Tinder, OKCupid, Skout, EHarmony, and HowAboutWe. If you are on a look out for dates – Valentine’s Day or not–you have probably visited these dating apps. There are actually more apps up for grabs for the tech-savvy yet bored and feeling unloved. Indeed, in this time of technological advancement – the smartphones – in particular, looking for that ‘perfect’ date is just a swipe or click away.
According to some dating app users–or at least those who have tried using them–they did so because their lives revolve around work. There are no ‘suitable’ candidates in their workplaces and since they have no time to meet with other people outside work they need to seek the help of dating apps. Some also said they use a dating application just to kill time and quash boredom.
I have not witnessed nor heard of a successful coupling via dating apps except in the local movie, All About You. Here, the characters played by Jennylyn Mercado and Derek Ramsay met through the app in Taiwan, fell in love at first sight, had casual sex and later decided for a live-in arrangement. However, after a series of personality differences, they decided to break up. But to keep up the chemistry and kilig moments of the comeback loveteam (the two first starred in another blockbuster movie, English, Only Please) and for the movie to have this they-live-happily-ever- after feel, the couple decided to settle their differences and opted for marriage instead.
Aside from dating apps, most social media sites and other apps actually give a host of opportunities for getting-to-know-you and dating later. Take the case of my childhood friend, Lourdes Manikan (not her real name), who was working at a household in Cyprus. She met Gregg Banks through a FaceBook chat that progressed to friendship and later on, to romantic love. Today, Lourdes is now Mrs. Banks and the couple are based in the United States in San Francisco Bay Area.
Ellaine Erica (not her real name) was enjoying her single blessedness as a tenant manager in a big mall in Bacolod City. Her fellow manager introduced her to Leonard Lawrence through video calling. She was talking to her friend via Facetime or video call when Leonard showed up asking for a possible Filipina partner. Ellaine was available at that time and gamely joined the conversation. After that, and many communications later, Ellaine and Leonard wed the Filipino way at Ellaine’s hometown in Iloilo. But soon she joined Leonard to his hometown Down Under. The couple has been happily married for five years now enjoying Australia’s goodness.
There may be more stories of successful dating and marriages but do we really need a third party to screen out today’s candidates for dating and later, lifetime partner, to be?
For sure, dating apps or social media sites, don’t work for everyone. There are books available to guide you, young people, aside from the actual experiences of your elders.
Books about relationships and Christian dating may offer great help. Choosing God’s Best by Don Raunikar could help you establish your own standards regarding marriage. Reading this, you may want nothing less than God’s best for you!
In gist, the book said, if you believe that if you are seeking God’s will about who you date, He will lead you to someone that is a true fit for you. It doesn’t mean that your future spouse will be perfect or that you will think alike or always agree on everything. That will never happen — but if you seek God’s guidance, He will lead you to the person who is going to be the best match for you. God pairs us up with people that complement the gifts, talents, and personalities that He has given us – if we let Him.
Take the story of Martha: “I have found this to be true in my own life. The guys I dated before I began dating my husband were not all bad guys. In fact, most of them had many good qualities. We genuinely cared about each other and had fun together. But in each relationship there were things that didn’t feel quite right.
“In some relationships, I found myself compromising some of my values to be more in line with that guy’s. In other relationships, I began to think that some of the things I had wanted in a husband were perhaps more wishful thinking than things that could actually be. Did those caring, sensitive, funny, godly men really exist?
“And so I thought I had finally chosen the right one after several others. But then again, I made the difficult decision to break up with the guy.I don’t want to fall in love with anyone else until heis ‘the right one,’ I told God in my prayers. Since I had not done such a great job of choosing relationships on my own, I decided to let God choose the next one. It was after this that God began unfolding the events that led me to start dating Matt, the man that would become my husband.
“Once I put God in charge of my love life, a funny thing happened. Matt and I are college friends and close buddies, but I had not considered him in a romantic way. Suddenly, I began to see in Matt several of those “husband material traits” that I had been searching for with other guys. I ran down the partial list in my head and realized they were all there.
Godly, Christian man? Check.
Capable of being the spiritual leader in the relationship? Check.
Sensitive? Caring? Funny? Check, check, check!
“As I began to observe his life and how he interacted with others, as well as how wonderfully he always treated me, I decided that there could really be something here. As I prayed about it, I felt like God gave me permissio n to pursue it. Later on, when I prayed about the possibility of marriage, God answered that prayer clearly too. The rest is history. We dated for about 10 months before he proposed.
“And now, after nearly four years of marriage I am so glad I followed God’s leading. It’s not that my husband and I never disagree, or that we do not get on each other’s nerves periodically, but married life is so much simpler when you know that this is the person that God led you to. With that in mind, we know God will see us through whatever difficulties we face in the future. And as I look back on past relationships, I can see why Matt and I are the best match compared to others we each dated.”
Christian teachings said you just have to sleep and your Godly Heavenly created perfect husband or wife will be brought to you at the right time and place. Go on with your life as though there is nothing you need, like you do not feel the need.
You deserve someone who will appreciate you for who God made you to be, encourage you to grow spiritually and embrace all that God has for you, and cherish you as a precious gift from your Heavenly Father. Don’t settle for less than that.
Focus on God and He will bring the perfect partner He has created for you at the right time and when you will see her/him at the first time, like Adam you will say, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ (Genesis 2:23)