If you’re winding your way through the complex canyons of the dating world, what are you looking for?
We live in an ever changing, fascinating, and at times sad culture. I used to listen to podcasts when I worked out each morning, but now I tend to watch a variety of shows. Anything to occupy my mind while I’m rowing for an hour! So I recently saw “Love Island USA” pop up on Peacock and thought I’d see what it was about. I rarely watch reality TV, but nothing else was drawing my attention on this particular morning, and I didn’t want to spent a lot of time searching before I started working out… so I started the show.
As I watched it, my first thought was ‘is this seriously how people evaluate each other nowadays?’ After working for years with couples, living life, etc. wisdom hopefully leaves us with a little more longing for depth, complexity, and a willingness to do the hard work that’s needed for true intimacy.
Watching only one episode left me with as sadness for both the participants and editors, as the show seems to be largely about physical attraction and sex. I know people are longing for something so much more than what this show portrays, though the editors have either done some major editing or deliberately choose participants who seem to have the depth of a shot glass. The show left me wishing I could sit down with each participant, explore their stories, and shake them awake! There is so much more to life than what they now seem to know!!
If you are in the dating arena and looking for only a sexual connection, I would encourage you to develop yourself more, as well as look for more in your dating life. It’s not that sexual attraction is not important, it’s more that it’s like living life eating candy. One day you wake up and find yourself anemic, diabetic, and with rotting teeth. There is no lasting health to a relationship built only on sex.
That being said, sex is a wonderful part of life, and when it’s combined with other important relational realities can be like a long drawn-out seven course meal. For many couples, sex lasts about as long as it takes to drink a shot, when it should be like a meal with good wine and your best friend, that you sit and enjoy until the wee hours of the morning. If we settle for less, we either don’t know how good sex can be, or we don’t know how good life can be when we have true relational connection as well. You can have the entire package, but our culture seems to suggest that eating dessert everyday is all the relational nutrition we need. Not true.
True connection requires: 1) knowing self, i.e. without knowing the depth of who you are you cannot share it with another, this includes your whole journey thus far in life; 2) trust and ongoing vulnerability, i.e. without trust and vulnerability you can’t actually share yourself and be connected; 3) a desire to shape and mold yourself to fit the needs of your ‘other’ without losing yourself in the process, i.e. this needs to occur reciprocally; 4) a desire not only to receive but to give, i.e. to build your partner up, reciprocal giving versus taking creates a healthy long-term relational goodness. There’s much more than this, but these elements allow for us to be seen in life. Being seen, experiencing safety and security when we are seen, and continual growth are essential elements in a relationship that holds any value.
Someone loving us well, and us loving another well, also involves confronting each other for the sake of growth. We are always supposed to be growing, and those closest to us often have the most knowledge about needed areas of growth. A good relationship promotes growth, and involves two individuals who are continuing to grow as individuals. Individual growth brings newness, excitement, and forward momentum to the relationship. As in all arenas of life: there is no such thing as stagnation, there is only movement toward growth or decay, toward life or death.