I “get” that fiction doesn’t always follow the rules of the real world. I know that sparkly vampires don’t exist, international crime rings busted by super-spies are not commonplace, and Greek Gods aren’t busy mating with your mamas.
So I’m on board with the whole suspension of disbelief thing. (And while we’re at it, I’m sure there are nowhere near as many secret societies operating in real life as novels and movies would have us believe, but I created one for my book!)
But I have to wonder — is there as much fake dating in real life as there is in books and movies? Because the more you read and watch, the more you think EVERYONE is pretend dating. Boys and girls who are good friends decide to pretend they’re dating to make other boys and girls jealous. Men and women pretend their married so innkeepers let them stay together when they are on cross-country road trips. (Because innkeepers generally ONLY rent rooms to the married. Right.) You get my drift. And naturally these are all just vehicles for the main characters to fall for each other without quite realizing it.
Still, have you ever pretended to date someone in real life? And if so, what was the reason? Enquiring minds want to know! Take the survey and then leave a comment!
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5 Comments
I’ve never done it before. Surely it doesn’t happen THAT often in the real world. And I’d be extremely surprised if there were still inn keepers around who would only rent a room to a married couple.
As soon as two friends pretend to date to get someone jealous, it is SO obvious that they’re going to end up together.
Never fake-dated. Never dated at all. Ever.
That said, uh, I’d have to say that in my opinion, there IS lots of fake-dating in the real world. Which is sort of sad. I think it’s actually a very old practice.
When I went to Ireland in 1999, we stayed in hostels. There were three of us girls so we stayed in a regular group room. But there were ‘better’ rooms in some hostels reserved for newly weds or couples (sadly, Ireland on the whole is not so into gays so it was explicitly husband/wife). We ran into some of the travelers more than once as we backpacked around and we knew they weren’t actually married. But it was a game, among larger groups, to take turns pretending so they could get the ‘good rooms’. Back then, no one demanded proof.
Aaaand, I had a good friend (hardly an acquaintance now) back in high school, and she DID fake-date MORE THAN ONCE to seed jealousy. I’m not sure what was worse, the fact that she did it at all, the fact that the boys she wanted jealous, got jealous even though they KNEW that she’d done the SAME THING to other guys, or the fact that she only got away with it because I was her best friend and the people she pissed off were afraid of me and would never take a stand against her because they thought I’d wail them for it.
For the record, I detested the behavior, and I wouldn’t have interrupted anyone who’d tried to ream her.
Do Fleshlights count?
You know ‘fake it to you make it’, it’s the same thing with dating.
I have never fake dated, but I have faked not dating or kept a secret relationship- because of work. 8 years later she is my wife and we are of course out of the closet.
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