As of November 2013 I started up my life coaching practice yet again, only this time I will be servicing the Salt Lake Metro Region. In an effort to re-brand myself I will be moving this website to my new website, rdccoach.blogspot.com. The articles that are available for you to read on this website will slowly be taken down and moved (as well as expanded) to my new website.

Showing posts with label the one. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the one. Show all posts

Sunday, October 30, 2011

What is the "it" connection?

I’ve only slightly touched on this topic a few times on this website, but I feel like I need to go a little deeper. So in this article I’m going to answer the question of what the “it” connection is.

“It” is that feeling you get when you know that he or she compatible with you. It is exciting and thrilling. When you leave that person you smile and think “that was so wonderful,” and you feel attraction for them —That’s it. I don’t need to say more because I know you’re already thinking in your head, ”Yes! That’s exactly what I’m looking for, that’s what I want in a relationship! –But it’s just so darn hard to find!”. And now you’re probably thinking about how many dates you’ve been on that fizzled and were “unromantic” and that there was no “spark”.

So what is that feeling anyway? –If you don’t like life to be spoiled then I recommend you close this website, power off your computer, lock you door, and go to sleep and forget about all that I have said so far. Deny the fact that I even brought this topic up. –the “it” connection is a passionate feeling you get right after your brain turns off. If you’re dating around looking for love and you expect it to manifest itself in some form similar to this, then I have to break it to you, but that’s not love, and just because you feel that way doesn’t mean that it will lead into a loving relationship.






As I mentioned in another article: Loving relationships require sacrifice, time, commitment, and trust, among other things. Love isn’t passion. If a person were to purely follow passion, they would head down many dark corridors before realizing that passion got them nowhere and that they were missing a significant aspect of their life called love. Many of the people who follow the passionate path eventually meet love, but it is typically after they are lying on a hospital bed giving birth to a child who, out of force for 9 months, developed a deep connection with that person.—okay, so that's a little harsh and only applies to women. Still, Passion and Love are NOT the same thing.

I’m not saying to avoid passion all together. Passion is the seasoning that makes a steak better, but true steak fans realize that a good piece of steak tastes good on its own. Love is the same way. You don’t necessarily NEED passion in order to have good love, but if love needs a little extra boost then it’s there to help.

So how does this all apply to you (you’re probably sick of that—I make every article apply directly to you, even though some of it gets really deep and seems like useless knowledge): If you go on a first date with someone who seems incredibly nice but doesn’t create that “spark” that you were looking for. Do not dismiss her or him. The important aspect of the relationship isn’t the passion. If he or she can provide for your needs. Whether those needs are spiritual, mental, emotional, or financial, if there is even the slightest possibility that he or she can fulfill those, then do not let him or her go until you know that he or she cannot. There.
That’s a simple enough rule, isn’t it?
If you’re a guy, I have to tell you something that you’re going to LOVE hearing. Most of the models I have met (my side hobby is film making, so I have met a few), have told me that the person they ultimately go for is the nice guy who can support them. True, they may go in and out of relationships with jerks who they feel quite passionately about, but when it comes down to settling down, the person they ALWAYS marry is the one who is nicest to them. What that means is that eventually people with experience (and you don’t doubt that that type of person has experience, do you?) ALWAYS end up with the nice guy. Nice guys finish last after all...and by that point, the girl doesn’t ever want to leave them.

So just to recap: If you want to have an awesome relationship with someone someday, then focus on what really counts. Don’t worry about the passion. It can always be worked out with time. Eventually, you can feel that "It" connection with anyone.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Being the Right Person

Although I have referenced one article on my blog more than any other, I don’t feel I covered the topic as sufficiently as I should. If you are an avid reader of my articles you’ll know just how true this statement is: In order to find the right person, you need to be the right person for him or her. There are no substitutes for personal development—if you want to marry someone amazing, you will have to be their equal: Amazing. If you want to come home every night to someone who will take care of you, comfort you when you are down, and provide for your needs, then you too will have to take care of them, comfort them when they are down, and provide for their needs. No amount of seduction or manipulation can convince your ideal person to marry you.

The interactions you receive from other people are directly related to your own personality and present state. It is not uncommon for people to complain about others, and the way that they act, and yet those doing the complaining are also the ones with the biggest problems in that area. In other words, the old saying is true: “we hate the things in others that we really hate in ourselves.” Most of the flaws that we see in other people are flaws that we ourselves have. This comes in two forms: either we fail to see our own flaws and attribute them in other people, or we create those flaws in other people by carrying them ourselves. The latter occurs when we manifest a flaw and others see it as acceptable behavior (subconsciously, mind you) and they begin to mimic our behavior when they communicate with us.
Take for instance when we claim that another individual is stubborn; that person will refuse to back down from their own beliefs and agendas, yet we fail to realize that we too fail to back down from our own. We are so preoccupied by the fact that the other person just wants things their way, that we don’t realize that we just want things OUR way as well.

Another good example (although inverted) of this is a positive person; this does not just work in one direction after all. When we are positive, other people around us tend to be a little more positive as well. When we are hopeful for a bright future, others will desire to share in that future. When we are happy, other people want to be happy as well. Yes, there are negative people in this world who simply cannot get over their negativity, but such people are the rare occurrences that burden our mind and drag us down to where we don’t see the other examples; the ones of people who become positive when we are positive. Another old saying comes to mind: “When Momma’s happy, everybody’s happy.”

When we can find our own flaws and learn to deal with and correct them, we will begin to have a greater appreciation and respect for other individuals. It is this form of respect that can cause us to look beyond the flaws in other people, a guy or girl, and take a liking to them. If they too have developed this respect, it will be easy for the two of you to fall in love with one another. When you see the flaws in each other, you will realize that you are both striving to improve on yourselves and that one day these flaws will be replaced by others.





To make it easier for others to have that respect for you, you should develop yourself so that you are compatible with the type of person you wish to marry. No two people are the same, and no two people fall into the same category. If you wish to marry someone who has money, you need to learn the attributes that such an individual appreciates, such as frugality, or a wealthy taste. If you have no idea what it means to save money, or you have no clue what the difference in class is between a Volvo and a Corvette, then you need to develop those skills and attributes. Another good example is the level of spirituality: if you want to marry someone who is VERY spiritual, then you had better know the scriptures equally well, and attend church every Sunday, because “very spiritual” individuals have learned to value those specific things.

No one said getting married was easy; “it will be the hardest decision you ever make.” But more important than the actual decision is the processes which you take to prepare yourself for marriage. If you are not ready physically, mentally, or emotionally for marriage then you should focus on preparing yourself in that manner first.
I appreciate the question posed in a famous movie “What is the point of worry about your beard, while your head is going to be taken?” the story behind this question refers to a community threatened by war. The wise elder of the community points out to the leader of their bunch that they are focusing too much on the unimportant aspects of their lives while there are more important matters to resolve first.
It is very true that you will need to grow up and become a man or woman before you can marry a man or woman. Learning all of the intricate ways in which you can attract a man or woman is not going to help you if you have not developed yourself sufficiently to proceed with that attraction. Too many people assume that finding the right person to marry is all about finding him or her. They assume that the reason why they are not having success is because the right person hasn’t come along yet. –-This is a grave error; one which you could devote your whole life to searching for the perfect person for you, and one in which most people who do eventually get married after succumbing to the exhaustion of their search. They settle for someone who they determine to make things work with, only because they have resolved that there is no “perfect” person out there for them to marry.

Being the right person for the right person entails developing yourself so that you are exactly what some other poor, lonely person is looking for. The beauty of developing yourself in such a manner is that it empowers you and gives you a greater selection of people to choose from. Most people of the opposite sex share the same or similar ideals about what the “perfect” husband or wife entails. By developing these attributes, you will automatically pass their hardest criteria and win their hearts. You will then be in a position in which you may choose the best candidate for you to pair off with; you will not have to merely take whatever is offered to you.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Attitude Affects Your Dating Life

As I am sure you have heard numerous times: “attitude determines everything”. Let’s face it: dating is hard; it is one of the hardest things you will ever go through simply because dating leads up to the hardest choice you will ever make (marriage).
I have stressed time and time on this blog that dating takes time. You can’t expect things to just fall into your lap, to meet that perfect guy or girl and to have courting them be easy it will take time and devotion. You have to work at it every day in order to be successful at dating (i.e. to meet your long term dating goals, usually marriage).
You also can’t be afraid of dating because of a fear of failure. Everyone will fail at least a couple times before they get good at a particular skill. Every athlete in the history of sports has had major defeats and setbacks that jarred them and made them question that what they were doing was the right thing to do. I am sure that you have felt lonely before; that you have questioned whether that young lady or young man liked you back; and you have probably felt frustrated about the whole "dating thing" and wished there were a better way.
All of these negative thoughts can bring you down.

“Attitude determines everything”, if you reflect on the negative aspects of your life, such as how you wish so desperately that you had a boyfriend or girlfriend, your life will be shaped by that desperation. You will come off to people you just met as though you are desperate and that you are starving for their attention. If, on the other hand, you reflect on how any day this week you might meet your future spouse, then your life will be shaped positively. You will be looking for that opportune moment to meet someone new, and you might even go out of your way just on the hope that that special someone is just around the corner.
Finding your future husband or wife is hard work. It takes years of sifting through dates to realize things about yourself and about who you want to marry, and then to prepare yourself to find and woo that person. Should you reflect on how hard it is though? I do not think we are meant to reflect on the difficulty of this task. In the beginning, when you fall in love, chemicals are activated in your body that heighten the experience and add a “magical” touch to your relationship. By this point in your relationship there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome before you actually marry that individual. I do not think that we are meant to reflect too heavily on how hard things are; we are meant to focus on making things a little better each day.

There is a common saying of which you have probably heard: “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. As you know, Rome was one of the greatest civilizations in ancient times. It took several hundred years for Rome to reach its height of greatness. Thousands of people devoted their lives to bringing it to that point.--If you want something “great” out of a relationship, then you will have to devote your whole life to it; of course relationships don’t end at marriage, they continue forever. Will it be hard? Of course.
However, rather than focus on how hard dating or having relationships is, you should focus on how much it is worth it to you.
Is it worth it to put up with hard times? Is it worth it to have to date ten jerks before finding one really amazing person? Is it worth it to fix your bad habits in order to please the guy or girl of your dreams? Is it worth it to feel lonely now, in order to motivate your to find that special someone?




Dating and having relationships is hard, but it is completely worth it in the end!
Try to remain optimistic. Whether you are happy or sad about your current situation, you are still going to be in your current situation, so why not be optimistic?
That brings up my final point: you will remain in your current situation until you change your situation. YOU have to change it. No one else can change for you. No one who doesn’t like you now will suddenly like you in the future unless you change; they aren’t going to change for you.
But you need to change for yourself and not for the guy or girl. When you change for yourself, you make lasting changes. When you change for other people, you revert to your old behavior when you stop trying to impress those other people. As your relationship progresses and you both mature, you will eventually realize that you never had to impress that young man or woman and you will stop trying to impress them and start acting normal. At that point, if you didn't change for the benefit of yourself, you will slip back into the kind of person you were before you attempted to impress him or her.
Even if someone changes in your behalf, unless they relate it back to themselves, their changes aren’t going to be lasting either. You should not expect or rely on other people to change in order to love you the way you are. You should not make demads of people that they change so that the two of you can get along better. Instead, do yourself a favor and make yourself in to the kind of person that will please the kind of person you want to marry.

Change is always hard, but it is always worth it. Keep that in mind as you decide from now on that you are going to change and adapt to get along with others rather than expect them to fix their problems to get along with you.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

5 ways to Mean Something to Him or Her

Everyone wants to be important in the life of the person they like. It isn’t enough to like a guy or girl—you want to be liked back! Wouldn’t it be great if the magic genie could make people fall in love with us, or cupid could soar down from the sky and shoot them with one of those special arrows that make people fall in love with the first person they see. –Things just don’t work that way though.

I have come up with a list of things YOU can do to make him or her see you as something meaningful in their life:

  1. Be the right person, for the right person . First things first, you need to develop qualities that the other person would see as helpful for them, or meaningful to their existence.
  2. Make them a priority. If you don’t make them a priority, why should they make you a priority? If you want them to drop everything for you, then you had better drop everything for them too. Relationships work in both directions, and if you want to have a good relationship you better make the relationship a priority in your life.
  3. Devote the right amount of time to them. Relationships take time to develop, if you aren’t making the effort to talk to him or her on a regular basis, then it is you who is holding the relationship back; and probably without knowing it.
  4. Take the right steps. Don’t get caught up into thinking that you need to be friends before you can enter into a relationship with someone. Friendships CAN lead to courting relationships, but if you don’t make any steps towards a real relationship, such as asking them out on a date, or having serious conversations with them , then you will probably never mean anything more to him or her than just a friend.
  5. Be nice. You may not realize it, but sometimes your behavior can be a little rude. Everyone has their moments, but if your moments are too frequent, then you might just be scaring people away. Try being nice to the other person—VERY NICE—and see how that works for you. –Don’t allow yourself to be walked all over, but exercise a little charity and you will see wonders happen with your relationship.

Although you can’t force anyone to like you, or to see you as relationship material, you can do things that improve your chances of them seeing you as meaningful to them.

Since this article is short, I’m going to propose a question for you to think about. Feel free to answer with your own experiences in the comment box below: What are some things others have done to make you feel like they are important to you, such as friends, bf/gf, family members, etc.?

Sunday, December 19, 2010

What Society Got Wrong about Love

Let me first re-state something I’ve only briefly touched on in a few of my articles: you can grow to love anyone. There is an ancient debate about what Truth is—whether there is such a thing as absolute truth or whether all truth is relative. But if you believe in one true God, you already know that there is such a thing as absolute truth and that God knows all truth—whether or not we as mere mortals understand the truth or not. Therefore, the definition of Love has one actual definition; we just may not understand it yet. In fact, societies have misused the term to the point where it has strayed from the original truth it once held.—Simply put, society has love mixed up with other things.








There are two primary concepts that society associates with the word “love”; neither are 100% accurate:
The first concept can be replaced with the word “passion”, or the sexual desire for another person. This sexual desire is the combination of psychological connections and chemical reactions that your body produces. (e.g. hormones, etc.)
The second concept frequently associated with the word “love” has a few different terms that are synonymous with it, such as “the warm fuzzy feeling” and the “feeling like you can’t live without them”, or in other words, that you want to be around them all the time. This type of “love” is associated with the feeling of excitement; it is often the deciding factor when someone says they “click” with their partner. For lack of a better word, this concept will be labeled “infatuation” for the rest of this article.

Neither of these concepts can be limited to just one person of the opposite sex, because you can be infatuated with a couple different people at once, and you can obviously feel passion for many people of the opposite sex. You can even have a passionate, chemical or psychological, connection with someone of the same sex; but
again, neither of these two concepts are 100% accurate about love. When used together, these terms come close to the true meaning of Love.—Passion and infatuation are both a part of love, but there is more to the true meaning of love than just these two byproducts of it.

Love is primarily a verb, or an action word, that over time has been modified in the English lexicon to also become a noun. There are several languages that separate the verb from the noun and there are many languages that separate the word for passion from the word for infatuation.
This may appear obvious, but love also isn’t limited to male-female relationships, but over time, the word changed significantly enough for people to stop using it as often in other senses. For instance, “The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (Samuel 18:1). This is a good example of an old, accurate use of the word. David, who later became King David and Jonathan, the son of the present king, were very close friends. They cared for one another, they understood one another. They wanted to remain in each other’s lives; and because of this Jonathan did everything he could to prevent King Saul from killing David. We can learn from this story that another part of love is caring for another individual, sometimes going beyond our comfort zone to do so.

Another good illustration of the concepts above would be when your mother gave birth to you. She put aside her physical well-being to bring you into the world. There were plenty of chemicals and other things floating around at the time and you both shared a very close physical connection (passion). She was also obviously obsessed with you and probably felt like she wouldn’t want to live if you died*(infatuation). But she also cared deeply about you and wanted you to have a successful life; she risked her own life in order for you to have yours (caring). Thankfully, you survived birth and are here today because of that Love.

The best example of Love is actually the Savior. He gave up his entire life up, from birth to death, in order to make it possible for you to one day have a perfect body and become sinless and return to Heavenly Father’s presence. He suffered, He bled from every pore, He took on the consequences of your sins, and He died publicly on the cross because He loved you. He also loved Heavenly Father, which is why He did everything He was told to do.—You can learn a lot about Love by studying the Atonement, [i.e. praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Death on the cross, and the Resurrection from the tomb].

Even though society, or the world, might have multiple uses for the word “love”, there is only one kind of Love. Passion and Infatuation might be aspects, or rather byproducts of love; but the real kind of love is manifested when you put yourself out of your comfort zone in order to help other people. It is selflessness and charity. The same kind of love that you have for your parents and family members now will be the same kind of love that you will have for your future spouse, and before you can find someone who will love you in this way, you will need to learn to love her or him this way.

Love is an essential part of having a relationship; it can very powerful as well. It is likely that the people who you think are the best people ever, the ones you look up to, are also incredibly loving people. They have a way of loving everyone around them and because of this, it is easy for you to love and look up to them. But not everyone is easy to love; with some people it can be very difficult to look past their faults and flaws and all of the hurt and pain they have caused you in the past.
We are encouraged by the Savior to “love one another”, to care about them, to take an interest in their lives and to assist them with whatever they stand in need of. The Savior wouldn’t give us such a commandment if we couldn’t fulfill it; and if we can grow to care about anyone then we have the hardest part of love figured out--the other two, after all, can become byproducts.

Remember the initial statement: “You can grow to Love anyone?” Well, you can also cause anyone to love you. If you have a little bit of knowledge, you can create Passion in other people; you can build yourself up and become interesting and put yourself into a position for people to be Infatuated with you; last of all, if you do the right things, you can give people the opportunity to Care about you.

Just like you can and should forgive everyone, you can also love anyone you choose. You can care about another person and feel infatuated with them. This is an exciting bit of information because it puts agency in your hands. You have a choice in the matter of “falling in love”. It isn’t just some random thing that happens to two people. It isn’t a matter of fate. This also means that there isn’t such a thing as “one true love”**, and any two people can love each other in the necessary way for a lasting relationship.

The absolute truth behind love is that any two people can love each other and be perfectly happy spending the eternities together.

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*If you’ve ever met anyone who has lost a baby at birth you’ll understand what I mean when I make that statement.
**This is another term that has multiple meanings and confusion in society. I’m referring to the definition that there isn’t just one person out there who you are destined to fall in love with.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The Plan for Marriage

For starters, I want to announce the special occasion that I have moved all of my articles out of facebook and into the blogger website. I have a feeling this will be much easier for me to organize and help people read and follow what I write.

The topic I wanted to write about today goes along well with the last article I wrote about advancing from one step in a relationship to another. This time I’m going to take a step back and explain some situations that lead up to having a relationship. I’ve heard a couple people talk about how they’re still in a certain “stage” of dating. It is implied, with some of these same people who are in that mindset, that these stages require them to perform a specific “type” of date and that they must be done in a set order.

I would describe this as “The Plan for Marriage”.

Their order typically goes something like this:
Mingling – Group dating – Non-committed Dating – Committed Dating – Courting – and then Marriage.

They point out the specifics behind each type of date, and mostly agree with their reasoning but with some differences. There ideas are:
Mingling is more of a pre-step to building a relationship. It’s going to an activity and saying “hi” to someone and meeting them for the first time. Group dating is designed to put them in a non-awkward position where they can get to know a person a little more and decide who they want to single out for the next type of date, Non-Committed dating, which can be double or single dating in their opinion. It is meant to get to know a person even better, but at the same time, such people will also be dating other people so there isn’t really any ties that bind the pair together. Then comes Committed dating where both people agree that they won’t date anyone else and they “test” out the other person to see if they are worthy of advancing to the next stage. Courting is the final stage to “dating” in such people’s mind and is meant to be some sort of pre-engagement as well as full engagement where they work out their final problems before: Nuh nununuhhh! Marriage. Everyone seems to stop there without explaining marriage, so I’m going to assume that I know what they are talking about.

While this “Plan” for dating sounds well and good, I think there are a bunch of missing pieces as well as parts that have been assumed, some of which are assumed incorrectly. Let me proceed to explain my own “Plan” as I feel it might shed some light on this subject.

For the sake of congruency I’m going to use the same names, however, my definition is slightly different:
Mingling – Dating – Courting – Marriage.

Mingling: This seems to be the same as what everyone agrees that it is. You go to parties, you attend events, you go to gatherings with the same interests as you, and you meet people. You find people who you “connect” with or people who you find attractive and you ask for their phone number or some other means of getting ahold of them in the future.

Dating: Here is where the instant difference comes in. This is more like the concept of “Non-committed” dating where you aren’t tied down to anyone but you’re going on dates to get to know the other person, however, I wouldn’t draw a line between the popular definition of committed and non-committed dating. Dating is dating. Your objective should be to decide if you want to settle down with an individual. You can accomplish this in many ways, and I will touch on this a little further on in this article, but essentially there shouldn’t be a need to make this complex.

Courting: This is where I think most people get thrown off. Of all the articles out that that encourage singles to relearn how to court, not many of them go in depth about what it actually is, and those that do still provide a lot of room for misinterpretation. Courting is very similar to the modern term of “boyfriend/girlfriend” or (and here’s the tricky term) “dating” as in, “I am dating Shelby Tang”. Courting could be described as a diplomatic relationship between two people, one male one female. It is typically initiated verbally and though it is slightly binding, it can be dissolved depending on circumstances. The agreed upon terms are that both parties will choose not to date other people. Think of it as an alliance.

This “alliance” brings trust into the relationship; whereas before trust wasn’t a necessary component and either side could pursue other people. This provides the opportunity to test one’s level of trust in a lower-risk situation. Humans have ingrained in them a need to require trust and most social organizations have methods in which trust is secured; whether it is through a written contract, a computer password, or a specific understanding of information, we desire trust and we expect it in every aspect of our lives. While we are courting, we have the opportunity to share personal information with the other person such as our dreams, goals, and life plans. Lasting relationships are based on the things discussed in courting.

Because both parties have agreed to enter into a strict relationship of trust, there is the benefit of increased comfort and security. Without such comfort and security, it would be difficult to cover the necessary volumes of information that is needed before making further commitments to one another.

Marriage: Marriage is that “further commitment”. Once you have courted sufficiently and are comfortable with one another, love one another, are attracted to one another, understand a great deal about one other, and feel completely safe and secure with one another, then the agreement to get married is initiated. This is called engagement. During engagement, courting continues until the wedding day. After they are married, the couple will continue to develop trust for one another, they will continue to grow with one another, they will continue to love one another and be attracted to one another. If courting were compared to an alliance between two countries, marriage would be a complete union of countries where there are no longer two countries but there is only one country. This doesn’t mean that the end is reached; it means that they have fully agreed to never date or look at another person of the opposite sex. This is the ultimate trust, and they do this because of the benefits that come with it. Both parties benefit from making this agreement.

Now to return to the previous point I made. During the dating period, your objective is to decide if you would like to enter into a (courting) relationship with the other person. Finding is not a part of this stage. All of your finding should take place during the “Mingling” stage, so don’t approach a date as though you are going to “find” someone, as you have already found someone. Think of it as digging through a raspberry patch. Once you find a raspberry, you need to decide if it is worth it to eat it right now or to leave it alone and let it develop more and possibly you will return to the raspberry if someone hasn’t already eaten it. Dating is like examining the berry.

That said, I would like to touch on three kinds of dates: Group dates, double dates, and single dates. Group dates are defined as dates in which many people, as a group, do something, anything, that allows them to get to know each of the members in the group better. Double dates are dates in which four people, two guys and two girls, do something, anything, that allows them to get to know each other better. Single dates are dates between two people, a guy and a girl, in which both people get to know each other. They are personal. However, it is important to understand that the more people in the group, the less you will get to know the other people. One reason for this is time. You can only pay attention to one person at a time and since there are more people trying to get your attention, you will not be able to notice everything about everyone. Try reading the first page of 10 books or reading 10 pages of one book, there is a major difference in the amount of information you get from each scenario.







Theoretically, one could say that over time they could get to know everyone in the group if they go on enough dates as a group with them all. Such people fail to recognize another big benefit provided in single dating, and that is privacy. Most people don’t or won’t open up unless there is some level of trust or safety and security provided to them. In a group, some people don’t like to compete for attention, with others all they do is compete for attention. Both types of people are not being themselves; the first will guard their personality and the second will hype up and lie about their personality just to get attention. In order to truly get to know a person, you have to be alone with them. Yes, there is a risk that going on a single date will be awkward, but there is also a risk that it will be amazing and that you will instantly connect with the other person. You will have to take risks in order to marry the perfect person for you.

Group dates are actually a modern invention. The closest thing to a group date over a hundred years ago was a ball, but even balls were more events where everyone was invited to mingle and get to know the other people in their sphere.

There is a line that ought to be drawn by everyone to make the distinction between “finding” people to date and “getting to know” other people. Once you have “found” someone you would like to date, you should take them out on a date and not waste your time trying to “find” out if they are right for you. In other words, don’t mingle when you could be dating. Make dating a priority to mingling. This may simply mean getting a phone number from a girl who you have mingled with already, or it might mean asking a guy out on a date who you already have his number.

Don’t make finding someone you want to spend eternity with into something that is more complex than it has to be and set yourself apart from other people by getting to know someone and determining if they are worthy to court rather than “searching for the one”.