Smart Dating: Purpose
By Nina Atwood
Mindy meets guys all the time, gets asked out a lot. She’s hooked up with three different guys over the past six months. Each time, they started out hot and heavy, but the flames died quickly. They quit calling. She thought, “Oh well,” and quickly moved on. Eric meets girls all the time, asks them out, has no trouble getting hot and heavy very fast. But, he finds that he’s bored within a couple of months, and exits as gently as possible. Soon, he’s after someone new. His married friends envy his freewheeling single life with hot women. Secretly, he feels cheated, wondering if he’ll ever meet that “truly special” lady who will capture his heart.
What Mindy and Eric have in common is a lack of purpose in dating. It’s a common fallacy: the idea that dating is about “hooking up” with one hot person after the other. But life can slip by at an alarming pace, and today’s hot young singles can be tomorrow’s lonely middle aged singles, wondering where the time went and why they’re still coming home to an empty house and no family. If this sounds like you, it’s time to get real.
Dating is about the end purpose of creating a lasting relationship. If you want real love, lasting love, you have to get really serious about dating. Instead of drifting from one hook up to the next, stop and take a step back. Spend some time evaluating your life in the long run: where do you want to be in five years, ten, fifteen? If where you want to be, deep down, is happily married, mayble with children, then start dating intentionally. Put together your Vision Statement, your list of non-negotiables, and your dating game plan. Stop drifing, get smart and purposeful. Your future is on the way!
Entry Filed under: Dating
1 Comment
1. Matt | February 3rd, 2007 at 6:07 pm
“and today’s hot young singles can be tomorrow’s lonely middle aged singles, wondering where the time went and why they’re still coming home to an empty house and no family. If this sounds like you, it’s time to get real.”
My interpretation of this statement is that it implies that it’s a ‘bad’ thing to be middle age and not married with a family. It also implies that middle aged and single means ‘lonely’ instead of ‘alone.’
For many, being single at any age can be a great thing. Some people: possibly myself included – are not happy with the current cultural norm. As a result, today’s men and women are waiting much longer for that first marriage. And some are deciding to skip marriage.
I feel happy about this trend.