Blogs

#482 - Nobody Ever Taught You to Take Dating Seriously - That's the Problem

christian dating coach dating after divorce dating mistakes discovery call extraordinary relationships intentional dating midlife dating relationship clarity smart dating framework

Finding a relationship is arguably one of the most important decisions you'll ever make. Yet most of the time these decisions are made with less effort than planning for a summer vacation.

I saw that play out clearly on a Discovery Call recently.

The woman on the call was unclear about what her goal in dating was. She told me she was interested in meeting men for companionship. And if by some chance something more came of it, wonderful. But she didn't really have a clear picture of where this was all supposed to land.

Except she did. She just hadn't made the decision, and "companionship, and maybe more if it happens" was standing in for the decision she hadn't made. It let her avoid the harder question. Not which man, but which goal. Companionship on purpose is one path. Extraordinary on purpose is another. She hadn't picked either. She was just hoping one of them would show up first.

That conversation stuck with me. Because it's not just her. It's most people.

For decades, this is how we've approached dating. We meet someone, we connect for a while, it doesn't work out, we move on to the next one. Repeat until something sticks, or until we get tired of trying. Wander until you land somewhere and call it a relationship.

And here's the thing. That's not just how dating works. That's how most marriages have started too.

No one ever taught us to take dating seriously. Instead, we were handed a different message, one that gets repeated so often it starts to sound like wisdom. Marriage is a long-term commitment. Nobody's perfect. Don't expect a relationship that actually enhances your life, because that's not realistic. It's always going to be a struggle. Just make the best of it.

I call BS on that.

I'm not saying marriage doesn't take work. It does. But there's a world of difference between working to build something extraordinary and working just to keep something mediocre from falling apart. One is effort in service of a life you love. The other is effort in service of not being alone. Somewhere along the way, we let those two get treated as the same thing, and a lot of good people have spent a lot of years propping up the wrong one. Not because companionship itself was the wrong choice, but because nobody ever asked them to choose it on purpose.

Here's what I actually believe, after more than a decade of walking through this with people. Extraordinary relationships exist. Soul mates exist. Not in the fairy tale sense, but in the very real sense that two people can build something together that genuinely makes both of their lives better instead of just bearable.

The problem isn't that extraordinary love is rare. The problem is that random dating will almost never find it for you.

You can't wander your way into something extraordinary. You can only wander your way into whoever happens to be standing there when you finally get tired of looking. That's not a relationship strategy. That's exhaustion dressed up as fate.

If you don't believe extraordinary love or soul mates are real, I'm not here to talk you into it. Dating for companionship makes complete sense if that's genuinely what you're after. The problem only shows up when you want companionship and secretly still hope for extraordinary, without ever admitting that's what you're doing.

But if some part of you does believe it, and you're actually serious about finding yours instead of just hoping you stumble into it, that changes everything about how you should be dating. It means the goal isn't to meet more people. It's to date on purpose.

I'm not a matchmaker. I can't hand you a soul mate. What I can do is help you get honest about what you actually want, sharpen the dating skills most people never learned, and start dating with intention instead of just momentum.

If that's the kind of serious you're talking about, let's have a conversation. Book a Discovery Call and let's find out what's really standing between you and the relationship you deserve.

Blogs

#482 - Nobody Ever Taught You to Take Dating Seriously - That's the Problem

Join The FREE Challenge