Parents of teenagers, do you actually encourage your teens to date? Is this a new trend?

This is something I have seen a few times in recent weeks on this sub. At first I thought it was one odd parent but I have seen it come up in different ways a couple more times since and I am wondering if I am seriously out of the loop. My kids are 7 and younger and it's been a while since I was a teen so that's entirely possible.I have seen a few users say they encourage their teenagers to date. One reason I saw was to allow their children to figure out their sexual orientation. Another reason I saw was to give kids a chance to "practice" dating before college and adulthood. I wasn't allowed to date growing up and never had any issues figuring out my sexuality nor did I have problems dating as an adult so I'm wondering if this is some new trend that I am not familiar with yet.Is this a thing people do? What do you do if your child has no interest in dating? I saw someone recently say they were worried that their teen has no interest in dating. This is all so foreign to me. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2xQsST8