Don't want to cross post too badly, but what you are talking about is one of the big reasons we have been working on our books on the subject.

I guess Thomas can delete this if he wants, but our answer is a return to Biblical marriage patterns. See: http://christianbetrothal.blogspot.com/p/what-are-you-doing.html

I think that is very true.

But I'm not sure about the causes of your isolation, because I know plenty of Christian homeschoolers committed to purity who were not isolated.

Seems to me that the goal of courtship is to isolate people from any chance of failure – which is why it rarely brings success. No risk means no reward. We are to be “in the world but not of the world”, but most courtships I’ve seen try to avoid being in the world altogether.

Also part of the problem might be that courtship also usually goes hand-in-hand with a totally separate error – the church’s fear of sexuality. We act like God created anatomically incorrect humans and Satan added in all the gender-specific stuff. Women learn that their sexuality is something dirty that they should be ashamed of. Men learn that their sexuality is dangerous and uncontrollable. We’re taught how great it is in marriage, but unfortunately never taught what do with our sexual desires that exist right now in our single lives, except to stuff it away and pretend it’s not their. It’s not a healthy way to deal with anger and it’s about time Christians learned it’s not a health way to deal with sexuality either.

And then the whole terminology creates a rift that doesn’t need to exist. Why not teach our youth to date in a Godly way vs dating in an ungodly way? Why define bad dating as ‘dating’ but good dating as ‘not dating at all’ – I might as well right a book on how Christian parents need to stop engaging in “parenting” and start engaging in “child-rearing”