Dating in The Church

The intended audience of this post is single members of the LDS Church, or people who once were single members of the LDS Church and might have insight. Though, anyone else is welcome to read it.

So I had a great stake conference yesterday. A lot of really good things were said, and I really felt the spirit. There was one talk though that got me thinking somewhat. It was about dating. Much of the talk was good but there were parts that annoyed me. I came up with a list of  what I would consider harmful misconceptions of the role of dating within the church. Not all of these were necessarily explicitly conveyed in the talk, but they are still common in the church. Anyway I am very far from an expert on dating (ask any girl who I have ever asked on a date) so I wanted to share my thoughts and see what other people thought about it themselves.

The misconceptions are:

1. Dating is righteousness; not dating is sin: 

       No one says it that way, but I know people who seem to think it. I think we all understand dating and marriage are important. But it has gotten to the point that many people feel a deep sense of inadequacy if they haven’t been on a date for a while or get turned down or are not asked. It’s not fair to anyone to equate spirituality to dating.

2. It is primarily the guys responsibility to date:

       There is this idea that if a guy dies and is not married but was a member of the church and knew how important marriage is then they have had their chance and will not have another. Whereas, if a righteous woman dies and is single, they will be able to meet and marry a righteous man who does not fit into the first category for some reason, no matter what effort they put into dating in life. To me that is complete garbage and very harmful thought, yet I have met many people who believe this to varying degrees. How do men stand a chance if women think that they have the option of simply avoiding all of the awkwardness, drama, and heartache and just worry about it in heaven where dating, I imagine, will be a whole lot less complicated, but for a man the only hope is to convince a woman that they do indeed want to go through all of that hardship. I believe in a just and merciful God. I know of both guys and girls who have tried very hard to date and yet for one reason or another (often for no fault of their own) have been unsuccessful. The thought that God would bless half of those people while punishing the others is insane.

3. Not wanting to date someone makes you ‘Picky’:

       So I guess this is definitionally true (you are ‘picking’ who you want to date). But I don’t know that that is always a bad thing. This seems to come in two forms. On the women’s sides, girls often feel like they are required to say yes to a date, even if they find the guy repulsive. On the men’s side, men often feel required to date a girl who shows interest in them even if the interest is not mutual at all. For these guys this is closely related to misconception #2. In both cases one side is unhappy and the other side is being setup for a letdown. Look! from a guy’s point of view being turned down hurts a lot, but not as much as the confusion that goes along with spending months believing someone is really into you and finding out that they are not, or being stuck in limbo for ages because you are constantly getting mixed messages. I would much rather someone just reject me than lead me along because they were unwilling to just say no.

My thoughts on dating: (loosely following the chiastic form)

1. Almost everyone deserves a shot: 

        I think girls should in most cases always be willing to go on a first date, unless there are extenuating circumstances (Don’t date someone you think might be an axe murderer.) On the other hand, guys should be willing to ask girls who have shown interest in them on at least one date even if they are not initially attracted. A first date does not usually mean too much, and who knows you might be surprised by the person. (As a side note, guys can be really thick sometimes and might overlook even the most obvious clues. It is in my opinion completely fine for a girl to ask a guy on a date too.) After the first date honesty is the best policy. If you can’t be honest with each other then it is not going work out anyway. Saying "no" early is a lot better than thinking no in your heart but waiting to voice it until later because you don’t what to hurt someone.

2. Men and Women have equal responsibility to date:

        Dating leads to marriage which is ideally an equal partnership. The thought that the responsibility getting to that point is anything less than equally distributed makes reason stare (as Eliza R. Snow might say). Men and women who take dating too lightly are equally in the wrong. I understand that social norms dictate that men have both a greater ability and responsibility to initiate dating, but that doesn’t negate all responsibility of the women. I think a man who never asks anyone on a date is equally in the wrong as a girl who never says yes to anyone, and a man who asks lots of people on dates but is turned down time after time will receive as much mercy and love as a woman who is never asked on a date.

3. The Lord looks on the heart:

       The Lord knows what our desires are. Dating is hard enough without adding guilt, blame, and everything else. Single people need to be cut a little slack. We are trying our best to live good lives just like married people. Along the same lines we need to cut the people we go on dates with some slack. We are all children of God and should start treating each other like it. The direction to date and seek an eternal companion comes from the Lord in order to help us be happy. Obviously we should listen to the counsel of the Lord, but I doubt he wants us to be miserable while doing it.

Anyways those were my thought on dating. But I want to know yours, because obviously I (being single) don’t really have the whole dating thing figured out. So, what misconceptions do you see that I left out? What things did I say that you disagree with or would say differently? Other thoughts?