“If you're a good Amish girl, you're courting, you have three or four d...” — Beverly Lewis Quote

If you're a good Amish girl, you're courting, you have three or four different beaus, and you go out and stay out all night. That's just their tradition. They date under the covering of night. No one knows who they're dating or seeing until two weeks before they're going to be married. It's how they've done it for 300 years.

Growing up around Amish farmland, I enjoyed the opportunity to witness firsthand their love of family, of the domestic arts - sewing, quilting, cooking, baking - as well as seeing them live out their tradition of faith in such a unique way.

I grew up Protestant. My dad was a Charismatic pastor of the Families of God denomination. Often, we noticed that - during a lot of his evangelistic-type services - that some of the Amish and Old Order Mennonite couples would come and stand across the street from the church and look in the door.

One of my earliest memories was of seeing horse-drawn buggies with little Amish children peering out at me from the back, their legs dangling as they jabbered in Pennsylvania Dutch, sometimes pointing and giggling at my family following slowly behind them in our car.

'Dating In The Dark' is a unique show that is going to bring something very new to the table for the audiences. The format will make people look beyond the general dating norms of our society: who knows, maybe even reinvent them.

Dating, like almost every other male-female interaction in present-day society, is based on outmoded and unequal social roles and expectations.

I question myself a lot, but what I've realized is dating women is just so much more comfortable because you're from the same planet.

But I am not a serial dater or anything like that. Maybe when lockdown is over, I can do speed dating for weeks on end!

Dating as a single parent is tricky. My kids are usually seen less as a 'bonus' and more as a 'situation.'