Between hookups and courtship

So there's a recent piece over at The New York Times describing the end of courtship.  And actually, I say three cheers to that.  Courtship is not my scene.  I do not want you to call my father to ask his permission to take me out, I do not think that a cup of coffee = an implicit marriage proposal, I like issuing invitations and don't feel like you need to pay for me all the time.  And I will leave for another time all the invective I have prepared against a Certain Book which, I'm pretty sure, helped screw up normalized male/female relationships for the entire generation of people who went through youth group when I did.

But the hook-up culture described by the Times is just utterly disheartening and a very depressing alternative.  Loads of people whose fingers never leave their smartphones, who don't know how to have a conversation, who take what a friend once called the "carpet-bombing approach" to online dating: contact a whole bunch of people and hope somebody says yes.

It's not even the hooking-up part that I find distressing -- I just give that the mental flip-off and move right along -- but it's the haphazard, sloppy, informality.  I like hanging out.  I do.  I like hanging out in groups.  I like spontaneity.  But I also like feeling like a person, a living, thinking, feeling creature, not something to mitigate boredom or to fill space.  What about showing some basic courtesy to the people with whom you're spending time?

So really, I'd like to bring back dating.  Not in an artificially stiff way, but how about something like this:  He calls me several days in advance.  He asks if I'd like to go to a concert/have a glass of wine/meet for brunch.  I say yes.  We both wear real clothes, not pajamas masquerading as clothes.  We go.  We have engaging, funny, sparkling conversation, and the concert/wine/brunch is good.  We listen to each other.  He is not rude, and I am not prickly.  I offer to buy, but he does.  I say thank you sincerely, because I actually have had a lovely time.  He gives me a hug/kiss on the cheek and walks me to my car, because the town I live in can be rough at night, and he knows that.  Maybe he asks me out again, or maybe I ask him out.  Or maybe we don't go out again.  But that's ok, because we had a nice time, and it's only a glass of wine.  This does not seem like a lot to ask, but if the Times is right, it's profoundly counter-cultural.  It certainly feels that way.