When the topic of dating comes up people have very different ideas of what dating should look like.
Do you just hang out and see what happens? Do you base everything on physical attraction and work hard to make everything else fall into place? Or do you start talking about marriage and get accused of moving too quickly and scare off your potential admirer?
It can be complicated. If we examine the way some of us look at relationships a lot of people could probably say that most of what they learned was from television and movies. Everything is based on intense superficial and sudden feelings and moves miraculously into a committed relationship where everything just works out. Deep relational conflicts are either resolved in the last 5 minutes of a show or they are the reason for continuing episodes, messy misunderstandings, and heartbreaking splits.
Either way, it’s mostly unrealistic. On the other side of the coin, maybe you learned about relationships through your parents, reading, observing those around you, or receiving sage old tested and true info from the older generation. Take a moment to think about where you learned the majority of your information about dating.
In this next series, I want to look at some of the ways a person can date with intention. I don’t propose to know everything and I won’t be covering it all, but I want to focus briefly on specific topics that I think get left out or glossed over during the dating process. It’s important to use the dating process to not just have fun and chill but to really figure out some decisions that can affect your whole life.
It’s easy to avoid topics in order to keep the relationship conflict-free or rely too heavily on fun and not take time to really know if the person you are with is someone you can trust enough to lean out on the ice and put your full weight down onto. Will they be someone that is sturdy who can handle the pressure or will you fall through with no support? As we move through thinking about all of the topics I will be focusing a lot on “the person you are dating” but I want you to think about yourself and where you stand on these topics. It’s detrimental to realistically think through what it is you want and what it is that you’d like to offer another person.
Let me know in the comments, what are some topics that you think get ignored during dating? Have you ever dated with intention or do you just try to figure it out as you go along? What have you noticed around you?
Dating with intention is something should be taught at early age, I understand that Christians do that with their teens, it was not my experience therefore I was not educated to teach my children on this importan topic either. This is a very helpful information.
Thanks Nana
I think some families might do this with their teens and it is important. It can be hard to focus on these important things when you are a teen.