Dating Advice for Men: What to Do When You’re Looking to Connect

When it comes to dating and relationships, there’s no shortage of dating advice for men out there. For every person looking to find help with forming romantic connections, there’s a blog article, tweet, YouTube guru, or “love expert” eager to chime in with a word or two. In one sense, this article is part of that flood of information, but it is hoped that by setting out a few commonsense ideas you can find a way to help yourself get the most out of your dating experience.

By posing a few questions to help you understand where you’re at and what you hope to accomplish, you can get out of your own way, avoid some of the more common mistakes men make when dating, and form a meaningful relationship. We all come to a subject from a certain viewpoint and so in the interest of full disclosure, this article approaches the issue from a Christian perspective.

Know what you’re getting into

One of the challenges of dating is that people can approach it as though it isn’t like the rest of life. In life, you rarely just stumble into something good. Take your job, for example. You must know what you’re doing and be skilled at it for someone to take a chance and hire you.

Unless you’re one of those guys with an unusual metabolism, if you want to get or stay in shape, you must work at it eat right, get enough sleep, and learn what kinds of workouts you can do to achieve your desired results.

Knowing what you want so that you know what to aim for and have a plan for how to get there is important in about everything else in life, so why wouldn’t that be the case when it comes to dating? Jesus said about following him that if you want to do it, you’d better know what you’re getting into and make sure you can follow through.

…don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’ – Luke 14:28-30

This is great wisdom not just about following Jesus, but about most things in life.

If you want to start dating, you should know what you’re getting into. You’ll have to put yourself out there and be vulnerable. You’ll have to handle people, their emotions, and life stories with gentleness and respect. It may get frustrating at times especially when you don’t find the right person right away, and it may have financial implications as well.

Dating requires you to put in the effort to get to know someone and let them get to know you. Count the cost, know what you’re getting yourself into, and be prepared to put in the work.

Know your priorities

As part of counting the cost and setting your goals, it’s important to know what you’re looking for to know when you’ve found it. The adage “if you aim for nothing, you’re bound to hit it” applies here too. Presumably, you’re dating because you want to meet someone who’ll become your significant other with a meaningful emotional connection.

Ask yourself what you value in a partner. What sort of person do you want them to be, and must they share the same values and outlook as you? From all of this it may be becoming obvious that if you want to date well, it’s good to know yourself well and to be clear with yourself what your priorities are.

This is important because if you know who you are and what you’re about, you’ll be able to filter out women who aren’t a good fit, saving both you and your dates a lot of unnecessary heartache. And if you’re looking for something long-term it will affect your strategy. For instance, you won’t use certain apps or websites whose reputations are for casual hookups because that’s not what you’re about. A Christian should never be looking for quick sex.

Sometimes we look for something we think we need when we’re really looking for something else. If you want to build a life with someone, the foundation of that relationship should be strong.

It’s widely understood that men are visual, meaning that sexual chemistry and looks often rank high in reckoning who to date and become involved with. We’ve missed a trick here, and our priorities and outlook need some adjusting. Looking for a friend and companion – not just going for looks – will take us further.

A pastor from New York who has counseled many couples over the years wrote a book with his wife, entitled The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. In that book, Timothy Keller writes:

“This principle – that your spouse should be capable of becoming your best friend – is a game-changer when you address the question of compatibility in a prospective spouse. If you think of marriage largely in terms of erotic love, then compatibility means sexual chemistry and appeal. If you think of marriage largely as a way to move into the kind of social status in life you desire, then compatibility means being part of the desired social class, and perhaps common tastes and aspirations for lifestyle.

“The problem with these factors is that they are not durable. Physical attractiveness will wane, no matter how hard you work to delay its departure. And socio-economic status unfortunately can change almost overnight. When people think they have found compatibility based on these things, they often make the painful discovery that they have built their relationship on unstable ground. A woman ‘lets herself go’ or a man loses his job, and the compatibility foundation falls apart.”

This doesn’t minimize these other qualities, but it certainly relegates them to second place. If it’s true that “Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised” (Proverbs 31:30), then we need to align our understanding about what sets a solid foundation for a great relationship with that of the Bible.

Set realistic expectations

This is becoming a recurring theme, but dating is like the rest of life – sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. The person you’re interested in may not be interested in you. Sometimes you have mismatched expectations and must go your separate ways. Depending on your life story, dating, and putting yourself out there may either be an easy or extremely difficult thing to do.

Set realistic expectations about it, and that way you won’t set yourself up for disappointment. Just because a woman agreed to a first date or even a second date, doesn’t mean she’ll be the mother of your children. Slow down and take it easy. And just because one woman turned you down doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel.

Understand what you’re aiming for

For many people, dating is more about finding a person that you can build a life with than simply filling the time and avoiding loneliness. If marriage is your goal, getting a handle on what that means is important. Again, quoting Tim Keller:

“Sociologists argue that in contemporary Western society the marketplace has become so dominant that the consumer model increasingly characterizes most relationships that historically were covenantal, including marriage. Today we stay connected to people only as long as they are meeting our particular needs at an acceptable cost to us.

“When we cease to make a profit – that is, when the relationship appears to require more love and affirmation from us than we are getting back – then we “cut our losses” and drop the relationship. This has also been called “commodification,” a process by which social relationships are reduced to economic exchange relationships, and so the very idea of “covenant” is disappearing in our culture. Covenant is, therefore, a concept increasingly foreign to us, and yet the Bible says it is the essence of marriage.”

If that is your goal, then ask yourself whether you are emotionally and mentally prepared to take that step should things progress that far. Are you able to love this person in a covenant relationship?

Be real

Lastly, be real with yourself and the person you’re dating. Dating is often viewed as an instance of extreme competitiveness, marked with feints, mind games, false fronts, etc. You don’t want to lose, which can bring out the worst behavior in you, including lying and manipulating others. There’s a dramatic difference between keeping your cards close to the chest and misdirecting a woman to become a better prospect to her.

Being real means not playing mind games or being deceptive. Don’t put up a front about who you are or what you can afford. If you happen to snag a commitment from the other person, they’ll find out eventually what’s real about you and what isn’t, and a house built from lies is no way to start a relationship.

When you’re not real about where you’re at, what you feel, and what you’re about, there is no telling how that lack of transparency can affect the other person. For example, if a woman invests herself emotionally because you’re giving the impression that you’re equally invested, the hurt caused when the truth comes out is incalculable.