming no one else is interested. They may lower their standards or even marry the person determining no one else will have them.

Years later I’m not so sure I have truly broken this habit. A former Bishop told me that the people who go on a lot of first dates are usually the ones who get married. They eliminate from a group of possibilities rather than years of waiting for a first date with one person.

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