Why We Need To Stop Obsessing Over Dating: A Small Rant

I’m going to share something with all of you that has been on my heart and mind a lot in the past few months. If you’re easily offended, it might not be something for you to read. But for those that are interested, be warned that I’m not concerned about being politically correct.

As a young woman half-way through her third year of college, I’ve seen a lot of things that make me angry. People making stupid life choices, the school I attend enforcing ridiculous mandates about how many useless foreign language classes I have to take for my “core classes,” and varying other degrees of foolishness that reach inside my bones and rattle them like a maraca. But if there’s one thing that I’ve discovered in my two and a half years of college life that makes me want to smash a hundred windows, it’s this: College women are obsessed with the idea of dating and marriage.

I get it. We’re all at that age where dating is no longer something cute that we do to entertain ourselves and jingle around with the bells of puberty. It’s a serious element of our lives. We date with the intention to find our future spouse or to have a level of intimate companionship while we wade through the waters of college life (God knows we need a friend to survive some moments). That’s fine. It’s normal. Everyone has that desire inside of them to find The One and settle down.

But what is considered a very average desire within all of us, especially women, has now spawned into a serious problem that is only exacerbated by the rise of social media. Rather than thoughtfully dwell on who we will devote our life to in the future, we have made this desire the central focus of our thoughts, sometimes even above our school work.

My social media newsfeeds—especially my Facebook—have become infested with Buzzfeed articles, blogs, website links that all pertain to this topic. I have grown so sick of seeing these types of posts, that to actually catch one is enough to make me sign off of whatever site I happened to be browsing for the sake of not smashing my computer to pieces. Perhaps the worst offender of all are the articles that are titled, “Things that Real Men Like in Women,” or “Qualities You Should Look For in a Husband/Wife,” or even “What a True Godly Man/Woman Should Be.” Each of these articles ends up saying the same exact things, reworded in a cutesy or funny or serious or sarcastic way, depending on the tone of the piece. All of them are designed to make us feel better for knowing that, hey, I may be single, but at least I know how to conform myself to fit the preferences of someone else!

Clearly, we have a problem.

I’m not saying that there isn’t some truth to these articles. And I know that they’re written with the best intentions at heart. But honestly, when did we, as a group of people, become so obsessed with the desire to find a mate that we will read essentially the same thing over and over again, plaster our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and dedicate entire discussion boards to this very issue? What is it achieving, other than successfully elevating my heart rate?

My main problem with these articles isn’t the content themselves. Most of the time, they’re positive and encouraging for those that may feel like they’ve been run over by the Universe. There’s nothing wrong with a little pick-me-up every now and then (as well as seeing that there still is some hope for the world in the dating arena). That’s fine. My issue is with what people do with them—the constant, viral, explosive re-posting of them everywhere, and the belief that these pieces of writing can somehow change the way the reader views dating, relationships, and the opposite sex.

Here’s a reality check: They can’t.

What it comes down to is a heart issue. As women in particular, we are so concerned about whether or not we will find a man and start a family, that we set aside any other possible life achievements until we hit that milestone. We make it the primary focus. We make it our idol. So much so, that what happens with these articles is that we take them as a How-To Guide and begin to want to shape ourselves to fit what some person on the Internet says makes a good boyfriend or girlfriend.

Be This

Don’t Be This

Don’t Do This

Like This

Don’t Like This

Act In This Way

Love In This Fashion

Be An Upstanding Citizen

Know Your Mate Like The Back of Your Hand

Be An Astronaut

Discover The Answer To World Peace

Cure Cancer

Have Brown Hair

Don’t Have Brown Hair

Hide Your Freckles

Freckles Are Sexy!

Skinny Women Have It All

Curvy Women Are “Real” Women

Know How To Communicate

Forgive Everything

Hate Nothing

Own A White Horse

Don’t Cater to the Prince Stereotype

Men Are People Too!

Women Don’t Need Make-Up To Be Sexy

A Little Make-Up Is Okay

MAKE-UP IS THE DEVIL

Volunteer On The Weekends

Big Boobs Are Awesome!

Be Ashamed Of Your God-Given Breasts (Or Lack Thereof)!

Pray For Nothing But Your Future Husband

Men Want This

Men Don’t Want This

Men Are Stupid

Women Are Too Sensitive

Men Aren’t Sensitive Enough

Be Perfect In Every Way, Shape, And Form

It’s absolutely, 100% absurd.

I’m sick and tired of someone else telling me what I should be and where I need to stand emotionally/spiritually/physically to be good enough to date. People are not stock characters; we are living, breathing, constantly changing and growing individuals. Not everyone is going to possess the “ideal qualities” for a mate, and not everyone has the same standards for who they want to marry. These articles, while having good intentions, end up becoming nothing more than a “This Is How You Get a Boyfriend/Girlfriend” guide that is, ultimately, useless, because people don’t operate on such a superficial level. Some people like blonds, some people like brunettes, and some people just don’t give a damn what color your hair is.

God has a person picked out for us and plans to introduce them at the right time and place in our life, regardless of what we can or can’t do, where we are or aren’t at spiritually, or how mature or immature we think we are. God isn’t waiting for us to “get our act together” and know every last detail about what makes a Godly man or Godly woman; He’s waiting for our life to line up with that of the person He’s picked for us at a time when He knows we need them. Because let’s be honest, if God was waiting for us to be “spiritually mature,” no one would ever be married.

It’s the same thing with salvation: If God wanted us to be “cleaned up” before we could come to Him, no one would be saved.

Every single one of us is our own individual. I’m a very short, loud, Disney-obsessed white girl who has lots of compassion and love for people but also struggles to keep her words under control and uses her hands too much to hurt others. And guess what? I’m always going to be that person. God will continually work in my heart to change the things about me that are sinful, but my inner self is never going to disappear. I’m always going to be the same strange, quirky, writer-type who struggles with anxiety. Do I have good, “dateable” qualities? Yes. Do I have ugly, “undateable” ones? Oh yeah. But the nature of love isn’t that you find someone who fits every last stereotypical detail, but someone who loves you despite the fact that you aren’t perfect.

And perhaps the biggest note that I would like to get out there: 

Life doesn’t start when you find your significant other.

It starts today. Now. Right in this moment, as you draw in each breath. Everyone has dreams and goals they would like to achieve that have nothing to do with dating or getting married. Chase after those dreams—the ones that are burned into your very soul—because those are the ones that are part of who you are. They are the things that define you as a human being. They are the things that will continually be true, even after you settle down. Don’t spend all of your time lamenting the fact that you’re still single—live in the present. Pursue your dreams. Pursue you. Pursue the God who made you. And then one day that special person will arrive, exactly when they’re meant to, and you’ll have plenty of stories to tell them when they do.


"When we commit our way to God, we allow our thoughts, goals, and lifestyle to be shaped by His will and the things He loves. In other words, we acknowledge His right to determine whether our longing fits His plan. If we rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, we rely on Him to work out circumstances, even when the desire He's given us seems impossible. When He is our first love, our hearts become focused on making His glory known in our lives." --InTouch Ministries (original article located here)