InDepth

6 — Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022 — North Pointe

IN-DEPTH D A T I N G THROUGH THE DECADES

By Kaitlyn Barr, Bee Bielak, Grace Rossman & Katie Madigan SECTION EDITORS & INTERN

It wasn’t until the 1920s that the concept of dating was introduced. It evolved from and replaced a courtship, a relationship committed to marriage. The words “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” began to signify a romantic relationship rather than a platonic one. During this era of romantic relationships, it became acceptable for young people to have the freedom to choose who they wanted to be with, without the pressure of devoting themselves for life. The idea of dating has been around for decades, but it’s meaning has changed immensely throughout time. From writing love letters to swiping right on a match, dating has progressed exponentially. According to Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Ellen Miller, dating has been changing at a rapid pace. With social media and technology developing, dating has developed and changed as well.

“[In past generations], relationships had a very strict framework,” Miller said. “Over time, that has changed and that framework has become a little bit more flexible to accommodate changing circumstances, [such as] women being more focused on education, and men may be more focused on staying home.”

In 1965, two young children became friends, not knowing all their future would hold for them. From seeing each other at Sunday morning church when they were six, to celebrating their 42nd wedding anniversary, Student Activities Director Peggy Bonbrisco and her husband John Bonbrisco have spent nearly their whole lives together. Their older sisters were a pair of best friends, and their earliest memory together is from one of the many days when the girls were stuck at home babysitting the two kids. John Bonbrisco recalls this memory. Peggy Bonbrisco remembers the same day.

“[My first memory of John] was jumping in bed,” Peggy Bonbrisco said. “It was with our sisters babysitting and horseplay, fooling around and watching shows on TV.”

The two grew up together, but it wasn’t until 1974, when they were 16, that they went on their first date. As teenagers, the Bonbriscos went on dates almost every weekend, and sometimes went with a group of friends. The now closed Club 500 was a hotspot for teenagers, and one of the Bonbriscos’ favorite date spots. Bowling and movies were some of their other typical date night activities. Peggy Bonbrisco recalls the Gratiot Drive-In movie theater, where they went almost every other weekend.

“You stayed in your vehicle, and you had a speaker connected to a long wire, rolled your window down, tucked the speaker in and that’s how you listen[ed] to the movie,” Peggy Bonbrisco said. “What was cool about that, is you could bring as many people in your car [as you wanted] and just pay for the car, so we always got the car filled up.”

In an age with no smartphones, the Bonbriscos’ access to communication posed some challenges. When Peggy Bonbrisco became a teenager, her mother bought an extension cord for the landline phone stationed on the wall. She was able to drag it just up the top of the staircase, in an attempt to gain as much privacy as she talked to John Bonbrisco on the phone. Despite her best attempts, she acknowledged that everyone heard her conversations.

“If your mom answered the phone, your mom knew who was calling you. Not like [parents now], they have no idea who’s texting you and who’s calling you,” Peggy Bonbrisco said. “The whole family knew because it would be like, ‘Oh, Peggy, it’s John,’ and everybody would giggle and laugh.”

John Bonbrisco also experienced troubles with the landlines they used in the 1970s.

“I would pick up the phone and it was what we called a party line back then,” John Bonbrisco said. “There was somebody else actually using the phone that was down the block, so I couldn’t make my call when I expected to.”

Another issue the Bonbriscos encountered while dating was being strapped for cash on their dates. In their time, kids typically often didn’t get much money from their parents.

“John used to run out of gas, and we would have just enough money to fill the tank and then go do what we’re gonna do,” Peggy Bonbrisco said. “Our children had more access to cash than we did, it was a little more free flowing, but not really in our time. Mom or Dad might have given you a couple of bucks or whatever, but that was it.”

In 1997, science teacher Liz Michaels unknowingly met who would be her future husband, Alex, in their fifth grade classroom. Eventually, he would bring her back there to ask her to be his wife, as they swung on the swings they played on together as kids.

It wasn’t until their junior year of high school that they officially started dating. The previous year, they rekindled their childhood friendship in their Advanced Placement US History class. As high school sweethearts, the couple shares all their memories of their teenage years together.

“The first dance that we went to together was actually homecoming our senior year, and then we obviously went to prom together, too,” Michaels said.

During this time, teenagers’ date nights became less traditional. Instead of going out to the movie theater or sitting down at a restaurant, teenagers in a relationship began to hang out like they would with their friends. This trend has continued to the modern day, and activities the Michaels did are still popular among high schoolers.

“We did a lot of driving around. We used to watch a lot of movies in his parents’ basement,” Michaels said. “For a fancy night, he would always cook for me.”

In the modern era, teens are texting each other all the time no matter where they are. They could be at school, at their house or in a different state, and still be able to get a hold of their partner. However, this was different for Michaels. While texting was an option, she would have to pay by the message in order to text someone. This caused a conflict with how Michaels was able to get a hold of her partner, as texting was out of budget for a typical high school student.

“We had to ration how much [we could] actually text each other so that our parents didn’t get a big bill,” Michaels said.

Dating today In 2018, seniors Noah Dean and Kristin Krier met in the back of their freshman year Earth Science class. The two spent the academic year, and following summer, in the “talking stage.” They harboured feelings for one another, but only hung out in groups until Dean asked Krier out in the summer of 2019. Despite having spent a decent amount of time in the “talking stage”, this couple expresses that it’s not always a good place to be.

“Depending on how open you are with someone in that stage, it really just kind of sets you up for success or failure,” Krier said. “Some people in the talking stage put on a little act. I feel like that’s where you get into trouble with relationships, [when] you don’t really know what the other person’s like.”

Dating in the modern age is far from anything traditional, and much more laidback than it has ever been. Dean and Krier provide the perfect example of this, as they don’t do what is considered more “traditional” dates, like going to dinner.

“We don’t go get food,” Dean said. “We don’t really go to movies. Every once in a while, it’ll be just like hanging out at whatever house. Sometimes we’ll go on a hike.”

Not only do modern couples have different ideas of what a date looks like, they also approach communication differently. With prominent social media apps like Snapchat or Instagram and unlimited call and text, constant contact is possible for those in relationships. However, communication does vary from couple to couple. Dean and Krier shared their preferred methods.

“I feel like both of us don’t really communicate very well online,” Krier said. “So especially during the pandemic, online wasn’t a big thing. When we want to talk to each other, it’s either in person or on FaceTime.”

Because of the time the Bonbriscos grew up in, they have a lot to compare modern technology to. Phone calls when they were younger were inconvenient Communication and dating due to the fact they had to wait to make a call because a neighbor was on call.

“Communication is a lot easier today,” John Bonbrisco said. “If there’s something that I need to let [Peggy] know, I can generally do it right away. Whereas when we were growing up, that could take hours.”

Working in a school, Peggy Bonbrisco has seen the shift in communication firsthand. She notices how students talk

to their romantic interests, and it is drastically different from what she can remember when she was a teenager.

“When [the Student Union] was open I could see kids texting each other from booth to another booth,” Peggy Bonbrisco said. “I couldn’t get over that at the very beginning, because you’re right there, get up and talk to them.”

Although he doesn’t see it like Peggy Bonbrisco does, John Bonbrisco understands how new technology and teenagers’ accessibility to it affects modern dating and the issues that it poses.

“[The pace of the world] is so fast and so quick,” John Bonbrisco said. “The pace of communication has just increased so rapidly from when we dated.”

Peggy Bonbrisco adds on to John Bonbrisco’s ideas on how social media plays a role in dating. “In our day, you’d pass a note, even in high school,” Peggy Bonbrisco said. “‘Oh, so and so said they liked you,’ and that would take about an hour or so to get that going. And then maybe one or two people might hear about it. With technology, things are posted and so many see it immediately, as it’s happening. I think a lot of things probably don’t even get to play out before they even get started.”

Both Krier and Dean agree that social media has a huge impact on many teens’ relationships and is what has caused so many relationships to be based on the importance of constant contact for a successful and healthy relationship.

“I’ve been around people where they’re checking their other person’s Snap score or something like that,” Krier said. “If it goes up before they text them back, they freak out. And that’s not okay.”

Michaels shares the same idea that over the years, social media apps have proposed some problems, including privacy. It was reassuring for Michaels to know that her relationship was not displayed on Instagram or Snapchat.

“I think there was some comfort in knowing the relationship wasn’t necessarily public,” Michaels said. “Sometimes social media makes everything so public and you don’t have a lot of privacy. And then if you decide to keep your privacy, there’s questions about that as well. So, I think that has changed the pressure of relationships.”

Privacy has also been changed through the use of dating apps, which many use in order to find partners. Miller acknowledges that these apps are convenient, but realizes the large change that this has brought to modern dating.

“It’s so easy to pull up a dating app and meet somebody and go on one date and go somewhere,” Miller said. “It’s so easy to look outside the relationship where it’s hard to keep the accountability. It’s hard to stay grounded and what you have because it’s so easy to look outside of it, so I think it has definitely a new factor in relationships and things that may not have been even 20 years ago have been such a thing.” Some things never The Bonbriscos are firm believers of doing everything change for your kids, and have enjoyed seeing their children grow throughout the years. Seeing their children mature, and have their own partners has opened their eyes to the realization that relationships aren’t all that different now.

“That’s the magic, I think, of marriage and family,” Peggy Bonbrisco said. “And, it really touches you when you see your kids start to go through something that we went through a generation ago. It’s really not all that different in how you handle things.”

John and Peggy Bonbrisco both hope that even if they met in a different generation they would still choose each other.

“Knowing Peggy the way she is, I would hope that I would still choose Peggy, because she has a wonderful heart about her,” John Bonbrisco said. “That’s the thing that has always drawn me to her.”

Dean feels the same way about Krier, believing that even if they had met in a different time period, their relationship would not have changed, primarily because of the way they met and began their relationship.

“We didn’t start talking over social media or online or anything like that. We really started talking in person and kind of like that quintessential of ‘oh we have a class together’,” Dean said. I think that’s pretty timeless and how that would have affected our relationship.”

With developing technology and social media, it’s easy for things to change. However, Miller believes that the foundation of a relationship hasn’t changed all that much since the beginning.

“[What has] stayed the same throughout the years, I would say, is the foundation of what creates a healthy relationship,” Miller said. “No matter what your sexual orientation [is], what your backround is, all relationships should focus on effective communication, trust and mutually agreed upon values and rules for what your relationship should look like. That love and support and encouragement should always be there.”