From Improbability to Probability: Dating Through an Algorithm
A deep dive into the world of dating apps and how to navigate the complexities of meeting and dating online.
Hey there 👋 Welcome to Project 21st - a publication that seeks to understand how to navigate the complexities of the 21st Century.
Today, we’re taking a deep dive into the world of dating apps. More and more young adults are turning to dating apps to find love. I’m speaking from experience because I met my wife through a dating app, but it did not come without complexity.
This post serves as a guide to those trying to navigate the complexity of dating apps. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, please share this post with anyone you think would benefit!
What do you need right now? My wife Julia and I needed to buy a new trash can, and Amazon had 7,000 results to choose from. We also needed to buy paint recently and discovered Home Depot had over one hundred different shades of white. We spent over an hour in the grocery store the other day, only to forget a few items… and proceeded to order them online.
Whatever we need, we can probably get it right now. But first, we must analyze all the options.
Our society is one of optionality. I call this phenomenon the Jeni’s Ice Cream Theory™️. If you don’t know what Jeni’s ice cream is, it’s this ice cream shop around the US that offers a very elaborate combination of flavors. Every time I enter Jeni’s, I want to try every flavor with names like Blackout Chocolate Cake, Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns, or Sweet Potato Marshmallow Brulee… How about High Five Candy Bar, Skillet Cinnamon Roll, or Sweet Cream Biscuits and Jam? Not to mention, I could get Cold Brew w/ Coconut Cream, Powdered Jelly Donut, Wildberry Lavender, Green Mint Chip, Rum Ball, or stick with the classic Jeni’s flavors of Brown Butter Almond Brittle, Brambleberry Crisp, or Gooey Butter Cake.
Now, imagine you’ve been standing in line looking at all these flavors on the menu for a few minutes (there’s always a line at Jeni’s). At last, you get to the front, where the server asks you, “What flavors would you like?” If you’re like me, you get an immediate burst of anxiety because everything you just read on the menu has now come to life. The two flavors I decided on 5 seconds ago have given way to the array of ice cream tubs in front of me, and they all look delicious.
After a few nervous “Uhh… Uhhh…” followed by “Can I try the Powdered Jelly Donut?” to buy a little time, I finally decided on two flavors. I then paid the equivalent of an average steak dinner, and voila, a gourmet ice cream cone was ready to enjoy. Twenty seconds minutes later, the ice cream was in my stomach, and the experience was over. Suddenly, a thought always creeps in, “I wonder what every other flavor tastes like?”
This elaborate optionality of ice cream is still new. It wasn’t that long ago that you used to walk into a local ice cream shop and order from the select options of vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or if the shop was progressive, mint chocolate chip. After that, you would enjoy the ice cream cone and have no lingering curiosity about what the other flavors tasted like. We used to live in a society that was more easily satisfied.
Dating Optionality
The singularity in consumerism no longer exists. All of our wants and needs will forever have multiple options to choose from. This post is not intended to glorify a more simplistic past—I don’t do that. Instead, it is about explicitly stating the landscape of our cultural context and knowing that we don’t always have to conform to what society says.
Specifically, I will describe how our culture of optionality has impacted people’s perceptions of dating and courtship. Optionality has perverted the singular instance of meeting and dating someone. The standardization of dating apps has ingrained optionality into dating, increasing its complexity.
What appears to be a negative can actually be, and already has been, a blessing to many people’s lives. However, we must have the right approach and context to avoid drowning in the complexity of optionality.
Love stories are fleeing from stories of improbability to an algorithm of probability. While it might not have a Hollywood script, Julia and I meeting on a dating app is the best thing to ever happen to us. But navigating the complexity of matching, chatting, and going on dates with strangers can be frustrating. Thus, this post is intended to encourage you in your journey and to find hope in the complexity of online dating. If you get the point of officially dating someone, the second part will describe a few best practices that Julia and I followed in our walk until marriage.
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philipians 4:6-7 (NIV)
Society’s Standards
Current Context
From the time I was born until now, I’ve watched roughly 350 movies (one movie a month x 27 years = +/- 350 movies). In addition to movies, I’ve seen approximately 600 episodes of TV (20 TV series x 3 season average x 10 episodes in each season)...
350 movies x 90 minutes average => 31,500 hours
600 episodes x 40 minute average => 24,000 hours
Total Hours spent = 55,500 hours
I can divide that 55,500 hours into 2,313 days, or 6.3 years of my life… 6 years!!! (And it’s even worse if you consider only 16 waking hours in the day… then it’s 9.5 years, but we’ll stay positive here).
What two themes are present in most movies and TV shows? Love and death. The settings, characters, tone, point of view, and conflict can vary, but the theme of characters falling in love or dying is present in almost every story. Basically, I’ve seen years worth of different ways to fall in love and different ways to die.
Shakespeare, for better or worse, popularized his storytelling in two styles: comedy and tragedy. If his play ended with a wedding, it was a comedy; if it ended in death, it was a tragedy. Interestingly, Shakespeare’s most famous plays are tragedies (I wrote a post about why this is the case here). However, if we look closer, the plot of Shakespeare’s tragedies are still love stories. These two themes are so intertwined that you can’t tell one without the other.
Even if society changes, love and death have never changed.
Although, I’ve noticed something strange: I never watch movies or TV and feel the certainty of death as much as I feel the certainty of love. Why is that? Especially since love is technically not as absolute as death.
We take our modern American life for granted by expecting to live until old age. We all assume we’ll grow old and die of natural causes and never buy into the way death is portrayed in movies and TV. The funny thing is, the statistics would tell you you’re right! Heck, I ate a bowl of oatmeal the other morning while operating a vehicle at 60 mph. Historically speaking, that would be a death sentence.
Alternatively, almost every love scene in movies and TV plants an irrational thought of, “Yeah, that could happen to me.” Really?
Take a James Bond film, for instance: I can tell you with 99.99% certainty that I will never motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and parachute into a runaway car and live or die as a result. But, a few minutes later, in the same James Bond movie, he makes a move to get the attractive woman that he just met in some foreign country in a bizarre circumstance, and every man gets a burst of irrational confidence like, “Yep, that could be me if I wanted it to be.” Really?
So, I understand that I’m an accountant, and even if I subscribed to the 10,000-hour theory, I would have zero chance of being a successful secret agent. But, somehow, a part of me likes to think any romantic relationship could have happened to me.
“Shouldn’t we celebrate love stories?” one might ask. “Love is tender, sweet, and a lot better than blood, gore, violence, substance abuse, and crude humor. We should feel the certainty of love more.”
Yes, I agree, but we are still talking about years that I have spent consuming narratives that are virtually impossible to replicate. In fact, they’re not even real. These stories were all created in someone’s head, often in a completely harmless manner. However, they still invoke the consumer with a false sense of reality.
Love, in different forms, is tangible and achievable for most people. Since we’ve all seen the various crazy, unlikely, jaw-dropping, against-all-odds ways love can happen, we crave this for ourselves. Thus, when love begins to form in your life, if you’re like me, you must stop and ask, “Is this really happening like this?”
Especially since so many love stories, like my wife and I’s, is now beginning with these simple words:
“We met on Hinge.”
History
Let’s examine the history of courtship and dating to understand how we got to where we are today in the 21st Century.
Beginning - Roman Empire (400 BC): Dating, in reference to courting another person, isn’t even a word. In this time, you live amongst your nation’s people group, and these people are likely the ones you match and reproduce with. Easy enough!
Roman Empire (400 BC—400 AD): With the rise of metropolitan cities, social classes were introduced into culture. We see more courtship among society’s lower class, but arranged marriages remain dominant among the Roman elite. Rome also instituted monogamy—or having only one wife.
Rise of the Western World (500 - 1600): During this period, the Roman Empire fell, and the gradual freedom of the Western world began. As freedom increased, women started to have more of a say in courtship. This introduced a romantic aspect to dating and courtships, with the man's responsibility to impress the woman. We also started to see cross-social class relationships. Additionally, marriage was strictly governed by the church and state, ultimately deciding if marriage could happen.
The classic example is Romeo and Juliet, which encapsulates dramatic love in the Renaissance Era.
America (1600 - 1800): Here, we have the first people groups coming to America seeking religious freedom. Dating and courtship looked a lot like pre-Roman times, as small tribes would settle together and reproduce. As more people began settling in America, dating and courtship began to look different amongst the different cultures, as the Church of England could not regulate it as strictly. The newly formed United States of America granted individualism and freedom in dating and courtship by separating the church and state.
America Pt. 2 (1800 - 1920): Social status remained a dominant factor in dating/courtship as social classes began to form in America (the same is still true today and will always be true). The upper class often spent time on family-owned land and not in cities, so dating/courtship for the upper class was heavily influenced under the supervision of parents, but we don’t use the “arranged” word here (even though you could make a case).
Meanwhile, the working class in America lived in shoeboxes in the city, so dating/courtship involved meeting in public places outside the home. As American cities grew, so did the activities that resemble our current way of dating, such as going to a restaurant, seeing a play, going dancing, etc. The man was responsible for initiating the date, and the woman would expect to be treated respectfully and romantically.
America Pt. 3 (1920 - 2010): The development of mass transportation and communication ushered in a world of borderless dating/courtship. Primarily, this took place at universities as more people started having access to and attending college - which would more than likely not be in their hometown. The same dating/courtship norms are present, but we begin to see the start of optionality in dating/courtship.
Also of note, the average age of marriage is beginning to increase as more opportunities are available in society that could delay starting a family.
Internet Era (2010—now): Today, it doesn’t matter where you are, who you are, what you have done, or what your family has done. You can meet and match with anyone across the world and completely change the course of your life. Increasingly, women are equating to men in the responsibility of initiating dating.
The average age of marriage is prolonged until later in life because the standard in modern urban America is to focus on your career first. Because of this, we live in a culture of constant business chasing whatever success looks like to the individual (guilty!). Amid this, dating/courtship has become less of a priority but is still pursued if it happens and makes sense.
Thus, instead of going out and pursuing someone to date, society is starting to favor dating coming to us in the form of available options on your phone. This started with social media and DMing people you have mutual friends with, and dating apps have now taken over. In 2015, 15% of US adults said they used a dating app. In 2024, 52% of US adults are using an online dating service - a 37% increase in nine years.
Dating apps are officially the leader in dating among adults.
The Inevitable Swipe
(Note: I’m only considering the behavior of people who are actually looking for relationships on dating apps and not taking into account any other behavior.)
I downloaded Hinge in November of 2021; I was turning 25 years old. Before that, I had been on a few dating apps to see what they were like, but I never had the expectation to date someone from them.
Instantly, I spiraled down the trap of optionality that I laid out in the introduction. I could not stop swiping to see what the next girl would look like. Even worse, I developed a mindset of, “Because I’ve swiped right on you, you must now talk to me, and if you don’t, something is wrong with you because who wouldn’t want to talk to me?” This was maybe the quickest false sense of power that I’ve ever had in my life. How did I spiral so quickly?
Dating apps are built on algorithms, which are similar to other big tech platforms you spend time on. An algorithm is based on inputs and outputs. The most crucial input for big tech platforms is your data. If a tech platform can get good enough data from you, then it can run its algorithms to try and produce the desired output.
We have formed an inherent trust with big tech platforms because our relationships with algorithm inputs and outputs are increasing in frequency and quality. Take, for example, a platform like YouTube. Their algorithm learns the input of your data and then recommends the output of a video. Since the algorithm's output is a video, there is not as much pressure from the consumer to like or dislike the recommendation.
Alternatively, the output of dating app algorithms isn’t a video or other content, but it is another human being. Therefore, trust in dating apps and your data is a different ball game. In essence, dating apps attempt to set you up the same way your mom has for years with the same person who “is perfect for you” or the friend you trust who says, “I think y’all would be great together.” If you’ve ever been involved in being set up in real life, you know it’s difficult to predict human behavior.
However, “matching” people together is exactly what dating apps are trying to do, and we tend to believe the recommended output because we trust the algorithm. This is unique to younger generations because we’ve been raised in this world of higher-quality algorithms. Personally, I put a lot of hope in the recommendations Hinge would give me.
This result of dating app algorithms brings me back to the false sense of power I convinced myself I had: The other person must abide by the algorithm just like content does in other platforms’ algorithms.
Thus, after not matching with several general swipes, especially none of the recommended swipes, I began to think that I was the problem because I trusted the algorithm's expediency. So, I changed my picture and writing prompts and fudged a little on the facts about myself or what I was looking for.
The more I struggled to find someone, the less authentic I would portray myself.
Since I changed my input into the algorithm, this caused me to match and eventually go out with people that I had no interest in being the output. I had relaxed my standards in an effort to find someone quicker, and as a result, was appealing to the optionality that I kept lusting after.
Losing authenticity + Lusting optionality = Leeway (LA + LO = Le^2)
When we lose authenticity and lust after all the options, the outcome is accepting leeway.
“But look at how attractive this person is!”
“But look at how exciting of a life this person lives!”
“But look at how smart this person is!”
All of that is great to have in a potential partner, but it doesn’t matter if you compromise who you are. With this in mind and recognizing some of my shortcomings, below are a few best practices that I either learned or wished that I had adhered to during my time with online dating apps:
#1 - Determine Your Expectations
If you are deciding to sign up for a dating app, be very clear about what you want your outcome to be. Heck, write it down on paper, and don’t waiver. Once you are immersed in the optionality of a dating app, it is almost impossible to think clearly in the midst of swiping on so many people. I’m telling you right now: you will make mistakes and chat or go out with people who break your first principles if you don’t have clear expectations.
What are first principles? They are a concept that cannot be broken down any further. For example, if you are training for a marathon, the first principle would be that you must have the endurance to complete 26.2 miles. Whether that’s by walking, running, a mixture of both, or anything else is up to you. Still, the first principle is that you must have the endurance to complete 26.2 miles.
If I could go back and have first principles thinking at the start of my dating app journey, I would write:
Find a long-term relationship with a girl who believes in Jesus.
That concept cannot be broken down any further. In doing this, you should be able to filter out all the people who do not meet your first principles and avoid a relationship of leeway by not giving into the mindset of “But they look this way” or “They have this lifestyle.”
How quickly did I stray from my unstated first principle? The third person I went on a date with was not a Christian… and I even went on another date with her! I knew I had given over so much to LA + LO = Le^2 when I abandoned my first principle.
From a secular sense, if you’re a Republican and that is your first principle in a partner, then maybe don’t convince yourself of the person whose profile prompt is heavily Democratic. Or if your first principle is traveling and adventure-seeking, maybe don’t try to pursue the introverted homebody.
Now, this isn’t to say that every person you match and go out with who meets your first principles will be a success. It also doesn’t mean that every person you go out with has to agree with you on everything. Still, it’s always essential to leave every date with the comfort that you’re not giving into a life of leeway through LA + LO = Le^2.
#2 - Acknowledge Any First Date Blindness
This best practice isn’t inherent to dating apps, but dating apps have both hurt and helped a phenomenon I’m calling First Date Blindness.
The first time I went out with someone from a dating app, it was strange to finally go from the robotic nature of the app to actually meeting the person. The fantasy in my head of how the person would be or how the date would go suddenly played out in real life.
Unless you chat on a dating app at an extended length, it turns out it’s tough to truly understand what a person will be like from 5 pictures and a few writing prompts. That’s why I found myself with First Date Blindness because you tend to talk about how great you are in the initial interactions with the other person. It’s not even in a narcissistic way, but it’s just trying to convince the other person that you are worth pursuing in a sea of optionality.
The blindness piece comes in when often I would leave a first date thinking, “Oh, that went pretty well!”—not realizing I just talked about how great (I think) I am for an hour. Therefore, it’s not until the second, third, and fourth dates that the discovery phase happens. Typically, these dates happen in more relaxed settings or with friends involved so that you can see the other person’s character and not just their accolades.
Be cautious of First Date Blindness because feelings can form pretty quickly - especially if you are dating in a stage of life where desperation can creep in. But also embrace the freedom and excitement of meeting a new person and the first date going well!
But there is another side to First Date Blindness where a first date does not go well…
#3 - Have a Little Grace
Beneath our first principles, almost everyone has specific standards they would like a potential partner to meet. Many of those measures are good! But if you hold fast to numerous high standards, you will face a threshold of unattainability.
Because dating apps are a pool of optionality, there is a false idea that you will find someone who checks every box. In my opinion, this is the biggest challenge we face with online dating. One can no longer mess up, or another option is waiting.
You would think high standards and optionality would be a good combination, but when they turn into seeking perfectionism, they create empty encounters that frustrate many people on dating apps.
Unfortunately, there is a new unwritten rule when dating online: until the app is deleted, there is always the threat of another option. On every date I went on, I found there was a noticeable tension during early dates while both parties were still active on a dating app and probably matched/chatting with other people.
This isn’t fair to the people who might not make the best first impression, but once you get to know them over time, they warm up in their presence.
For example, say you are on a first date, and the other person spills their water. Naturally, they were noticeably flustered the rest of the date, but otherwise, it went well. Before dating apps and optionality, you might have seen no harm in going on a few more dates. With dating apps, there is a chance you get in your car and accept a date the next night with a different person.
Personally, I didn’t walk Julia to her car on our first date because I was so nervous by the end. Luckily, the date went well until that point, or else it would have been a valid strike against me. Julia extended grace for that mistake, and the rest is history.
You could have someone who checks off every box in the world, but there is a misstep in early dating, and you don’t wait to find out the real person—even movies and TV don’t portray love as perfect. If someone meets your first principles and a few other standards are there, have a little grace and enjoy getting to know someone else. Don’t put all the pressure in the world on a few dates.
#4 - Find a Trustworthy Source
The next stage after matching and going on a few dates is the conversation of dating exclusively and deleting the app. Suppose you get to this stage after previous poor dating app encounters. In that case, there is likely a relief mindset, which makes it easy to ride the momentum and dive into dating this person.
Dating apps have intensified something that I call “borderless dating.” Basically, you can be from anywhere and match with someone you meet online. This often occurs in big cities where you don’t know the other person from any other context. You don’t know their family, friends, co-workers, or anything else other than the life they have portrayed from the dates you’ve been on.
Before going into the dating deep end, it’s vital that you hear from references who know the person and actually know them well. Fortunately, I’m from Nashville, where Julia and I met, so she could slowly gain comfort with me through my local family and friends. But she moved here from Florida, which could have made it difficult for me to have reliable references (Luckily, she had already developed a great Nashville community that I could trust).
There is a reason why social media platforms thrive off of mutual friends, followers, connections, etc. For us to trust the platform, we need to trust in the value of the content. A huge influence in interacting with people online is seeing someone you trust also interacting with that person. Facebook popularized this as mutual friends, and I historically have put my trust in this concept.
There is no mutual friends feature on dating apps. Thus, there is an anxiety of not knowing the other person from anyone and questioning whether or not you can trust who they say they are. That is why many early dating conversations attempt to make some sort of mutual connection. Whether that’s by work, neighborhood, college, or anything else, it’s so important you can get some comfort from a 3rd party that can attest to the person’s character before you date them.
#5 - Respect One Another
Because of our complex society and culture, we know the psychology of finding love can be unnecessarily complicated. We compound this problem by combining our media-induced false reality with real life. When we venture down this hole, we start to view ourselves as the main character, accepting nothing other than our complete happiness as the end result.
Since the majority of dating now takes place on dating apps, it’s easier to speed recklessly toward happiness and forget about the innocent pedestrians who might be in harm’s way.
I remember in the early days of the Apple App Store when I would download any free app for the fun of it and test out the service. It was free, so why not check it out? And if the service wasn’t great, I would delete the app and find another one - no harm, no foul. This “no repercussions” mindset with online platforms is toxic when applied to dating apps. We must remember that the other end of the algorithm is another human being.
Our algorithmic lifestyle is conditioned to optimize every aspect of life for the satisfaction of the present. However, recklessness is not the way we treat people.
I wish I could say I respected every person I matched, messaged, or went out with. However, I fell victim to dehumanizing the other person using the algorithm. Looking back, there is zero reason why I could not give a courteous text to someone I had decided to no longer pursue. I know it’s hurtful because I would have liked to have heard it from a few people.
Dating apps are not virtual reality—they are real life. You never know what psychological damage could result from your recklessness on a dating app. Remember to respect one another.
Dating
(Note: I will describe the dating portion of the post from a Christian point of view. My wife Julia and I believe in Jesus and found that following Him while dating created a firm foundation for our relationship. Even if you don’t believe in Jesus, these same dating principles can provide a solid framework to ensure you pursue someone with your best intentions. And - hopefully - this will reveal to you how good it is to pursue a relationship with someone who will keep your best intentions in mind, meanwhile revealing to you how Jesus longs for the same in a relationship with you.)
Welcome to the dating section of this post! Below, I describe how Julia and I went about dating after we deleted Hinge. Why write this part? Because the complexity of dating doesn’t stop once you get off a dating app. Actually, if dating for you is like it was for Julia and me, the most complex challenges are still to come.
We’ll acknowledge here that this is not an all-encompassing guidebook to guarantee you successfully make it from dating to marriage. I hope to speak some sort of clarity to how you see dating. I’m confident I can do this because I did not see dating clearly when I first started dating Julia. I had been through a few relationships where I was a poor leader, and then I also had pursued others who did not meet my first principles. Seeing as these relationships didn’t last, I honestly had to learn how to pursue Julia while dating her.
The same is true for you, too—you must figure out dating along the way. Your relationship will look completely different from mine and Julia’s, but fortunately, the underlying truth of who we are called to be is still the same. I outlined how dating has changed over time in the Society's Standards section. Still, the same fundamental truth has always remained in relationships: wanting to be fully known and fully loved by someone else.
To understand this, there are two models that we should look to in order to help us see how to date someone:
Jesus
Other men/women who you respect what their relationship with their spouse looks like
Dating Model #1: Jesus
The average Bible has about 1000-1500 pages. While typing this on a plane, my small travel Bible has 692 pages. For many people, it’s the longest book they will read. The 66 books have unique writing styles that form this narrative of God’s story.
In a book with this much content, surely there’s a dedicated section to how we should date one another. Actually, the opposite is true; there is almost nothing written in the Holy Scriptures about how a man and woman should “date.” A concept that we as a society idolize so much is hardly mentioned in the book, which is our moral foundation. That’s strange, but if we remember our timeline of dating/courtship, the concept of dating has been popularized since the scriptures were written.
Since dating is the usual way to pursue a long-term relationship, we still need some moral guidelines to help us in the process. We can’t just say, “Well, the Bible is old and doesn’t say anything about dating, so we’re free to do it however we want.” To do so would be to discount the authority of all scripture!
While the Bible might not be extensive on how to date, it is definite on life-giving ways to treat one another. And that is dating at its core: treating the other person in a way you both see as mutually beneficial to join a permanent union.
What better example of this than Jesus Christ himself - fully God and fully man who came down from His heavenly throne to dwell with us on earth and sacrifice himself so we can obtain permanent union with Him in heaven… all because He loves us (1 John 4:17-21).
So, let’s look at a few passages where Jesus explains how we are to date one another.
Matthew 22:34-40
Right before Jesus is arrested and crucified by the Jewish religious leaders, He is approached by these Jews and asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” This was an intensely debated topic amongst Jews as different sects had their own opinion on which of the 613 commands was the greatest. This question was posed to try and trap Jesus by thinking He would neglect other areas of the law.
Jesus responds with:
“’37 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Jesus proclaims that loving God with everything we have is the greatest commandment. The beginning of the Bible reveals that we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and nothing changes throughout the remainder of the text, especially not today. Even if you aren’t following God or believing in His Word, you can’t erase being made in God’s image, revealing His character in different ways you live your life.
After loving God, Jesus clearly commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves—that’s how we should date someone. Four types of love are translated from the Greek language in which the New Testament was written. This love referenced by Jesus and the law He refers to is agape, or unconditional, unchanging, or “God-like” love. Agape is very much different from eros, which is a physical, romantic love for one another.
Jesus explains this further in the Gospel of John when He says:
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35
If we love the other person as Jesus loves us, then there should be less difficulty if one person decides dating should end because they don’t foresee an eros love forming. Our Western dating culture distorts this command by forcing every dating encounter to be an eros love. In a reckless pursuit of eros love, we push aside anyone who doesn’t fit that category, which results in heartache from abandoning our call to love our neighbor.
Before I understood this, I always concluded, “Dating is messy.” Wrong. People are messy when we continually neglect the commandment to love our neighbor as yourself.
Don’t idolize a pursuit of eros love above loving God and loving others. Remember these commandments and who we are made in the image of, and God will bless you in your dating pursuit (Matt. 6:26).
Matthew 19:1-12
Now, say you get to the point in dating where you and your partner sense an eros love is forming. In our culture, this is commonly agreed upon by physically loving the other. We’re conditioned to follow this instinct because of the literal years of love stories we consume that tell us this is the next step. I’m not going to run a hit piece on premarital sexual relations (sadly, I would be a hypocrite), but instead, I’m going to explain how dating, according to the text, was the most fruitful thing Julia and I did.
Julia and I naturally sensed an eros love forming in our relationship a few months into dating. We began to experience longer dates, providing more intimacy in our time together. Quickly, we would find ourselves in situations where physical love could have taken over.
One day, Julia initiated the conversation, “What are our physical boundaries?” Right then, it occurred to me that I was a poor leader because I did not already clearly state the expectations. Our eros love was forming in the gray, and when that happens, one heat-of-the-moment decision can change everything.
We then mutually agreed that we would follow God’s command in that a marriage covenant and becoming one through sex would happen together.
Why? Well, I asked myself that question a lot. I’ll give some Biblical context, but ultimately, it simply showed Julia that I was not only committing myself to her in marriage because of her body. It also proved that I had her best intentions in mind, and protected us from heartache had our relationship ended before marriage. If we were to get married, it was going to be based on how she loved God and loved others .
So what does Jesus say about this? Again, only a little.
Jesus gets asked a question from the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 19: Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? To understand the context of this question better, the Jewish culture was for a boy and girl to marry in their puberty years, so a topic like premarital sex wasn’t something that was even an issue. Instead, the debate was always around divorce.
Jesus answers this question on divorce by saying:
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ [a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ [b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Jesus initially doesn’t opine on the law's legality like the Pharisees want; instead, He returns to the reality of how we’re made in God’s image.
Seeing as the Pharisees don’t get their answer, they specifically refer to Moses saying that a man can give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away (Deuteronomy 24:1). Jesus then interprets the law by saying:
“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Jesus explains that laws on divorce were necessary because of our hard hearts, but, as Jesus said in verses 4-6, this is not how God intended His creation to be. Remember, we are made in God’s image; no one should separate what God has brought together. Our sinfulness ruins God’s original plan never to separate.
Earlier in Jesus’s ministry, He delivers His famous sermon on the mount, where he states: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matt. 5:28).” The sin is already present long before a premarital or adulterous sexual action takes place, and it’s because of our heart condition. We can’t look to sex as a cure for our heart condition that only Jesus can satisfy.
At this point, even Jesus’s disciples are confused by the teaching (they didn’t have Bible Gateway open on another browser tab) and ask, “10 Isn’t it better to not marry?” Jesus responds, “11 Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given… 12(b) The ones who can accept it should accept it.”
Jesus agrees with the disciples that not everyone is called to a life of marriage. Still, if you date someone and feel an eros love forming, you should accept Jesus’s word. From everything that I have in my life to testify to, Julia and I dating with Christ as our example was the best thing we ever did, and it showed His love for us all the more.
Dating Model #2: Those You Respect
My wife Julia always laughs at how many “theories” I have. Even if I’m rooted in my faith, our postmodern Western world is rooted in finding absolute truth. Since we live in independent freedom, we can believe what we want.
This thought process is called orthodoxy, which means “correct belief.” From Aristotle to Elon Musk, Westerners are always looking for the next best ~ correct ~ belief. Western Christianity is no different. Even though we share a correct belief in Jesus, hundreds of different denominations try to interpret correct beliefs in other aspects of the scriptures.
But there’s another side to orthodoxy that Westerners don’t overly pursue: orthopraxy, which means “right practice.” When it comes to living out our beliefs, we’d rather talk about them than actually do them. As followers of Jesus, we are prone to knowing and believing in Him but interpreting scripture for that to be enough and not practice His teachings.
What do orthodoxy and orthopraxy have to do with dating?
Personally, I went into dating with a lot of correct belief but very little correct practice. I am blessed with parents who have gone through the peaks and valleys of life and still stand together unified in their marriage. I also have other people in my life who have healthy relationships I respect. I knew how dating should look, but when it came time to find a suitable partner, I still had no clue how to practice what I knew was right.
Thus, I consciously tried to seek out those people whom I respected for how they dated, became engaged, and married their partner. I needed their help knowing how to lead in the manner that the Apostle Paul writes about in Philippians 2:5-11 of imitating Christ Jesus in your relationships.
Catching Foxes
We had a couple at our church who did several premarital counseling sessions with Julia and me, during which we walked through the book Catches Foxes by John Henderson. The title of the book is from Song of Songs 2:15:
Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.
Before arriving at marriage, apparently, Julia and I needed to catch foxes to prevent them from ruining our vineyard of love. I was self-righteous about this, as I believed we had caught almost everything necessary in our one year of dating.
Very quickly, like the first session, situations arose in our discussions that were real problems. When I thought we were on the same page, it turned out that we were not even in the same book. The only way for this to come to light was by having a structured time without distractions and learning from our counselors.
In these conversations with our counselors, I experienced true, non-self-serving love. Until then, I had said all the right things to Julia and practiced them, too (hence why she agreed to marry me), but I was still coming to grips with making a lifetime commitment to her.
My perspective was still shifting from man-centeredness to God-centeredness. In this process, many of my fears weren’t based on future horrible sins against Julia but on inadequacies that I knew were present in my relationships with other people. It took bringing these into the light with Julia to finally realize that these were also present in my relationship with the Lord.
A good orthodoxy for me is continually asking myself, “Who is at the center of your relationship?
If my orthopraxy is centered around Jesus, all foxes will be eradicated. But if the answer is Davis Dyer, then I know myself, and I know my default orthopraxy is to let foxes hide in the vineyard.
Best Friend
Oh, you’re the best friend that I ever had
I’ve been with you such a long time
You’re my sunshine and I want you to know
That my feelings are true, I really love you
Oh, you’re my best friend
“You’re my Best Friend” by Queen
I remember the first time that I told Julia she was my best friend. We were walking at Sevier Park in Nashville, and she kind of stopped and said, “Really?” I then affirmed her by saying how much I love spending time with her. She told me that I was her best friend too and it was a cute, sweet, all the above moment.
But it was essential in our relationship. Nashville has such a perception culture attached to it. Everything is about being seen and, more importantly, who you are seen with. A downside of dating online is it allows you to search for someone who will make your life more interesting at scale. Online dating encourages a world that says:
Find someone who will fulfill your needs right now
Find someone who has a status
Find someone who has money
Find someone who has power
Find someone you can post
None of this ensures that you will like the other person even remotely. You might physically find that person attractive, but that is about it.
Nothing is more apparent than relationships in which the couple does not like spending time together. Every encounter ends in conflict, and it can get exhausting to be around their unrelenting spirit toward each other. Unfortunately, people can choose to stay in these relationships where they don’t necessarily like the other person in order to keep money, power, status, fame, etc.
When I look at people who have had decades-long marriages, I always revere the ones who still seem to enjoy spending time together and not the ones who have accumulated a list of possessions. Ultimately, if I’m going to be spending every day with this person, I hope to enjoy their presence!
But that’s not to say every moment is rosy. We’re only a couple of months into marriage, but Julia and I can attest to the fact that we’ve spent time at odds with each other. Fortunately, we can quickly correct who is at the center of our relationship because it’s probably not Jesus when we’re at odds. At the end of the day, Julia is my best friend. I can’t imagine reconciling differences if Julia and I didn’t like spending time together.
The Unchanging Truth About Dating
Even in our world of optionality, society has decided to push toward a future of probability. The more variables we add, the harder this is to accomplish—one might even say it’s impossible. Why do we do this?
Because we want control and power over our own lives. We want to feel like we have the final say and can chart a better future for ourselves. We don’t want to feel dependent on circumstances; instead, we want to be justified in our way of thinking and doing on earth.
Dating apps are just another way that we feel like we have power in our lives and are not relying on something beyond our control. However, on closer examination, Julia and I had about a 0.001% chance of meeting had it not been for Hinge. She moved to Nashville from Florida, and I have plenty of community, with Nashville being my hometown. The more we reflected, the more we concluded that so many different twists and turns happened beyond our control, ultimately leading us to meet one another.
While it’s true that an algorithm’s work is based on probability, we are created by a God whose work is based on His sovereignty, which can often look improbable to us. He loves to enter your story and change things in ways that make you think, “How did that just happen?” I can testify to this!
The difference is who takes credit for His work. Is it for your personal glory, or do you choose to glorify Him?
Our Western world is structured for success on earth through personal freedom. Thus, our individualism can make us believe we are the result of our work. But I always found something missing in this pursuit of self-glorification…
At the core of our created image, we desperately want to be fully known and fully loved. In this search, one cannot have control and power over this. Why? Because it takes another person to fully know and love you. You can’t do it on your own - you must trust someone else with this.
God is our one true partner in being fully known and fully loved. If we choose not to hide from Him but instead submit to His good plan, we find ultimate freedom. As a result of His good plan, we can reconcile the ups and downs of loving other people - especially in dating. Paul writes this to the church in Corinth:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-13
In order to be fully known and fully loved on earth, we must submit ourselves to the other person. It’s not about our self-glorification but instead about reflecting the love of Christ through our love of other people. That is not to say you won’t get hurt trusting other people, but God’s plan is to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.
Dating through an algorithm is simply a new way for God to carry out His work among His people. If God controls the birds in the air and the fish in the sea, then how much more is He sovereign over a dating app?!
Additional Dating App Best Practices:
Please don’t determine your self-worth based on one encounter with someone you could not possibly have known existed if it were not for this algorithm.
There’s no such thing as “love at first sight” on a dating app. Throw out the Romeo and Juliet playbook and instead embrace the possibility of the same outcome of love.
Much like social class dating, which has plagued our society for centuries, don’t make your first principle around achieving a higher social class. This is mainly because this criterion is a sliding scale that will never be fully attainable. After all, there is always someone better.
Lying is a huge red flag (duh)… First Date Blindness occurs because you don’t know the other person's previous reputation, so if they lie about it to a complete stranger, then run.
Where do you see wedding rings? Not at Tin Roof on a Friday night. I spent too much time in the wrong places looking for a wife. You don’t start a relationship where you ultimately want to end up. That’s why dating apps provide an excellent space to set the narrative fresh.
Don’t let some software developers determine your self-worth because they have an algorithm that says who’s hot and who’s not. Our culture can’t seem to break the mold of middle school popularity standards.
Guys Guidebook
This section is for the ladies who are trying to figure out guys on dating apps (not an exhaustive list by any means and also very much light-hearted):
No guys have good individual pictures. I remember trying to get some of me and always cropping myself in photos with friends and family. I actually lean toward it being a red flag if a guy has good individual pictures.
Trucks for guys = dogs for girls
Accounting & finance bros are going to have a process for everything. You’ve been warned.
Guys who have sports teams in their pictures mean you’re going to be dating that team, too. Go ahead and learn the players, coach, and last five seasons of results.
Guys are not on the hunt for the best margs and queso in town. Any guy who has that as a prompt is just pandering to the girls
Pay close attention to what season you match and date a guy in. Nothing is official until you’ve seen him through an entire fall football season.
Any guy who is lengthy in his writing prompts cares a ton and is worth going on a few dates with. Or he just wants someone to listen to him?
The other girl in his picture is probably his sister, and he’s too dumb to realize that it’s not a great look on a dating app.
If he has a dog, it’ll be a little longer until you become the first priority. It’ll be even longer if he has a truck.