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When wedding vows are exchanged, a man and a woman make a promise to each other. They promise to love and stay with each other “till death do us part,” for as long as they both are alive—this is the permanence of marriage. This is indeed a “big promise.” But any relationship is full of many “little promises” as well: “I promise to be there tomorrow to help you” and “You can count on me to do that.” A measure of someone’s ability to keep promises on an ongoing basis goes to the heart of what is meant by the words “dependable,” “reliable,” “trustworthy,” and “responsible.” It is not surprising that those who exhibit these attributes are much more likely to keep the big promise of staying married. These are not the attributes, however, that come to mind when one thinks of the typical dating relationship.

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Sometimes a romance is like sparklers, sometimes there might be fireworks. The wisdom of Benjamin Franklin is worth considering, who wrote in 1738:

“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”

(Poor Richard’s Almanack)

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The desire for romance is an integral part of human nature. The romantic impulse is a huge part of our lives—consider how it is used to sell practically everything. We long for someone to come along, reach inside of us, and quench some inner desire and show us that we are loved and appreciated. We want someone to be there for us who will be completely committed to us and will always meet our needs. But anyone we meet will just be human. At the deepest level, everyone wants a sense of acceptance, belonging, and security that can only be met by God, our Creator. The temptation is to believe that someone else can do for us what only God can. People want to be loved and accepted, but they make a mistake when relationships, sex, and marriage are used as proxies for the love that only God can provide them. 

Nevertheless, if the romantic impulse in us remains unsatisfied, it may gnaw away at us. By nature, we tend to focus on what we want but do not have, and this is especially true of romance. Romance is, by its nature, preoccupied with the here and now and tends to focus our attention on the temporal rather than what is eternal. Thus, we can easily find ourselves “chasing after love,” as if it were something that could be caught. 

True love between people, on the other hand, comes after much time. It grows, and love is ideally the soil in which romance lives. Love doesn’t just happen after one conversation, experience, date, or even after a marriage ceremony. Ironically, a preoccupation with romantic and sexual interests inhibits interpersonal growth and communication—prerequisites for a successful long-term relationship.

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Is it reasonable to expect that a truly loving relationship can grow out of one that is based on selfishness? While many things are possible, not everything is probable! A relationship that has its roots in selfishness does not have a good start and generally will lead to frustration, since true friendship and love may never materialize. It is small wonder, then, that many relationships (and even marriages!) begin and later end without the parties ever making friendship the center of their relationship. When we are motivated by selfishness, and self-indulgence of any kind is the goal rather than cherishing and loving another person, the relationship with that person suffers and the participants are impoverished or emotionally shipwrecked. For example, sexualizing romance leads to a lack of respect for the other person, which makes friendship and genuine affection even more difficult. Selfishness is ultimately self-defeating.  

A focus on oneself promises great rewards and fulfillment, but ironically leaves one less fulfilled in the end. It has been said that sin promises so much but delivers so little. Selfishness doesn’t lead to lasting satisfaction but rather to emptiness, and the longer it is practiced, the emptier, more broken, and less satisfied we become. 

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The contrast between the love of the dominant dating culture and the unconditional love called for in the Bible could not be starker. The one is self-centered, the other self-less. The one treats people as disposable, the other acknowledges that people have great worth (that they are worth saving, in fact) and are to be treated as neighbors. The one is preoccupied with immediate gratification (“Live for the moment!”), whereas the other is willing to make sacrifices, takes time, and is grounded in values that last. Imagine if God’s love for us were like our “love” for each other too often is: tentative, fickle, self-serving. Would there be a Good Friday and an Easter Sunday? 

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Even though love emanates from God and loving God is the greatest commandment, love doesn’t stop there. God expects us to live out our faith in the context of community, in relationships with other people. Within this faith community, this kingdom of love, we are brothers and sisters and share a certain kind of equality before God. This is not a place for rankings or for trying to get ahead. Moreover, since living out our lives in the context of community is God’s expectation for us, pursuing dating relationships to the exclusion of other relationships and friendships is neither Biblical nor healthy. Jesus said that people would know if we are his followers if we love each other (John 13:35). This is a challenge to those who call themselves Christians: that people would know that we are different by the way we treat each other, including those we date.

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Men and women are attracted to each another because they are made that way—this is not an attraction that needs to be learned! What we do need to learn in our post-Eden world is how to channel our desires in a productive and wholesome way. In order to experience romantic love as it was intended to be—as God intended it to be—moving away from sin and towards God is a move in the right direction. Since God created sex, romance, and love, His advice to us is worth heeding. His prescription for all broken relationships in this fallen world can be summarized in the words “unconditional love.”

But does the commandment to “love your neighbor” apply to the realm of dating? Or would that be reading too much into this commandment? Jesus was once asked by an expert in the law to define who his neighbor was (Luke 10:29b). Jesus responded with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, who was an unexpected friend to someone who had fallen victim to robbers. Tellingly, Luke records that the expert in the law asked Jesus this question in order to justify himself (Luke 10:29a). So it is with human nature. Left to our own devices, we avoid loving people unless it suits our purposes. Jesus, however, did not embrace a narrow understanding of the word “neighbor” but rather a broad one. In fact, he went so far as to say that we should love our enemies (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27)—how much more, then, should we love those we call our lovers? Regardless of whether we care to accept it, there is no exception to the Golden Rule when romance is involved.

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Even when our actions are right, and outwardly we are ladies and gentlemen, inside we are likely preoccupied, not with something we can give but rather with something we want: a significant other, a relationship, or a marriage partner. So we feel tension, because on the outside we are one thing, but on the inside we are something else. In effect, we are shopping around, looking at the “produce” and asking ourselves:  “Does it measure up to what I want?”  Little or no time is spent reflecting on the questions:  “What can I offer my friends and the world?” and “How can I be a more loving person?”

Essentially, the dominant dating culture offers us a consumer-based approach to relationships. We shop around for relationships in what has been called a “meet market,” with one eye on what we want and the other on what we think we can realistically get: A “good match” between two people is thought to take place when their relative worth on the social totem pole matches and each one gets something desired. As with any consumer item, however, the relationship (and thus the person) is considered disposable. All of this occurs because of an environment in which friendship is devalued and selfishness is dominant. Accordingly, we are likely to approach the subject of dating with unease. Is this really the best way to form and nurture relationships?

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The gap between what we want (a relationship) and what we might get if we are too forthcoming (rejection) tempts us to pass ourselves off as people other than who we really are. We are afraid that, if we show our true selves, we won’t be liked, especially if we’ve been rejected previously for that reason. We are reluctant to be honest and transparent about who we are, since we are afraid that, if the truth about us comes out, any chance for a meaningful relationship might be doomed. 

Thus, dating is typically carried out on a stage in which the participants pretend to be people other than their true selves, to impress the other person and out of fear that if the “real me” comes to light, rejection will follow. This fear of rejection, as well as the role-playing that often accompanies it, leads to anxiety. Sooner or later, of course, the real me will come to light and we will become known, just as we will eventually see through any masks that the other person is wearing. (Fewer couples would have been nervous on their first date had they known then what they subsequently learned about each other.) 

The game of appearances is phoniness that is part of the dating culture. It guarantees that, as long as this game is played, the relationship will be superficial and fail to be as meaningful as it should be. It also ensures that we will still have doubts about our self-worth, since as long as we are not honestly disclosing ourselves, the real me has not been accepted. It stymies our personal growth, since we are pretending to be persons other than ourselves. Indeed, to the extent that the “fake me” is accepted, we are tempted to hide our true selves. We avoid being honest because we are insecure.

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In view of the selfishness that permeates the dominant dating culture, how does dating as a social institution manage to function at all? At least a partial answer to this question lies in the fact that, in the world of dating, human worth is a relative commodity. People are not viewed as having intrinsic worth; rather, their worth is related to any one of a number of subjective factors, such as their looks, how popular they are, or how wealthy they are. A person is valued not so much for what is on the “inside” but rather for what is on the “outside” and what he or she has to offer (e.g., the extent to which that person can be used). Based largely on worldly, temporal values people construct, if you will, a social totem pole, in which some are ranked higher than others. Although the ranking itself may be somewhat subjective and the criteria behind it may not even be well defined or explicitly articulated, people nevertheless have a good idea of where they stand, without being told. Those near the bottom of the social totem pole are painfully aware of their position—and feel stuck there—while those at the top enjoy basking in their status.

A rule of dating, which is generally unspoken, is that you look for someone near your level on the social totem pole. For example, rich guys may date pretty girls, and social outcasts find other social outcasts, assuming they find anyone at all. People may be constantly wondering if they are close enough to someone else’s position on the social totem pole to be considered “worthy” of a date (“Am I good enough for that person?”) or alternatively, if they should set their sights higher (“Can I do better?”). We tend to seek out those whom we perceive to be near our level on the social totem pole: People too far below us are beneath our dignity, whereas people too far above us we dare not approach because that would be presumptuous. Our position on the social totem pole represents our worth or value in the social marketplace, which operates as an exchange, rather than to facilitate the gift of love. Thus, people typically fall in love with someone they think matches their own “worth.”

Occasionally it happens that two people at different ends of the social totem pole link up with each other, but the fact that such an occurrence is considered noteworthy underscores the extent to which our thinking is guided by such rankings. The headline “King Marries Pauper!” is surprising—not because the king got married but rather because of who he married. In a sense, dating is a sort of popularity contest in which those who are considered inferior are pushed aside or left out.