was dating or had been dating

[ostap77]

A. '' I was dating this guy Mike Schwarz for three months. It was getting serious. I helped him pick out a sofa. And than I got this text from him, when we're supposed to have a date, saying that he had work drinks and I never heard from Mike Shwarz again."

B."Well....You got shwarzed.!'

A."Yeh. I did. It would have been so much better if he just said,"Kate it's over."

Don't we use the past perfect progressive to talk about something that had been going on before another point in the past "I had been dating dating this guy Mike Schwarz for three mounths......."?

 

[Rover_KE]

Don't we use the past perfect progressive to talk about something that had been going on before another point in the past?

Yes, we do, but people don't always use correct tenses in casual conversation.

I'm sure it's the same in Ukrainian.

There's no u in months.

Rover

 

[5jj]

Yet again you are asking a question that has been answered in several of your threads, Ostap. Yet again, the answer is the same: a past perfect is correct, but many speakers do not feel the need to use it when the order of events is clear.

 

[freezeframe]

I would say this is an example of "narrative tense". Often, when narrating stories, we use past continuous for narrative effect.

This makes the story more exciting as the listener/reader can more readily immerse her/himself within it. It also makes the story more dynamic.

This is a rhetorical device. I would not consider it incorrect in the context of narrating a story.

 

[5jj]

I would not consider this incorrect in the context of narrating a story.

I would not consider it' incorrect'.

 

[freezeframe]

I would not consider it' incorrect'.

I stand corrected.

 

[Barb_D]

I find the "was dating" part fine. The part I'd make past perfect is picking out the sofa. I had helped him... that was clearly in the past before the non-break-up.

 

[5jj]

I find the "was dating" part fine. The part I'd make past perfect is picking out the sofa. I had helped him... that was clearly in the past before the non-break-up.

I agree (with hindsight!), though I still would not strongly object to a past simple there.

 

[Barb_D]

I don't stongly object to anything in the original (grammatically). Seems like very normal conversation.