Happiness

After a recent talk I did on dating, a woman in her mid 20s asked to speak with me. She explained that she had dated someone before for a long time and thought they would eventually get married. She then said:

‘He was great, but the enjoyment had been missing for a while, so we ended it. Have I lost ‘the One’?’

‘I’ve never laughed so hard. I’m not saying everything has been easy, but it’s going so well’. This is what a friend said to me recently about his new relationship. They’ve been dating for about six months now, and he seemed almost embarrassed by the fact he was enjoying himself.

So a while ago, I wrote an article called ‘The purpose-driven single’. I was 26 years old, loving God, learning a lot and confident that I would be married anytime soon. Fast forward five years, and on the one hand, a lot has changed. On the other hand, not much has. I still don’t like to […]

Online dating is now the second most common way to meet people (after meeting through friends) and it accounts for over 20% current committed relationships and this number is growing. As an introverted, bottom of the career ladder, divorcee, the advert practically wrote itself! In a world where “women’s desirability peaks at 21” once I was ready to be thinking about dating again, I was considered over the hill! I’d been in the mental health world for many years, out of work and my self esteem was pretty low. My last relationship had ended with my mental health playing a large role. I’d been hurt when most in pain and it was hard to consider trusting anyone again. I was ambivalent about wanting someone else in my life.

Some of the people I most admire love themselves really well. They’re not hard on themselves. They give themselves room to grow and figure things out. They like themselves. I find it easy to be around those folks. There’s something special going on with them.

For singles, there’s a lot of pressure these days to find a partner and fall in love — which equates to a lot of pressure to search for that person through dating.

The old saying ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ rings true for very many Christians who met their life partner online.

When I first started dating my wife, we were eating dinner one night and she asked a question that I didn’t think was very controversial: “What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

In my response, I mentioned that I wanted to return to my home state of Mississippi and run for Attorney General, and I also said I wanted four or five children. She looked at me like she was waiting for me to announce that I was joking. I wasn’t.