on courtship

A friend, who will remain anonymous per her request, asked me, "how do you when it's time to say yes to someone who is courting you?"

I have always wondered about the idea of courtship (ligaw) -- Filipino style. Quite frankly, I never believed in the concept. I mean, girls waitiing for an acceptable time frame before getting involved in a relationship. Also, it's a form of hoax where it's always the best foot forward for both parties, trying to impress one another and pretending to be this really great person. It's not always a pretense really, but somehow a girl/guy, when they get into a relationship with him/her, almost always ends up with the question "how come s/he didn't use to be like this before?" in a not so positive way.

Courting is perceived to be the portion where you get to know each other, check each other out and see if you're compatible. I guess in Europe and America, this would be dating that eventually moves on to going steady or dating exclusively. I am not sure if the [general] Filipino public is advancing to this kind of thing, but the traditional courtship I was made to understand leaves an impression of a game called "let's-pretend-I'm-this-kind-of-guy-and-see-if-my-efforts a.k.a. gifts-would-convince-you-to-get-involved-with-me". It is only then when the girl is "convinced" that she would say the magic word "YES".

With guys, courtship is a way of persuading a girl to get together with him. This equals effort, romantic ideas, time, and money. Once a girl says yes, the guy gives less of those since he perceives he "got" her already. For girls, this is the bar that a guy sets that is the least expected of him when they get together. This in turn implies that a girl would want/expect to receive more than what she got out of the courtship.

I do not believe in this game of courtship. I'm more inclined with the idea of dating. My oldest brother once told me that courtship does not stop the moment a girl says "yes", rather it lasts throughout the relationship. He equated ligaw to bolahan and stated that if a guy really likes you, he's consistent from the time he told you he likes you to the time you got together.

Simply put, if the guy tells you he likes you and you like him, why don't you get into an exclusive relationship with him? Being in a relationship doesn't mean you have to see marriage with the person given a fair amount of time. This thought would send any guy running in the opposite direction. (Believe me, I know!) It's trying to figure out whether you are actually compatible enough to make your relationship work into a lasting commitment. You'll never know the answer if you're just on the courtship stage and not in an exclusive relationship.

I think the whole concept of courtship is made by women. It's to make a guy sweat, work his ego a bit, win her over, and basically not be labeled as an easy-to-get person. Guys, on the other hand, use this to checkout other merchandise women, claiming there's nothing exclusive in courtship. For gamophobic people, it's a perfect excuse not to be exclusive but still do the things when you're involved a.k.a. pseudo-relationships.

In a gist, courtship is being in a relationship with extravagant attention (that is most likely to change over time), minus the commitment.

So this I ask, if you already know you like each other, why bother the wait before making things exclusive? You'd know it in your heart and Time may not have anything to do with it.