Let’s Help Each Other With Dating: How the Community Can Help Singles

We’ve talked about how bad the dating situation is, what men can do better while dating, and what women can do better while dating. Today, we’re talking about what the community as a whole can be doing to help singles. This includes singles helping each other!

Listen to Singles: The primary thing anyone can do to help is to talk to singles about their experience and listen. Especially if you’ve taken the time to get to know them as people first, they may be open to talking about more personal things like dating. A word of caution, some singles have been conditioned to think that dating is private so they may not want to talk about it. On the other hand, they might think (as I used to) that bringing up their singleness is the same thing as complaining. Because they don’t want to complain, they never bring it up, but they are thrilled if someone else does! Respect their preferences, but if they are open to talking, you might ask, “Do you desire to be married or are you content as a single? What do you wish the community would understand about your situation? Is there anything I can personally do to help you?” You’d probably be surprised that a lot of singles are open to help.

How you can help may depend on the singles in your life and their preferences. But for the sake of generating ideas and encouraging conversation between singles and the community, here are some general ways I personally would love to see the community helping singles.

Introduce Singles: I find that many people have a huge fear of being seen as meddlers if they want to introduce two singles. If you have that fear, you probably aren’t a meddler! However, I will clarify that I would strongly advocate for introductions only after both parties have agreed. Surprise set ups or subtle introductions can be awkward or even hurtful. However, if you are being up front about your intentions, it is much better to give singles the option than to withhold help (especially in this unusual time when fewer and fewer relationships are being formed).

I’ve had two different families from church offer to arrange introductions for me. Though neither introduction led to a relationship, I was very appreciative of the opportunities these families provided!

Create and Support Third Spaces: Third spaces can be defined as areas outside the home where two people can naturally meet for the first time and form a connection. A classic example of a third space is a bar, where it is acceptable and easy to have a conversation with someone with whom you haven’t had any previous connection. To further clarify the definition by what it is not, in our culture, coffee shops theoretically could be third spaces, but don’t tend to be that way functionally. People go to coffee shops for prearranged meetings with people with whom they have a previous connection (even if the connection is online) or to work/relax by themselves. Likely the only interaction you’ll have with strangers at a coffee shop is if they ask to use the outlet behind your chair when their laptop is dying.  

With the pervasiveness of the internet, third spaces are significantly declining. The workplace used to be the most significant third space with a very high percentage of relationships starting in the workplace. However, now many people work from home, so they no longer meet new people at work. Church is another traditional third space, though fewer people go to church now than in the past. I’ve been trying to think of more possible third spaces to naturally make new connections. Here is my list so far: gyms, social dances (my personal favorite for several reasons!), pick-up sports, “Parks & Rec” classes and community events, volunteering, and parties hosted by friends that mix groups of people. Do you have other ideas or suggestions for third spaces?  

Invest in Friendship with Singles (Particularly Men): Friendships are as important as romantic relationships are. This is true for both men and women, but women are more naturally inclined to seek out community and friendship. Single men, however, are not and male friendship is declining about as rapidly as romantic relationships are decreasing. Is there a connection? Whether you are a single or married man, how can you intentionally create community for single men? Maybe this looks like a book club, a Bible study, a sports league, or regular dinners. If community encourages men to be healthier through friendships (providing accountability, emotional support, and opportunity to grow in social skills and character), it will not only benefit men, but also make them more attractive to women and indirectly help the dating process.

The Church Can Support and Instruct Singles: I know, some singles feel there is an over emphasis on marriage in church already, but think about the kind of teaching usually offered. For teens, there are sermons and seminars on purity and waiting. From the pulpit for adults, there is preaching about fighting for your marriage, etc. This is as it should be, but are we really getting much teaching in the middle? And the middle is a much larger percentage of the church than it used to be! In my church, about half of the attending adults are single.

Are pastors and church leaders (most of whom are married) aware of the statistics about dating in this current season? There could be need for more targeted teaching (whether featured in sermons or intentional outside-the-pulpit teaching) to encourage a healthier dating process and point to why marriage is worth seeking even if the process is hard. Consider, we’ve all heard that since marriage is a representation of Christ and the church, the enemy would like nothing better than to destroy Christian marriages. However, as always, the enemy is crafty. It seems his most current assault against this beautiful image of Christ is to prevent marriages from happening in the first place.

If you are still uncertain if it is your place or not to help singles with dating, consider this article about how AI is going to feature even more significantly in online dating profiles very soon, even to the point where AI might chat on a user’s behalf. This makes me extremely uncomfortable! I know there are many different opinions about AI generally and I probably fall somewhere in the middle. I see some areas of opportunity and benefit, but also have some serious concerns in other areas. Dating is an area where I fear AI will do much more harm than good. This is an area where the community should be helping!

To wrap up this post, singles, are you willing to take help if it is offered? Dating is an area many people would like to keep under their own control, but maybe our individualistic society has finally created a situation where isolation is so bad, we are forced to turn back to community. This series has been heavy, so to end on a light hearted note, let’s not be like the singles in this short video my friends joked about in college.

Thank you to all of you who read along with this series! Thank you even more for talking about it, with me or with your own communities. I hope in the new year, there will be continued conversation and we all seriously consider what action we can take to serve our communities in love.

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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash