license to date?

The other day I spent a painful amount of time sitting at a Drive Safe Ontario office converting my BC license. An hour and a half I will never get back but, like most experiences it got me thinking.

The office was chockablock, all ages, everyone there holding their number eyes full of hope as they looked at the screen waiting for their number to appear. Like Bingo.

Then there were the fresh faced, eyes a sparkle teens coming in holding their yellow slips who had just passed their road tests, skipping in, smiles, taking snapchats and selfies in the line up. Freedom was upon them, a photo and a vision test away, and they were about to venture into unchartered territory, this was the beginning of a whole new world.

In order to do most fun things you need a license or similiar, travel (passport), short or no lines crossing the Canada-US border (Nexus), making money (a degree or similiar), marriage and divorce (license), but what about dating? With all the repercussions that can manifest, why haven’t we enforced a license to date? 

Think about it, we are allowed to run wild here, but the impact we have in other people’s lives during the dating phase no matter the length of the encounter can be major, everlasting, even scarring. 

A girlfriend of mine is just getting back in the game, also newish to Toronto, she decided to jump into the deep end and start the process. So far so good? Negative, so far it’s been over pleated khakis and dudes that still live with their parents, and they are in their late thirties. Red flags.

But if we get back to this notion of a license to date, how do we issue these? Do we work on a graduated system? Like you get a ‘L’ when you start out – a learner – and as long as you don’t completely mess it up, you get graduated to a ‘N’ and if you don’t completely ruin anyone’s life at this stage you get your full dating license. Bitches. 

I really think we are onto something here, so stay with me. You can’t get a passport let alone a nexus card if you have dodgy past, you have to wait it out if you get a DIY before you can get a license again, we can’t put countries safety, or drivers safety at risk. Dating is no different, heart break, betrayal, the anxiety of getting to know a complete stranger. And we run around doing it like a bunch of maniacs. If we were made to get licenses would we do it? Would it be an achievement? 

As for me, I did get my license in the end (drivers that is) a vision test, a payment and a photo later. Though I still protest we should still be able too smile in our photos, when I commented to the clerk she said ‘really? Are you going to be smiling when you get pulled over? Fair enough, well I might if the cop in question looked like he belonged in Magic Mike.