In your 20s: Date anyone you choose, even if you know they aren't right for you? Or date wisely?

I’m not sure how whomever they choose can be not right for them. One doesn’t choose potential dates that are not right for them at this moment.

But 20 year-olds (as opposed to people in their late 20s) don’t generally know who fits “their criteria of the dream spouse. In my opinion, 20 is too young to be only dating for marriage potential.

When one is 20, one gets to date to find out if their ideal spouse is actually an appropriate ideal. We get these ideas of what we want in a partner, and then realize after finding someone with those qualities that it isn’t quite as desirable, or maybe it is really off-putting.

Wisely. A rabbi once said to me interdating leads to intermarrying. What that means is once you start saying it can be hard to break up.

I’m not dwelling on religion, it’s just an example. Once dating it can be difficult to break up even if the person treats you badly, doesn’t live where you want to live, doesn’t want to have kids and you do, etc. etc.

Time can pass while your dating the wrong person. Why date someone who isn’t a real contender? I do know people who date married people or date people they would never marry, and they do almost purposely so there are outside forces keeping them from having to deal with a long term commitment. I don’t think that’s a great scenario.

I do think it’s good to get to know a variety of people. Your ideal SO might not be someone you are able to imagine yet because young people have limited experience. Don’t get licked into a type, but do stay away from red flags and people you would never consider for long term.

Well, it depends on what isn’t right. I dated a guy for several years, after my divorce and before I got remarried 10 years later, who “wasn’t right for me.” I knew it from day one. We saw each other only on the weekends. Sometimes only twice a month.
The only things we had in common was that we were both teachers (he was an elementary PE teacher )and we both enjoyed sports. We played hand ball, volleyball, softball during the day, and we’d go to Jazz clubs at night.

One time we experimented and he stayed all week at Christmas break. By the third day I was ready to kill him and he was ready to go home! There was no marriage in our future.
But two days once in a while was a lot of fun. And I felt safe with him around my kids. He was safe, fun, and sexy. And kinda dumb!

However, I wasn’t looking for a future spouse at the time either. If I was, I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my time.

It depends on your individual goals; there’s no right answer. If you are single-mindedly (pun intended) focused on marriage soon, then don’t date any pirates. If you want to have lots of fun for a while and then get serious with someone, then date whomever you please for now.

Apart from the urgings of 20-year-old male hormones, I would and did in actual practice (if not in theoretical interest) avoid non-serious “dating”, both because I really don’t want added risk of venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and because I didn’t want the social and psychological impacts or entanglements or effects on me or others.

Now on the other hand, I ended up doing poorly enough anyway, though – getting seriously involved at 18 led to spending a large part of my life in a doomed relationship, depression, and other things I regret. However my hindsight advice to myself would not be that I should have avoided all serious relationships and dated around. Rather, I would like to have been told that I should have even higher standards and listen to my gut about what I really wanted and didn’t want in a serious relationship. That is, to choose the one that really seemed best and end the ones that didn’t feel right and had big red flags, regardless of attachments, and to notice that I was avoiding my real choices by being in a relationship where I was choosing to stay with someone as a way of avoiding choosing what I really wanted and confronting the risks and fears around all of that.

At least when I dated in my 20’s I never dated anyone I did not think “was right” for me…but even with this gut feeling they were right for me was still a minor leap of faith that they were indeed my type. This usually worked well and I dated a couple of really nice women but as life would have it, the timing was not right in terms of careers, finances etc. Your 20’s is a very young time of life where you are finding your way as an adult so there are many things that can and do get in the way of dating that person you felt was right for you.

All I can say is that you don’t need to get married to be happy and marriage is not the epitome of happiness.

It’s your life, your preference, you can have or try relationship with anyone you want. The rule is that if they treat you better then they worth the try. You can only gain more useful experience throughout your life if you first allow yourself to be exposed to different experiences. Only after that you’ll know what kind of person you’ll want in your life. Relationship is all about trial and error.

I don’t know what is your definition of ‘right’ person or if such definition contradict with your criteria of dream spouse, what comes to my mind is why you would want to date someone that you think isn’t ‘right’ for you, irrespective of whether or not they fill your dream spouse criteria.

Unless it is for the reason of survival, you need not to think about having a relationship with someone that fit the criteria of perfect spouse. Just be grateful that you can form a relationship with someone that can understand you and willing to make you happy.

Do you mean “right for me” as in “the right person to spend the rest of my life with”? Don’t be ridiculous, sweetheart. You’re in your twenties. Like @zenvelo said, right for you should be whomever is right for you at this very moment in your life. Enjoy. Don’t be so encumbered by the future. You probably have school and a planned career already crowding that part of your brain reserved for your various future scenarios.

Go jump out of an airplane this weekend with some guy you’ve been thinking about dating. Not many guys could refuse a dare like that. As to relationships, that’s about as far ahead as you should be thinking right now—from the first step into the world and out above it all, to the first step back onto earth again. And once you’re back on the ground, decide whether he’s the kind of guy you’d like to go dancing with that night.

This is tough. Not everyone dates in high school so people in their early 20’s may well be having a first relationship and there shouldn’t be any pressure to make perfect decisions when you’re doing something you’ve never done before. But at the same time, others at that age might be looking for a permanent partner, and you don’t want to lead them on. I’m tempted to say that everything will turn out fine as long as you clearly indicate your intentions, but my own personal experience has shown that not to be true.

I was pretty inexperienced when I went to college and I said “yes” to a guy who asked me out even though I hadn’t really looked at him in a romantic way before. We had fun on our first dates so I said “yes” when he asked me to be his girlfriend. I made it very clear (stated it outright, verbally) that I was just looking to have some fun and enjoy life for once, as I had recently gone through some really hard shit.

My feelings for him never really changed, I wasn’t terribly attracted to him physically or personality-wise. I guess my mistake was allowing the relationship to continue for a long time, but I just never felt the need to break up because things weren’t really bad at any point. Eventually I met someone that I actually did feel strongly for and so I broke up with the first guy. I didn’t cheat on him, let me make that clear.

He lost his goddamn mind and told me that he had been planning to propose. I was horrified. I reminded him that I had made it very clear that I wasn’t in it for the long haul with him but he said “I thought I could change your mind.”

So I dunno….feel free to go out and have fun, but be absolutely crystal clear about your intentions and don’t let it last too long if you’re not that into them. It sucks to hurt someone.