Resisting and reifying meaning in everyday life: Using relational dialectics theory to understand the meaning of heterosexual dating

Heterosexual women have intersecting identities that are privileged (i.e., sexuality) and marginalized (i.e., gender), suggesting a complicated site to examine power in the process of dating where meaning has become taken-for-granted over time. In this study, we utilized relational dialectics theory’s (RDT’s) corresponding method, contrapuntal analysis, to examine a group that holds fluctuating societal power in the context of heterosexuality and dating. Findings from the responses of women (n = 104) revealed two discourses that competed to illuminate the meaning of heterosexual dating from the perspective of women: the dominant Discourse that Dating is Romantic and Necessary (DDRN) and the marginal Discourse that Dating is Restrictive and Unrealistic (DDRU). These discourses interplayed through contractive practices (i.e., disqualification and naturalization), diachronic separation, synchronic interplay (i.e., entertaining, countering, and negating), and dialogic transformation (i.e., discursive hybridization and aesthetic moment), illuminating a discursive struggle that both reified and resisted the DDRN.