It appears to be the question of using a language’s formal or informal way of addressing the second person.
Formal forms are generally used for those senior in age, rank, social standing etc - whereas the informal is used for colleagues, friends, family etc.
The question revolves around whether to use the formal conjugations based on the elder nature of the date, or the informal verb endings based on the more intimate nature of being a date.
In short, not a joke, but a headspinning social minefield for non-native speakers.
At least I think that’s the jist of it, always happy for a correction.
It gets even weirder. Depending on where you are the forms can flip. Like you might use usted for your family instead of tu. Also there is vos which is used in some countries like here in colombia.
Awesome, thank you. I know very little about Spanish (some may argue I know very little French too!) but I believe the general formal/informal rules are the same across most Latin languages.
Some of the quirks are cool though, like using the informal when praying to a God because apparently God knows everyone very well 🤔