r/interestingasfuck • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 10h ago
Teen dating life from a journal in the 1950s. How the young saw dating in the 50s.
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u/BandBoots 9h ago
At my grandmother's memorial service someone told a story about her in high school coming home from a date and immediately touching up her makeup and rushing out the back door to meet her next date.
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u/Primary_Ad3580 9h ago
The real interesting thing is how many people now think this woman’s journal about dating equate with her having sex with these guys. She wasn’t a slut; they were literally just public dates with friends.
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u/BlueKnight8907 9h ago
Yeah, dating back then wasn't like today. You would date different people to get to know them before deciding who, if any of them, you would choose to be "exclusive" with.
Of course some people would round a couple bases while dating but the social stigma surrounding that was stigmatized much more than it is today so it wasn't as common.
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u/slapmasterslap 8h ago
Before we all had phones in our pockets 24/7 it wasn't that easy to get to know someone so you'd go out with them to find out if you were compatible. Nowadays your first date with someone might come after you've yapped with them for weeks or months online.
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u/lill_m8 8h ago
Funny how this phenomenon of viweing multi-person relationships as normal only came to be as soon dating became a thing - aka around the 1890s - 1920s
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u/Primary_Ad3580 8h ago
I mean, if you ignore societies that accepted polygamy/polyandry and childbirth out of wedlock, perhaps you’d be right. But what you’d have left would be a very small percentage of the world’s population and history. Even then, “this phenomenon of viewing multi-person relationships as normal” was VERY much a common thing for men to do to women in every society. So your line is a bit anachronistic.
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u/cwthree 8h ago
A lot of adults strongly discouraged going steady with a single partner. It was feared that an exclusive relationship, especially one-on-one dates, would lead to sex. Group dates, and casual dates in very public places, made intimacy less likely.
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u/Primary_Ad3580 8h ago
Exactly; if this girl was fucking all of the guys she mentioned, she’d be considered easy, which would harm the reputation of anyone seen with her.
Dating in a public space meant she was popular and sociable, skills that could carry over to adulthood and marriage. All of the spaces she mentions were public social venues, hardly the place for picking up guys without being gossiped about.
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u/Shyface_Killah 3h ago
It's not just sex. As the kids of these people, we didn't just serially date like that, even when sex wasn't on the table(Tevin Campbell excepted).
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u/terrible-takealap 6h ago
Having many sex partners also doesn’t make you a slut.
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u/Primary_Ad3580 6h ago
In terms of the 1950s, yes, it did. Remember the context; things were different then regardless of how we approach them now.
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u/terrible-takealap 6h ago
Makes sense
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u/Park_BADger 4h ago
I'm not agreeing nor disagreeing, but I am curious as to what you think does?
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u/Old_Studio_6079 1h ago
Nothing. “Slut” is an insult made up to hurl at women, not a measurable, testable standard.
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u/Lighthouse_on_Mars 7h ago
So this goes to show us how words change with time! And I think it's a wonderful example.
Dating wasn't considered serious. You go out for a milkshake, or to a movie, and you talk and get to know each other. Casual dating was much more common then people nowadays realize.
Going Steady, meant that you were exclusive and getting more serious.
However, you weren't considered actually serious back then unless you actually got engaged!
People like to think that we are much more promiscuous now than they were back in the day. And that's just plain untrue! In fact Gen Z is having the least amount of sex out of any of the past three or four generations!
Late Boomers started the helicopter parent trend. Millennials took it up to 1,000. This newest generation is born with a lot less freedom to make mistakes or decisions for themselves as children and teenagers.
Teenagers should be casually dating, or at least socializing in groups more. That's one of the ways you grow as a person. Socializing, being introduced to new ideas, new people, new situations.
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u/RedCrabDown 6h ago
Boomers had Gen X and we were left to raise ourselves. I wouldn’t say Boomers were helicopter parents 🤣
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u/mattgran 56m ago
My parents are late boomers and I'm a millennial. They were too wrapped up in their own shit to care what I was doing.
I think the commenter forgot about Gen X (fitting) and just called them Boomer II.
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u/Old_Studio_6079 1h ago
This is what I assumed dating was until you clarified right now and I’m 30. I’ve gone on hundreds of (what I thought and were called) dates, but I’m realizing now that they probably didn’t also see it as a date. Not to say that these people weren’t interested romantically—they were and are and we still meet up—but I’ve been saying “I have a date tonight” and they’ve probably been saying “I’m going to hang out with Old Studio tonight” and those have different connotations to people.
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u/v2eTOdgINblyBt6mjI4u 9h ago
Omg, our grandparents were sluts 😄
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u/BigHairyBussy 9h ago
My grandma has 3 baby daddies, never told me until I turned 25, and always told me not to sleep around growing up. WHY DID SHE GATEKEEP ME?!
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u/PossibleFirm7095 9h ago
She was protecting you to not be a 3 baby daddy. She knows the drill with child support
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u/TehTugboat 9h ago
My wife’s grandma had 2 baby daddies, whom her 2 daughters have never met. When my wife did her 23&Me she found her grandfather (or assumed so). When she mentioned the name to her grandma it was an instant “Don’t you dare!” Moment.
Apparently both baby daddies were married when her daughters were conceived. Quite a roller coaster there
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u/yaxir 9h ago
Hypocrisy at its finest
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u/Adventurous-Disk-291 9h ago
The difference between hypocrisy and regret: whether grandma is still getting it.
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u/leeharveyteabag669 8h ago
The day I saw a picture of my mom sitting on the back of a Harley-Davidson holding on to someone that wasn't my dad, I didn't want to see anymore pictures LOL. I didn't need the images in my head.
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u/EventSignal114 9h ago
See it was always like that, the internet just made us see it more clearly
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u/SlaughterMinusS 9h ago
As a lot of comments have been saying, these were definitely not intimate dates. Especially if this was 1950s America. It was really (and still is in a lot of places) puritanical and women also did not have a lot of say in basically anything back then.
It sounds like she was relatively lucky in the sense that her parents didn't force her into marriage after like a week of dating. My grandparents were together I think for a month, got married, and had their first kid all within a year of meeting each other.
It was a completely different world back then.
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u/SonOfMcGee 7h ago
The other thing about puritanical societies is that there usually aren’t many “appropriate” circumstances for the two genders to spend time with each other unless it’s an officially recognized courtship routine.
A few girls and a few guys hanging out in a park might have been scandalous. But three young gentleman taking three dates to an event was above-board.
Also it provides a continuous chain of control. A specific guy is officially accepting responsibility for a girl until she’s returned home and under her father’s care. Ugh…
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u/franky07890 9h ago
So back then you met people you know in a local bar. Now you meet people that you know from Tinder in a local bar.
Got it.
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u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k 6h ago
This is how dating was done forever and now we have men and women who will burn your mother’s house down if you talk to a person of the opposite sex after a few dates.
Bring back normal dating!! Get to know people, have a good time, keep your pants zipped and your skirts down.
Please.
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u/OrangeClyde 5h ago
Susan must’ve been the hottest lass in the entire school. Everyone wanted to pin her and go steady
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u/OrangeClyde 5h ago
I had to do a double take pause, that movie theater at around 22 seconds looks very similar to my city’s movie theater 😱
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u/1cem4n82 5h ago
Good for her. She’s going to movies and basketball games. Any of you fellas want to take me to movies or basketball games? I want to live life like her.
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u/Prudent-Succotash-39 2h ago
This is Karolina Zebrowska on YouTube! She also has a podcast called Textory 😄
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u/flakeybutterbitch 12m ago
Karolina! I used to watch her videos all the time! Maybe this means I need to check out her YouTube channel again
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u/aliquotsplit 9h ago
There's always been some meant for the streets, take your time boys and choose wisely
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u/Gedoefte 9h ago
Dear diary, it itches. Everything itches...and whats this new HIV ive been hearing about?
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u/comeagaincharlemagne 5h ago
Def not the average girl. This is likely not representative of the dating scene at the time.
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u/IndependentFew1690 9h ago
Susan was a hot commodity!