I have done such a complete 180 on this, I shock myself. I have never considered myself to be a "recreational dater". Just didn't want to be.
Part of it was, why put time, money, and effort into someone I didn't see having a future with? Which is still true to an extent. But my answer now is, why not, if we're having fun together.
The larger reason that I thought this way until recently is that I didn't want to risk possible pregnancy with a woman I wouldn't want to mother my children. No birth control is 100% effective. .
LOL, this is one of the reasons why I wonder what exactly people are talking about when this subject comes up, and can't help thinking that we all have mismatched pictures of what we're talking about. I for one was not talking about "recreational dating" where there's no possibility for a future, but rather about evaluating reasonable/unreasonable attitudes in someone with whom there might be a future.
I reserve physical intimacy for an exclusive committed relationship. And I don't hurry into either with someone I barely know. My life just isn't so empty that I need to go to that kind of extreme to fill it.
When Miker said he wouldn't date someone who's not exclusive from the very beginning, I thought maybe I was misunderstanding what he meant by that. It turns out I wasn't.
There are a number of reasons someone with Miker's attitude would get discounted right away. But he's already said they don't matter to him, so I won't list them unless someone else really wants to know.
There is one biggie I guess I should point out anyway: Rushing to exclusivity is a major early warning sign of a domestic abuser and/or manipulator. If rushing to exclusivity is something you do, it's reasonable for those you date to wonder what kind of issues you're trying to cover up with all this rushing. And if you have a history of attracting abusive or manipulative partners, guess what, this behavior on your part is helping to make you easy prey.