The Dangers of Dating

Every day or two I get a question somewhat like the following:

“I’ve been married twice and have been in quite a number of other relationships—obviously not successful ones. I’m just beginning to learn about Real Love, and I’ve met a woman. We’re both still pretty needy, but we’re developing an ‘amazing connection.’ I’m wondering what we should do next or watch out for.”

Although I don’t respond the same to any two people, my response to such a query tends to look like this:

Listen slowly. You have no experience at all with successful relationships, while I have helped a great many couples achieve the genuine and lasting love they were looking for. I have the added advantage of not being intoxicated with the flush of that “amazing connection” which almost always distracts and blinds us.

I'm not suggesting that you be careful, or that you employ certain approaches as you develop your relationship. I’m TELLING you that you're not ready for a relationship yet. You need more healing and experience with Real Love. I'm not kidding. Now, if you want to go ahead and start a relationship, great, but I can tell you that your odds of achieving a genuinely loving relationship—both because of your lack of preparation AND because of the kind of women you’d be likely to attract at this point—are TERRIBLE.

Picture a beautiful and powerful car—the fastest and most comfortable you've ever seen. You have an immediate and "amazing connection" with that car. But just as you're about to buy it, you learn that studies show that this particular model loses steering control—with serious and often fatal accidents—about eight out of ten times the car is driven. Would you still buy or drive that car? Ridiculous, and yet that's what you're doing right now with attempting to have a relationship with a woman.

We don’t let young children drive cars, because they’re not ready for this potentially dangerous experience. We don’t drive cars that have known tendencies to break down. But we eagerly dive into relationships when we’re completely unprepared and when we’ve already proven that we can’t handle them in a healthy way.

Why do we do that? Because we want the rewards of a relationship without the preparation. Because we’re afflicted with hopeful thinking, unwarranted and dangerous. A healthy relationship is one of the greatest—if not THE greatest—experiences of life. It’s a treasure worth preparing for, and also a treasure that we don’t want to damage or make unobtainable.