vague intention towards continued and expected monogamy. In light of this sort of definition do you really "Try to date" anybody?
My intentions towards monogamy are not vague, they are non-existent. I don't mind at all if my lady friends have sex with other people as long as they continue to do so with me too.
Some of them do and have told me so. Some of them have vaguely implied that they don't but this is not something I ask so I am not sure.
But that is an interesting definition you gave here. So you are saying dating someone will always need to be associated to trying to get into monogamy, get married and make tiny humans? In this time of Tinder dating that sounds like a very outdated definition.
So I turned to the Cambridge dictionary which says a date is "a social meeting planned before it happens, especially one between two people who have or might have a romantic relationship". So that leads us to question what is a romantic relationship. The same dictionary says romantic is "relating to love or a close loving relationship".
And so we need to check what is love: "to like another adult very much and be romantically and sexually attracted to them". So we get back to romantic and start going in circles.
Obviously my dates are arranged beforehand, they are mostly between two people (though only because I don't know any girls who would like to have company), and I am always looking for a long term relationship. I also like my girls very much and obviously I am very much sexually attracted to them.
But if love is defined as "I want to be only with you for the rest of our lives, move in together and start putting babies in your belly" then no, I don't love any of them. And I do actively try to avoid those with that kind of expectations and also I am avoiding situations where I might start to have those kinds of feelings.