Abstract
A qualitative study of courtship, dating and drinking was under-taken with young adults in Toronto, Canada, in the summer of 1994. Those interviewed were between the ages of 18 and 34, heterosexual, had no children, occasionally drank alcohol, and had dated someone new at least once in the past year. This paper reports on one aspect of the analysis of the data from the 40 people (19 men and 21 women) interviewed.
This study suggests that aggression is one response to conflicting views of a dating situation. The men and women interviewed had expectations for appropriate behavior when meeting potential mates and on initial dates, and in most cases those expectations were the same. However, where expectations differed, the men attempted to impose their framing of the situation, and the women generally resisted, attempting to limit the risk associated with this framing of the situation. The men and women interviewed used tactics such as persuasion, manipulation or even aggression to attempt to resolve this conflict, and to impose their own situational definitions.
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