Bad Dating Habit #2:  Dating tends to skip the friendship stage of a relationship.

     This habit assumes a certain kind of dating.  You meet someone for the first time at a party or in calculus class or whatever and you ask them out.  A friend sets you up with someone that they think would be perfect for you.  You’ve been studying together with an attractive lab partner for a couple weeks and you’re ready to “make your move.”  I suppose a lot of people don’t date this way, but many of you do so let’s talk.

     Here’s the experience I had with this.  I met a girl in a class I had during my sophomore year in college.  She was cute and friendly and Christian.  Things I like.  Even though we only had the one class together, things moved pretty quickly.  We started sitting next to each other, talking, flirting.  You probably know the routine.  And then came the date.

     If I’m remembering correctly, our first out-of-class experience together was a date.  The date “went well,” and so was followed by a series of other dates and, before I knew it, I had myself a girlfriend.  In a lot of ways, at least at first, things seemed great.  The emotions were high, the time together was fun, and plenty of friends told us that we made a good couple.  Really the only problem with our relationship was that we didn’t like each other.

     That’s what dating can do.  It’s roses and candles, movies and making out, romance and wooing – it happens fast and pretty soon you’re making claims upon each other’s lives, time, behavior and attention.  You call each other every night.  You go out together every weekend.  You sit together in class and hang out during breaks.  And you never, ever show interest in or have fun with another guy/girl.  You have become “boyfriend and girlfriend.”  And you enter into this arrangement in a matter of weeks with no real commitment to undergird the relationship (see Habit #1) and no real friendship.

     Or, at least, that’s what happened to me.  After about a month of dating this girl, we were a “couple.” I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but it did and it meant that if I didn’t call her when I got home from work she would be mad.  For awhile this wasn’t a problem.  The novelty of a new relationship combined with physical attraction and raging emotions (and probably hormones) was enough to make me want to call her, go out with her, sit with her in class, etc.  But novelty wears off and emotions eventually settle down.  And when that started to happen to me, I began to dread the phone calls and the time together.  Why? Was it because I was a jerk or just a typical guy?  Well, maybe.  But as I look back I realize the bigger issue was that I didn’t like her – meaning that we weren’t really friends.  How could we be?  We didn’t know each other.  We hadn’t taken the time to first discover if we would make good friends.  We just skipped that stage and went directly to romance.  So, of course I didn’t want to talk to her on the phone, I didn’t enjoy talking to her.  We didn’t have the same interests or compatible personalities.  We didn’t really have anything to talk about.  We weren’t FRIENDS!  We were just dating.

     Now, I should say that it is (PRAISE GOD!) possible to do it another way.  My wife and I got to know each other first in a group setting during a month-long overseas mission trip.   The shared, Christ-centered activities of service, worship, evangelism, and site-seeing (in a group context) became the no-pressure environment in which she and I discovered that we could be very good friends.  We’ve been married for almost seven years now and I can tell you that the romantic part of our relationship comes and goes.  But I’m amazed at how much I still like Katherine.  Of course I love my wife, but I just really, really like her too.  I enjoy her company.  We like many of the same things.  We just like doing things together and being together.  She’s truly my best friend.

     So, where’s the advice in all this?  I’d say, don’t seek “hotties” or long for romance in your relationships with the opposite sex.  Look for true friendship.  I married my best friend after she became my best friend and I highly recommend it.  Let me leave you with a  verse from the Bible’s great erotic love poem, Song of Solomon, in this verse, a woman is telling the “daughters of Jerusalem” why she loves her husband so much.  She sings,

“His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable.  This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem” (Son. 5:16).

Bad Dating Habit #1:  Dating tends to lead to intimacy without commitment.

      "Love must be genuine."  (Romans 12:9a)

     Intimacy . . . you know, meaning physical and emotional closeness and, well, intimacy. Yeah that includes sex, but doesn’t at all end there.  In some ways, the emotional / psychological intimacy is just as dangerous. 

     It isn’t difficult for me to remember my single years.  I was a lover, man.  I don’t mean that I was some kind of Casanova or something.  I mean that I loved to love and be loved.  I had issues that I should probably see someone about.  I would “fall in love” with a girl really quickly – falling hard and fast.  It usually didn’t take much more than a date or two before I was totally smitten. Maybe that takes longer for you – I certainly hope so.  But whenever it happens, the tendency is then to move towards intimacy very quickly. For me, it usually would manifest itself in super-personal conversations, unwise promises, a risky physical relationship and more.

     Since I’ll deal with the physical stuff in a later entry, let me just focus on the subject of emotional intimacy for now.  For me, when I started getting really close to a girl that I was dating, I would start longing to share myself with her – to give myself away to her.  I think that’s actually kind of natural and healthy in the right context.  However, a dating relationship is never the right context.  I’d make promises and pledges of love, I’d expose the deepest parts of my soul, I’d give my girlfriend tremendous influence and sway over major life decisions, and spend huge amounts of time with her.  And I’d do all of that without requiring her to make any real commitment.  What is worse, I would expect her to do that without making any true commitments to her. It doesn’t take long for a relationship like that to get very manipulative, hurtful, and destructive.  And when break-ups occur, the resulting wounds can cut very deep and last a long, long time.

     I’m trying to come up with a way to illustrate this.  Imagine you are unloading groceries from your car.  A friend of yours is standing next to you so, without thinking much about it, you dump a couple bags into her hands and immediately turn back to your car to get some more.  Just as you turn you hear the grocery bags smash to the ground.  Your friend looks shocked and upset.  You are shocked and upset.  What went wrong?  Well, your friend had been preoccupied with the music on her mp3 player and simply wasn’t expecting the bags.  She just wasn’t ready for you to dump those groceries on her.

     I hope you can see where I’m going.  I was always a dumper in my dating relationships and I had girlfriends that were as well. So much of my heart (and I assume theirs as well) smashed to the ground because the commitment level just wasn’t there. I remember a principle that someone (my wife) shared with me that made a really significant impact.  The idea comes through in a question, “If I haven’t put a ring on her finger, what claim do I really have over her?”  How can I demand a person’s time, love, attention, emotional focus, intimacy – what right do I have unless that life-long commitment has been made?

     I’ll never forget the night I was talking to Katherine on the phone and listening to her describe the fun night out she had just enjoyed.  She had been playing games and hanging out with a group of old friends from high school. On the other end of the phone line I was getting angry and jealous because the group included her ex-boyfriend. I wanted to complain to her and demand that she not hang out with other guys, but I was realizing in that moment that I had no right to make such a claim on her life.

     Once I really understood this idea, it wasn’t long before I just examined my relationship and realized that if Iwanted to experience true intimacy with Katherine, I would have to make a true commitment.  Intimacy is just not safe otherwise.  So what did I do?  I asked her to marry me.