The Pros and Cons of Parallel Dating

I was having a conversation about parallel dating with someone, and she presented a new perspective on "parallel dating" and it got me thinking about my own feelings on the topic and what other perspectives there may be out there. So, here are my rambling thoughts and an invitation to comment with your own thoughts.

Firstly, a definition: prior to making a commitment to date exclusively, dating more than one person and being intimate with zero, one or more people during this period.

I know there are people who like dating, meeting lots of new people and are not really ready for a serious or an exclusive relationship. That's old news. The new perspective I heard was, even if she's dating someone and perhaps is exclusively intimate with, while she's still in the "getting to know" stage she doesn't want to shut herself off from meeting and getting to know other men. She's felt that, in the past when she's done that, she's ended up wasting several months on an exclusive relationship to find out that he wasn't a good match or he wasn't really looking for something serious. In the meantime, she's missed out on some potential opportunities.

My approach to dating is to focus on just one woman at a time and try and figure out as quickly as possible whether we're a match or not. These are some of the disadvantages I see with parallel dating:

• I want to focus and figure out whether someone is a good match by looking at her independently, rather than comparing her to someone else
• if I divide my dating time between multiple women, it's going to take me more time to realise that someone is or isn't a good match
• if I feel chemistry with someone and I'm dating just her, I can let the intimacy develop naturally. I can't do that if I'm dating multiple women, since I don't want to be intimate with more than one
• I don't want to cause any fear or anxiety in someone I'm dating because I might get pulled away by someone new and shiny
• I want to avoid the pattern of thinking "maybe the grass is greener".

Having been sequestered in long-term relationships most of my adult life, I don't have years of dating experience under my belt, so perhaps my approach is naive? What are your thoughts?