How To Faithfully Date Online
One day when I was on Twitter I scrolled past a tweet that had been “Retweeted” and “Liked” by multiple people, specifically girls. I bet you can guess what it said by the title of this post. The tweet read, “I’d rather be single than date online.”
My initial reaction was to get defensive (those of you who know me know that I met my fiancé online). Then I realized that I probably would have been one of the people who retweeted and liked that post not even a year ago. I quickly realized that my defensiveness is caused by my own insecurity about what people think. The reality is, I am getting married to a man who loves God, cherishes my spiritual gifts, makes me laugh, etc etc., and I met him online. If someone wants to judge me for that, that’s okay. There is not a formula for how you’re supposed to meet your significant other and God can, and does, work through different avenues. At the end of the day, it all comes down to what your motives are for dating.
Online dating is a catch twenty-two. What do I mean by that? Many people get online for the wrong reasons, but I do not believe that online dating is a horrible outlet to meet someone. I’d even go as far as to say that I believe God can be glorified through online dating. I have to admit—when I set up an online profile for the first time, I didn’t know if it was for the right reasons. I was scared of judgment, I was scared of going outside of God’s will, I was scared of chasing my momentary desires over being patient with where the Lord had me in my singleness. Though I didn’t know the answers to all these things, I made boundaries for myself before and during the time I had an online account in order to make sure I stayed accountable to community and God. I’m not an expert, but this is how I tried to balance online dating:
Ask the Lord to guard your heart from seeking false attention every day. Remind yourself why you are online in the first place and stay focused on the goal: finding someone to do life with for the rest of your life.
Be open to online dating not working out. God may have another plan for you.
Ask yourself if you’re ready to date. Have you just gotten out of a serious, long-term relationship? Are you ready to settle down and walk through the ups and downs of life with someone?
Make sure your closest community knows about you dating online and give them permission to ask how it is going at any point. I only told two people I was dating online at first, it really is up to who you can trust.
Fight feeding a false ego. Do not carry on conversation with someone who does not have the qualities you need and/or want in a potential spouse.
Balance your time. Do not get consumed by scrolling through other’s profiles for hours on end (I failed at this on a couple of occasions). Life is still there beyond the Internet – don’t stop living and pursuing whatever it is the Lord has called you to do.
Finally, be open-minded. You can’t find a perfect person and you are not perfect yourself. Look for honesty and authenticity.
When I first saw my fiancé’s profile, funny enough, I actually wasn’t interested in him. He had his degree and a full-time job, church seemed important to him, we were the same denomination, he was somewhat local… but he was also divorced. I had an idea in my head that I would never be interested in a divorced man. I was convinced that I would not be the other woman, but then he messaged me. He was intentional, honest and willing to talk about his divorce, so I figured I’d give him a shot.
Whenever people ask me how I met my fiancé, I used to tell them a mutual friend introduced us, but recently I decide that I don’t care about the judgmental or sympathetic look I’m going to get, so I tell them the truth… Christian Mingle. Yes, I met my fiancé on a Christian dating website, but it’s not like the commercials. There are tons of people online who are not who they say they are or they are online simply to fulfill some temporary loneliness. Online dating is hard, especially if you’re not online just to get attention or hook-up with someone for a season of fun. It takes time, you have to face rejection, sacrifice time, you normally have to spend some sort of money and you have to check your intentions all the time. Just like anything else, there are definitely wrong ways to date online, which do not glorify God.
The other week when I was at the nail salon the lady working on my manicure asked if the ring on my left ring finger was an engagement ring. After I told her yes she proceeded to ask if we met in school and if we had been dating for years. I told her no to both of her questions and decided to be honest about meeting him online. Then when she asked how long we had been together, I explained that we were actually getting married in less than a year from when we met. She immediately stopped and just looked at me in disbelief and then said, “You’re so young. Why did you feel the need to get online to date, or even get married right now?”
So many questions and so much disapproval from a complete stranger, but I’m pretty used to it by now. I proceeded to say that I did not feel a need to get online and I knew that I had time to get married in the future, but that I also did not see the harm in putting myself out there if there was someone worth getting to know. I have always desired to have a family and I believe that I can glorify God in being a wife and a mom. If Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing,” why would putting myself in a situation to be that wife be a bad thing? Is there a formula that God lays out on how a man is to find a wife? In all my years of walking with God and studying scripture, which actually isn’t much seeing how I’m only 24, I’ve never seen anything about restrictions in how one pursues a relationship that could potentially lead to an equally-yoked marriage. I don’t understand why so many Christians put more stipulations on God than He puts on Himself. Jesus came to abolish the law, to give us free will, which does not give us license to sin or chase our selfish desires, but to get joy out of life and glorify Him in it.
Everyone I met in person either wasn’t interested in seriously dating or one of us came to find out that we just didn’t see the other as a potential spouse, so it ended. I wanted a man who took being a part of a church seriously, a man who could financially support a family and who took hard work seriously. I wanted a man who was ready to make a commitment, a man who was willing to make the sacrifice to do life with me as I would with him. With an online dating website, you can read about someone’s life and know whether or not you want to take the time to talk with him or her more. It’s honestly kind of relieving because all of the major questions are out of the way from the start. To be completely honest, I would have loved to have went to school with my now fiancé and maybe even be able to say that I met him in a Bible study or something. It would have been nice to have grown up with each other and have been able to go to all the date parties together, etc. That’s not my story though. Now I’m thankful for how everything worked out because our story is different, not to mention there is a story of redemption in it, which is a reflection of our God.
Stay tuned for the 2nd half to this post and the story of how God has already redeemed so much in our dating relationship.
