Courting is different from dating.

Courting has a goal, finding the right person for stability and family formation and fidelity and children. It is goal-directed. Both people are supposed to be doing it with the same goal. If they don't suit each other, they haven't invested too much, and move on without being upset. Maybe disappointed but not too much.

Dating is hanging out, to have company, because life is pleasanter with companions. It is for fun. It has no goal. It is a friend with benefits.

Some very unpleasant things can happen when the two people are not doing the same thing. Lots and lots of formalities have been invented to prevent heartbreak and bitterness.

Another ground fact is there is a brief window in early youth, quite early, when solidity can be created. It gets much harder after only a few years.

Dating is a skill. It is not good for people to get good at it. Don't "date." Look around and then court.

But you can only marry people who, pretty much right now, or this year anyway, want to marry. You cannot convince someone to marry because you are so great. They had to be pre-disposed to marry in the first place.

Well everybody has a right to hold out for his price!

These confusions are stupid. The dating apps should have a box to check: "Wants children now or PRETTY SOON."

Or, "Children? Are you kidding me? Maybe someday. NO, not now and not soon."''

The daters and the courters are both nice people but they should be able to tell each other apart better. They aren't thinking the same and that makes problems.