El Segundo Paso Del Noviazgo

Let’s Talk Informal Friendship

The second step of courtship is the informal friendship stage.   This stage is a public friendship and doesn’t go beyond talking to each other when you are around other people.  During this stage you want to make sure that you don’t start talking on the phone or texting or any other form of constant communication other than talking to each other in public.  

Having said that, I understand that some long distance relationships are not possible without some type of communication so if you find someone that you want to talk to and they are long distance then you may have minimal communication but you need to let your own parents and pastor know that you are communicating with them and not be communicating every day.  It should be more like every couple days for short periods of time.

If this friend is long distance and once you want to start communicating more often, like daily and for longer periods of time, then it is time to let both parents know and get permission from the other parents so that you can have a formal friendship with the person.

If this friend is not long distance, then you keep talking to each other when you see each other only and your parents and pastor should know about it but you don’t have to ask permission of the other parents until you are ready to go to the next step of a formal friendship.

These are the signs that you need to move to a formal friendship:

1. You want to talk on the phone. (if local)
2. You want to talk more often
3. You want to talk for longer periods of time.
4. You want to go visit or talk in person (usually with a chaperone) 
5. You want to formalize your friendship
   

These are the steps you need to take to move from informal friendship to formal friendship:

1. Ask the person you are talking to if they would be interested in having a formal friendship and if so let them know that you will be doing things right.
2. If you are the boy/man, let the person know that you would be talking to your parents and pastor and then to their parents to get permission.
3. If you are asked and you are the girl and you want to formalize your friendship, then let the boy/ man know that you require that they talk to your parents and your pastor about it.  Of course, if you are older and don’t live with your parents  you probably just need them to talk to your pastor.
4. Talk through the requirements together (I will explain requirements in the next post)
   

In this stage and unless you get permission from parents or pastor:

1. Don’t be talking together alone.
2. Don’t tell each other romantic things until you are boyfriend or girlfriend.
3. Be yourself and don’t try to pretend you are something else just to get them to like you better.
4. Don’t open up your heart completely or believe that this is for sure the right person.
5. Don’t confide in them things that have happened to you in your past that you wouldn’t want the whole world to know.

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