7 Bizarre Victorian Dating Rituals We Need to Bring Back
Dating doesn't have to be this soul-sapping.
As someone born in the wrong century, I get annoyed when a man walks next to me but doesn't walk on the traffic side of the sidewalk. In Victorian times, not protecting your date from muddy carriages would be the epitome of classlessness.
And although the Victorians get pigeonholed as a sterile society eating too many tiny sandwiches and covering their chair "legs" (a myth), many of their dating rituals are weird but clever.
Here are a few I wish we could bring back.
Charm Strings
Charm strings or friendship strings were long strings strung with your favorite buttons. Victorian ladies would collect the buttons as tokens of esteem from their gentlemen callers. This was a sort of ice breaker for all the single ladies. If you liked a guy, you would ask him for a button from his coat or shirt to add to your string.
Supposedly, when the young lass added the 1000th button, she would meet the man of her dreams.
Why we should bring it back
Imagine marking every bad date with a button? Then when you went on the 1000th bad date, you could just hang yourself with your charm string…
