I hope it doesn’t offend to say that there is a lot of confusion out there in the dating world. I’m going to offer a helpful distinction that will ground the two main things to discern in dating for marriage.
This distinction is between the two ways we bond with others. There’s a kind of communion that’s based on a love of the other (and them for us)– this one is called ‘I-Thou’, or face-to-face. The other kind of communion is based on a mutual love of something good out in the world– this one is called ‘we’, or shoulder-to-shoulder.
These two kinds of communion aren’t mutually exclusive– in fact, it would be a little strange if I found someone who loved something out in the world with me who I didn’t admire for themselves, and it would be strange too if I found someone whose character I loved who didn’t love some of the same things as me.
A lot of friendships are ‘we’ communions. Marriage is uniquely tilted toward an ‘I-Thou’ communion.
From this, you could say that dating is discerning in two phases. The first: do I love the person before me, and do they love me? The second: do we love the same things together?
We should date people we admire. We should find people who are interesting in and of themselves, who have good character and who are free to love in return. And this should occupy the beginning of dating relationships: are they interesting in a way that continues to interest me? Are they good in a way that continues to inspire me? Are they growing in a way that I can encourage? And do they find the same in me?
When we’ve found someone we love for themselves, we then need to discern if we can work alongside them– can we be shoulder-to-shoulder? Marriage is building a life together, raising children together, participating in society together. It becomes miserable if we discover we can’t work together.
Somewhere along the phase of ‘going steady’ and getting engaged, there should be time dedicated to whether we can be effective teammates. Service projects, babysitting children, hosting events, putting ourselves into situations where things can and will go wrong– these are great opportunities to discern the ‘we’ dimension of the relationship.
So many couples, their first time trying to serve others together is planning a wedding. The stresses of putting on a large-group event multiply if it’s the first time the two have planned anything together. If they’ve been serving others while dating, they’ve already forged a ‘we’ communion on top of their ‘I-Thou’ communion.
There will be people out there that we click with, that we like and admire, and we don’t work well together with. There will be people we work well together with, and we aren’t especially attracted to.
Maybe just maybe, we should be on the lookout for someone we can love for themselves, face-to-face, who also can turn with us shoulder-to-shoulder when needed.