King’s Hosts Panel Discussion on Dating
Photo credit to The King’s College.
King’s hosted an event to discuss the difficulty within dating culture on Thursday, Nov. 4. David Leedy, Vice President of Student Development and Dean of Students, moderated the event while guest speakers Director of Career Development Matt Perman, Christian Formation Coordinator Kylie Willis, Chief of Staff Megan Dishman and Director of Christian Formation Rafael Castillo, were asked to share their experience and input.
The event geared towards audience questions ranging from starting to date, boundaries in relationships and the reality of today’s dating culture.
“Relax, you don’t have to put so much pressure on dating, it’s simply getting to know someone and who they are as a person,” Willis said. “I'm having fun, though; you need to have healthy boundaries.”
The panel discussed their views of dating and advice on how one should go about it.
“Go on a lot of dates with a lot of different people if you’re single,” Perman said. “It’s far better to date a lot of different people to learn about yourself, and if you get locked into a relationship too soon, you short circuit that. That’s not to say that if you’re in a relationship and you didn’t do a lot of dating, you should leave it, but what you can do is do what is called “take a break” and date other people, for a time.”
Students found this advice to be helpful for the beginning stages of dating and Drew Nagy, Chamberlain for the House of Churchill, gave his takeaway from the event.
“I went in with the expectation that this event would speak to long-term relationships, and though there were some comments about that, I felt like the event was geared towards more of the beginning stages of dating,” Nagy said. “Events like this are helpful because scripture does not directly talk about dating culture, but I would’ve liked more comments tying it all back to scripture.”
The panelists were careful to make clear that everyone has their own views and opinions of dating. When entering the dating conversation, one must be attentive to clearly stating their intentions.
“We all were raised in different backgrounds, our parents have different stories, so it’s really important to talk about what those expectations are,” Dishman said.
By having certain expectations, it’s important to communicate them to the other person and respect what they have to say.
“God knows what you need, so let go of that list of what you want in a partner because the ideal person is not out there,” Willis said.
Perman spoke to the fact that within dating culture, it’s easy to listen to the opinions of others and lose your own perspective on relationships.
“Be confident in yourself, and that can carry over into not being wrongly impacted by the opinions of others in dating,” Perman said.
During the Q&A part of the event, Aizess Jones, Assistant Director of Financial Aid, asked the panelists how to cultivate a healthy view of guy-girl friendships while not placing pressure on a potential relationship?
Though this question was not fully addressed during the panel discussion, Jones had her own perspective and overall takeaway of the event.
“Since we don’t have a healthy view of guy-girl friendships, it’s important to cultivate and preserve boundaries within those relationships,” Jones said. “I'm glad we can tackle sticky topics like this in a very open way; though everyone can agree to disagree, it allows food-for-thought for students.”
Students hope that this will lead to further discussion on dating and that this event was just the beginning. Though students agree that some aspects of the event were lacking, it will allow the community to begin a conversation about dating culture as a whole and within King’s.
“I thought the event was good overall, though this advice is not realistic all the time and can be situational, it’s wise,” Richie Cummings, Helmsman for the House of Reagan, said. “This gives us a clear picture of what we do and don’t want within a relationship by gaining a lot of experience.”