trouble with my calender form

Question

Hi, i am new to c# and i am trying to develop a form to display the calander which works fine. I am trying to make it so that when the user selects any date from my MonthCalander control, it is then displayed in a messasge box. The trouble i'm having is that it no matter which date i select, it displays by default, todays date(the current todays date). Here is my code snippet:
 
public partial class newcontractform : Form
    {
        System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection con;
        private string projectName;
        private DateTime startDate;

        public newcontractform()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            projectName = nametxtbx.Text;
            monthCalendar1.MaxSelectionCount = 1;
            startDate = monthCalendar1.SelectionStart;
 }
        private void submitbtn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("start date is: " + startDate.ToShortDateString());
            this.Close();
            
        }