Considerations Before Dating in College

Dating in college is nothing to joke around about; it may define the rest of your life. If you are considering dating someone, you must consider this important issue.

When I was in elementary school, all of my friends and I used to play a game called “Mash” during class. You would diagram different columns into whom you would marry, what job you would have, where you would live, etc. This game had one important rule: you had to give four good options on the list and one bad option. For example, you would provide four names of people you wanted to marry and then offer one name at the bottom of someone you did not want to marry in an individual column. You would then get a number and start marking items in each column by that number until your entire life was figured out on that small piece of tablet paper.

Wouldn’t it be great if it were that easy? It would be so simple if our major life decisions could be discerned through this easy process, especially in the area of dating. Most people come to college and are excited about the dating possibilities. You encounter all these people who are ignorant concerning all of your previous drama. They don’t know if you were in a relationship for your entire high school career.  Word hasn’t gotten out on campus that you’re a playa who struggles with commitment issues.  Maybe they don’t even know that you actually didn’t date at all in high school because you were too socially awkward.  Whatever your case is, when you enter college, you have this amazing chance to start anew.

In your first few weeks of college, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the number of prospects and possibly the greater number of rejects for you to date. Some of the people begin to perk your curiosity.  You sit behind someone in biology, which makes you look forward to attending class.  You go to an organizational meeting, and in one of the cheesy icebreakers, you meet someone, and you swear you hear light rock love songs playing in the airwaves around you.  Or maybe it’s that person that you seem to run into all the time around campus that you are attracted to, but you just haven’t gotten the nerve up to say, “Hey, I see you all the time, in the halls and my dreams, and I was wondering if you are carrying any major relationship baggage with you that would scare me off from asking you out to a cheap Mexican restaurant?”

The scary thing about dating in college is that you know you must at least start thinking long-term. Even if you don’t see yourself getting married right after graduation, you realize that every date in college has a heavier weight attached to it than it did in high school. You can’t be too serious about your dating decisions in college.  Even if you are accident-prone when it comes to relationships, there is a reasonable probability that starting a dating relationship in college could lead to marriage. Even if it doesn’t lead to marriage, the issues that develop from your relationships during this time will significantly impact your relationships to come. Next to following Jesus, the most crucial decision in your life is whom you will marry. That decision will influence your life in ways you cannot comprehend.  

The dating warning in college is this: if the mission does not define the relationship, then the relationship will determine the mission.  When I speak of mission, I am talking about your particular purpose for why you are on this earth.  Unfortunately, the mission cannot be to marry a wealthy doctor and have 2.5 kids.  That may be a goal, but your mission is something that transcends you.  It’s not something you created. Your mission is something that is given to you by God. 

If the mission does not define the relationship, then the relationship will determine the mission.