Essay

Dating with Purpose

Updated August 28, 2026

God wants you to love and be loved. Marriage is not a lottery you can lose by drawing the wrong ticket. It is a covenant that two ordinary people build with the Lord’s help, and He is already helping you. When the Pharisees questioned Jesus about marriage, He pointed them back to the Creation, the same account where God had already said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). That is still His view of His children, and of you. Dating is simply how you practice the small acts of choosing and committing that grow into that covenant. You do not need to locate a hidden soulmate, feel certain before a first date, or apologize for wanting marriage. Prophets have taught plainly how to date with faith, researchers have measured what actually builds lasting love, and young adults across the Church are living it right now. Their words, their findings, and their stories are all here.

Eternal Truths

Start with what God has revealed, because it changes what dating is for.

Jesus rooted marriage in the Creation itself. Asked about marriage, He answered that God “made them male and female” and that a husband and wife “shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19:4–6). The Family: A Proclamation to the World carries that witness into our day: “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God” and the family is “central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” If marriage is central to what you are here to become, then dating is not a recreational sideline. It is the doorway to the most important covenant of your life, and it deserves your faith, your prayers, and your effort.

The second truth is just as freeing: God guides this choice, but He does not make it for you. Lehi taught that because of the Redeemer, His children are “free to choose” (2 Nephi 2:27). President Spencer W. Kimball said it about marriage as directly as it has ever been said: “‘Soul mates’ are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball, chapter 18). President Boyd K. Packer taught the same principle: “You must do the choosing, rather than to seek for some one-and-only so-called soul mate” (quoted in Choosing Whom to Marry). Notice what neither prophet said. Neither said the choice is trivial, or that anyone will do. President Kimball asked for “the most careful planning and thinking and praying and fasting” precisely because the decision is yours to make well.

President Thomas S. Monson described what making it well looks like: “It is essential that you become well acquainted with the person whom you plan to marry so that you can make certain you are both looking down the same pathway, with the same objectives in mind” (Whom Shall I Marry?). Becoming well acquainted is what dating is. And Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave the whole subject its spine in one sentence: “You separate dating from discipleship at your peril” (How Do I Love Thee?). The love described in Moroni 7:45, patient, kind, not easily provoked, is the love you are practicing on every date, long before you ever practice it in a marriage.

What Dating Is Actually For

Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave young adults the clearest definition we have: “Dating is pairing off to experience the kind of one-on-one association and temporary commitment that can lead to marriage in some rare and treasured cases” (Dating versus Hanging Out). He contrasted it with hanging out, the group socializing that asks nothing of anyone: “Dating involves commitments, if only for a few hours,” while hanging out requires none. His granddaughter supplied the test he made famous: a date must be “(1) planned ahead, (2) paid for, and (3) paired off.” He also lowered the stakes on purpose, urging simple and frequent dates, because “the more elaborate and expensive the date, the fewer the dates.”

That definition answers the question of how proactive to be. A date is a small commitment, not a proposal. You do not need a spiritual confirmation before asking someone to get frozen yogurt, and the Lord has told us why: His children “should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will,” for “the power is in them” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:26–28). Elder Richard G. Scott put it without any varnish: “If you are a young man of appropriate age and are not married, don’t waste time in idle pursuits. Get on with life and focus on getting married” (The Eternal Blessings of Marriage).

Being proactive is not desperation. Desperation is trying to force an outcome; initiative is creating opportunities and leaving the outcome free. Ask, accept, introduce yourself, go where people are. Measure a date by whether you treated another child of God with kindness and got to know them a little, not by whether it produced a relationship. And if the season stretches longer than you hoped, Sister Kristen M. Oaks, who married at 53 and says “I know how the wait for a worthy companion feels,” offered counsel she had lived: “If you find yourself marking time waiting for a marriage prospect, stop waiting and start preparing” (Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, May 2023). Build a life worth inviting someone into. That preparation is never wasted, married or not.

Standards, Preferences, and Attraction

When Samuel went to anoint Israel’s next king, he was impressed by Eliab’s height and appearance. The Lord corrected him: “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). That correction is the whole art of dating standards.

Some standards are revealed, and you should hold them without apology. The proclamation names what successful marriages are built on: faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. Character, honesty, chastity, safety, and willingness to make and keep covenants belong on any list, because they will shape your home for decades. President Kimball hoped young women would say to their boyfriends, “If you cannot get a temple recommend, then I am not about to tie my life to you, even for mortality.” Elder Holland drew the safety line just as firmly: “In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, who is constantly critical of you, who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor.” Those standards are not too high. They cannot be too high, because they are the Lord’s.

This is also what being “equally yoked” means. Paul counseled the Corinthians, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14). A yoke joined two animals so they could pull one load in one direction. The question is not whether you share a personality, a hometown, or a hobby. It is whether you are both pulling toward Christ: toward temple covenants, repentance, prayer, and a home built on His teachings. A membership record cannot answer that question. Watching someone’s actual discipleship over time can.

Other items on your list are preferences: height, degree, income, humor, a particular look, a personality type. Preferences are not sins, but they are not standards, and confusing the two shrinks your world. Remember that the person you marry will still be becoming. Moroni’s invitation is to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him” (Moroni 10:32), and nobody arrives at the altar finished. You are looking for direction and sincerity, not completion, and you are bringing your own unfinished discipleship to the same table.

What about attraction? It matters. You should want to be married to the person you marry, and nothing here asks you to talk yourself into a relationship where interest never comes. But attraction is a plant, not a verdict. Elder John A. Widtsoe taught that “‘Falling in love’ is always from within, rather than from without. That is, physical attractiveness must be reinforced with mental and spiritual harmony if true love is to be born and have long life” (quoted in Looking for the Perfect Spouse? Try a Different Lens). Research agrees with him: among people who started as strangers, attraction grew as interaction grew. If someone is kind, faithful, safe, and interesting, and there is a spark of interest, give the plant time to grow before you pull it up.

Bridle All Your Passions

Alma counseled his son Shiblon to “bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love” (Alma 38:12). A bridle does not weaken a horse. It directs the horse’s strength so it can actually get somewhere. Attraction is not the enemy of your dating life; it is one of its engines, and God asks you to steer it, not to fear it.

Elder David A. Bednar taught in We Believe in Being Chaste that our physical bodies, marriage, and the power to create life are essential to Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness, which is why the Lord places sexual intimacy inside marriage. Boundaries stop feeling arbitrary when you see what they protect. Elder Neil L. Andersen made the practice concrete for couples who are falling in love: “Set your limits. Plant those limits deep into all you do together so that they cannot be run over or moved aside as you feel strong emotion for each other” (Important Advice for Finding the Right Person to Marry).

The practical rule is to decide early and talk plainly. Choose your boundaries while you are calm, not while you are alone on a couch at midnight with someone you adore. Then say them out loud to the person you are dating. That conversation is not a mood killer. It is one of the first real acts of trust a couple performs, and how someone responds to it tells you more about their character than a dozen fun evenings. President Monson promised it can be done without grimness: “You can keep your courtship within proper bounds while still having a wonderful time” (Priesthood Power).

If you have already crossed lines you meant to keep, the answer is repentance, not despair. Jesus Christ does not define you by a past moment, and a couple that resets its boundaries and keeps them is stronger for it, not disqualified.

What Does Living Faithfully Look Like?

Zoey Diede was skeptical of dating apps and collected her share of rejection before she married. The man she married broke her own mold: “My husband actually didn’t fit the exact mold of what I thought I wanted. I figured I would marry an extrovert like myself, but instead, I married an introvert” (3 Gospel Principles to Help Guide You on Dating Apps). Her preferences would have filtered out her husband. Her standards did not.

Nina Tulieva, a young adult in Montreal, discovered that dating on purpose can cost you socially: “As I’ve been going on dates with different people, I’ve heard rumors like, ‘Nina is hunting for a husband. She’s desperate to get married!’ But that’s not true—I’ve just been trying to be more intentional in the dating sphere” (Frustrated with Modern Dating Culture?). She kept dating anyway. Intentional is not desperate, whatever the group chat says.

Corrine Stokoe was three months into a relationship when Neil ended it, the way he had ended every relationship before. She called and asked for the real reason, and he told her: he struggled with pornography. She chose conversation over retreat. “He was shocked that I was willing to talk to him about it and that he hadn’t instantly scared me away” (I Decided to Marry a Recovering Pornography Addict). They married with eyes open, walked through years of recovery together, and found help in the Church’s 12-step program. Her story is not a rule that anyone must stay; it is a witness that honesty during courtship, met with charity, can build the exact trust a marriage runs on.

Even Apostles were once nervous young daters. Elder Andersen describes meeting Kathy, who “was not only a person of very deep faith and intelligence” but also, to a boy from a small dairy farm, an intimidating “Florida princess.” “So Kathy took a chance on me,” he says. Every marriage starts with two people taking a chance the Lord honors.

A Word of Caution

The adversary rarely argues with your desire for marriage. He just makes the road feel impassable, and he uses two lies to do it.

The first lie is the soulmate myth: that somewhere there is one perfect person, that the right relationship will announce itself with certainty, and that doubt means you should keep looking. It sounds romantic. In practice it produces paralysis and endless comparison, and prophets have flatly rejected it. You are not searching for the one; you are choosing and becoming one, with God’s guidance, through covenants.

The second lie is that the choice is so dangerous you should not make it. When BYU researchers surveyed 784 single students, the top factor delaying marriage was not doubt about the doctrine. It was fear of making a mistake, named by 59 percent of men and 58 percent of women, in a population where nearly everyone rated temple marriage as very important (A Survey of Dating and Marriage at BYU). President Monson answered that fear directly: “Perhaps you are afraid of making the wrong choice. To this I say that you need to exercise faith.” Wisdom and inquiry are righteous. Fear is not the Lord’s method, and a decade of waiting for risk-free certainty is itself a choice, with costs of its own.

Name both lies for what they are, and then get back to the hopeful work of dating.

What Research Adds

Revelation came first, but the research is strikingly friendly to it. None of these studies proves a commandment, most are correlational, and honest science concedes as much. Read together, they still point one direction.

On comparison: people who approach romance as a search for the best possible option report lower satisfaction, investment, and commitment while noticing more alternatives, and online daters develop a measurable rejection mindset: the chance of accepting a profile fell about 27 percent between the first option a participant saw and the last. The swipe economy is not neutral; it trains your eye toward no.

On soulmates: the Wheatley Institute’s study of 615 couples found the most connected couples were marked by commitment, kindness, forgiveness, meaningful time, and deliberate effort. Flourishing love looked built, not found, exactly as President Kimball said.

On attraction: in live interaction among strangers, familiarity increased attraction. First impressions are a starting point, not a forecast.

On shared faith: among 568 Christians, shared religious identity was associated with greater marital satisfaction, which is what “equally yoked” predicts you would find.

On initiative: most of 313 single emerging adults found initiating romance difficult or awkward, and confidence in initiating tracked with better well-being. If asking someone out scares you, you are normal, and doing it anyway is good for you.

On boundaries: couples who delayed sexual involvement reported better communication, satisfaction, and stability. The commandment does not rest on the study, but the study removes the excuse that chastity handicaps a relationship.

Questions Worth Sitting With

• Which of my dating standards come from what God has revealed, and which are preferences I have promoted into requirements?
• Am I waiting for a certainty the Lord has never promised, instead of becoming well acquainted with someone and deciding?
• Is fear of rejection, or fear of a mistake, quietly running my dating life?
• Have I decided my physical boundaries while calm, and said them out loud to the person I am dating?
• Is the person I am interested in pulling toward Christ? Am I?

A Few Things You Can Do This Week

Begin on your knees. Tell Heavenly Father honestly where marriage sits in your hopes, and name your actual fears out loud.

• Take one real step. Ask someone on a simple, inexpensive date, accept an invitation, or ask a friend for an introduction. Plan it, pay for it, pair off. Measure it by kindness, not outcome.
• Sort one list. Write your dating standards in two columns, revealed and preferred, and pray about which column each item truly belongs in.
• Have the boundaries conversation if you are dating someone, this week, in daylight, before the next moment of strong emotion arrives.
• Go for a walk and listen to Elder Holland’s How Do I Love Thee? It is the best half hour on love and dating in the Church’s library.

Takeaways

• Marriage is ordained of God, and dating is the doorway to it. It deserves your faith and your initiative, not just your spare time.
• There is no predestined soulmate to find. There is a good person to choose, prayerfully, and a covenant to build with them.
• Hold revealed standards without apology. Hold preferences loosely. The Lord looks on the heart.
• Attraction matters and attraction grows. Give good people time.
• Choose boundaries early, say them plainly, and let the conversation build trust.
• Fear of a mistake is the adversary’s tool, and faith is the Lord’s answer to it.

Jesus Christ is not watching your dating life from a distance, hoping you guess correctly. He is in it with you, ready to guide every righteous choice and to consecrate the ones you make in faith. “Choose a companion carefully and prayerfully,” President Monson counseled, “and when you are married, be fiercely loyal one to another.” You can do this. The God who declared it not good for His children to be alone will help you build a love that lasts longer than this life.