{inquiry}: dating

Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself about what I really should be worrying about-you see, I should be more worried about Paisley falling down the stairs or eating something off the floor than I should be about her dating, but currently I'm worried about her dating. My problem: I don't know about this whole not steady dating before you're 18-ish or wanting to get married thing. It's not because I don't understand why-I totally get why. I just don't think it's a good idea to teach my daughter that it's perfectly acceptable to just use guys to get free food and not feel like she has any reason to give it a second thought if she just dates everybody all the time. Doesn't that teach a huge lack of commitment and such? I don't want her to not date, or to steady date neccessarily, but I don't really want her running around thinking that she doesn't have to commit to anyone and guys are just a resource for food and fun. I think this stems from girls I knew in college that did this for a living-they never had to buy themselves food if they constantly lined up dates for every night. They would string guys along until they wanted more and then dump them on their face only to move on to their roomates. Now I know that sounds extreme but if we're telling our kids not to steady date and not let it go anywhere then where is is supposed to go? And what is the point of dating if its never supposed to go anywhere???!?! I know its supposed to just be for fun, but can we stop pretending that teenagers don't have feelings? They do. If anything, that have WAY too many feelings. Personally I never did get this figured out through high school or college. I can only recall one dance that I went to that wasn't with a boyfriend. I LOVED every one of those boys-I really did. And I hated the girls that had no problem letting boys spend hoards of their parents money on them only to say-well, thanx-you're a good friend. I doubt they spend that much on their guy friends-why are we encouraging them to spend so much on girls that are only supposed to be friends also?!?! I really, really do understand why they discourage steady dating-its completely pointless before a mission and a terrible waste of time, feelings, heart-ache and money as well! So what am I supposed to do? Tell Paisley dating is a waste of time and such anyway and not to bother with it? Allow her to decide and hope she makes good decisions? Forbid dating until she wants to get married (I've seen the effects of this too and it produces stupid, stupid girls) I'm lost-and I know it is a ways away but I still worry! What do you think?