Answer

How Important Is Attraction When Choosing Someone to Marry?

Maybe you keep meeting good, faithful people and wonder, Should I keep dating someone if I am not that attracted to them yet? Or perhaps you worry that caring about attraction at all makes you shallow. Attraction does matter when you are considering marriage. But it helps to give it the right place rather than expecting a first impression to tell you everything about someone.

Eternal Truths

God teaches us to see more of a person than what we notice first. When Samuel went to Jesse’s home to identify Israel’s future king, he was immediately impressed by Eliab’s appearance. The Lord corrected him, explaining that “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart”. That does not mean physical attraction is unimportant in dating. It means there is more to discover about a person than what you can see right away.

A marriage needs affection, but it also needs character. The Family: A Proclamation to the World describes strong marriages through faith, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and commitment to Jesus Christ. Attraction may help draw you toward someone. Character becomes increasingly important as you imagine sharing worship, work, children, disappointments, ordinary Tuesdays, and years of life together.

What Can Make This Confusing?

Dating culture can make immediate chemistry feel like a final answer. That idea makes some sense because attraction really does matter. But it can also encourage you to decide before you have had enough time to notice someone’s humor, steadiness, kindness, faith, or the way you feel around them as trust grows.

What Research Shows

In research involving previously unacquainted people, greater interaction increased interpersonal attraction, partly as people became more comfortable and felt better understood. It was not a study about choosing a spouse, but it does show that attraction does not always stay exactly where it began.

Questions to Think About

• Am I expecting first-date chemistry to answer questions that naturally take more time?
• Is there enough attraction and interest that I would like to see this person again?
• What qualities tend to become more attractive to me as I know someone better?

What You Can Do

If someone is kind, faithful, emotionally safe, interesting to talk with, and there is some attraction, consider giving yourself a little more time to know them. If attraction simply is not there, you do not need to force yourself into a relationship.

Jesus Christ can help you see people clearly and kindly. He can help you know when it is worth giving something more time and when it is right to move forward in another direction.