Dating Security

Girls, especially, comment upon the social security they find in going steady. When a girl is not going steady she may not be able to get a date for the social affairs she wants to attend. She worries for weeks before the big events for fear that she will not be asked. Even a Saturday night date is dubious if she’s not dating steadily. Going steady remedies all that—she’s more likely to get to the big social affairs, and Saturday night dates are more assured.

A recent study shows clearly that girls who go steady have more dates than those who don’t go steady. One simple reason is that the mutual expectation of going out together makes it easy for a boy to ask his steady girl friend for a date. It also makes it easy for her to accept, as a matter of course. Boys too report that having a date when they want one without having to scour available possibilities and face the chance of a “No” gives them a nice feeling of security.

Social Pressure

In some communities and on some campuses the practice of going steady is so well established that it’s generally expected of everyone. Social pressure for going steady in such situations means that if you go at all, you go steady.

Here is a fairly typical picture. Joe takes Mary to a social affair on Friday evening; they are seen together on Saturday afternoon. By Monday they are considered to be going steady. Whether Mary and Joe have discussed it or not, the other boys assume that Mary is Joe’s girl and so they don’t ask her for dates. Simultaneously the other girls come to the same conclusion and assume that “Joe will do right by her.” Before the two persons have had a chance to decide whether they want to go steady or not, they feel the social pressure so strongly that it’s hard to resist. As a coed phrases it, “Have one or two dates with the same guy and you’re stuck.” Some fellows say that the fear of being “tagged” as belonging to a girl keeps them from dating at all, in many cases.

In the community or on the campus where social pressure toward going steady prevails, young people of both sexes need to learn (1) how to keep from going steady if they don’t want to, and (2) how to stop going steady when they no longer find it promising. Both of these problems are considered later in the chapter. Now let us continue with further reasons young people have for going steady.

Preferring Each Other

There is such a thing as “prestige” dating. It occurs frequently in colleges or schools where a person is actually

rated by the kind of date he has. When a high-ranking coed must date a BMOC (Big Man on Campus) in order to maintain her standing and please her sorority sisters, going steady is her way of maintaining her standing. Similarly, the BMOC whose name is linked with that of a high-ranking coed goes steady with her as a way of maintaining his social position on campus. This process starts in high school where the most popular girl goes steady with the president of the senior class or the captain of the football team, not just because they like each other, but because they prefer to be seen together rather than in the company of a lesser catch.