Why We Date

Why do we date?

You ever stopped to ask the question, “why”? It’s the most frustrating to me, because to answer the question “why” you have to give more than just the facts. I mean, you can respond to “who, what, when, where and how” with simple facts… For example,
“All the 8th graders (who), are getting together to have a swim party (what), this Friday (when) at the Robinsons (where) because their parents have a pool and a bunch of spaghetti (how).” But the moment you ask “why” people have to insert their opinion… “Because they want their daughter to get to know us…” or “Because they have food they want to get rid of,”. And while there is no right answer to the question “why” there are definitely wrong answers. But you can have two people answer the question “why” two completely different ways and still be right.

That’s really something I want to focus on for a second, it’s something I’ve come to understand, that there is no “right” way to date, but there are a number of “wrong” ways to date. That’s something we’re going to hold true for the rest of this book… So as we look at questions, if you come to different conclusions, that’s okay, as long as it doesn’t fall into that category of “wrong” ways to date, which I’ll do my best to mention as we go.

So why do you date? Well, having talked to some high school kids, here are a few reasons I have found that people date…
- It’s Cool/ Popular
- To Have Somebody
- To Have an excuse to do stuff with somebody
- It feels Good
- We want to have fun
- We want to feel loved and cared about
- We want to have sex…

But is there a deeper reason to why we date? I think there is. If you look at the first book of the Bible we read about the first man in search of the first relationship ever.

Genesis 2:18-22 says, “The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

Here’s the deal, when God put Adam on earth, he was the only one of his kind, and thus lonely, and God knew this. Adam needed someone else… You can relate here, right? Especially guys reading this… You never do stupid stuff alone, you need your friends there to “dare you too”. You know that you can not run through a brick wall, and by yourself, you’d never try, but once you get together with your best friend, and he offers you $5 to do it, all of a sudden you begin to think you can run through a brick wall. And you know what happens next, you’re sitting in the doctors office with a broken arm and in the other hand, that 5 bucks you earned. And girls reading this, I know you can relate to being lonely because you can’t even use the restroom while out and about without another girl there to go with you… Let’s face it, we almost always wish to be with others, even if it’s just one other person there, we don’t like being alone. Now sometimes we do like to “get away” and be alone, but can you imagine doing this for more than a couple days?

Adam was bored, so God decided to find Adam “a helper suitable,” and he gave Adam the task of naming the animals in hopes of Adam finding one he could relate with… Can you picture this? Adam is sitting there, he’s looking at the animals… And there’s an angel, with a type-writer recording all the names… Adam looks at the angel and says, “Aardvark…” The Angel looks at God and says, “Aardvark?” That’s the Best he’s got? He doesn’t have anything better than aardvark? And then Adam looks at the angel and says, “and this one will be called an Anteater, but it’s going to eat termites…” And then finally Adam looks at the Angel and says, “This one will be a Echidna”. And the angel drops his head in disgust…

But Adam searches high and low, through every animal (and think how many that is…) and can’t find anyone to relate with… Can’t you see Adam, trying to find a friend? He walks up to a grizzly and slaps him on the back and yells out tag! Or tries to play hide and seek with a dog, but the dog always finds Adam cause of his sense of smell… and then Adam trying to relate to a cat, but the cat doesn’t care about anything other than itself…

And after searching, Adam finds nothing like him… nothing to relate to… so God then does something incredible… Check out the next few verses in Genesis…

Then Genesis 2:21-24
So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,’ for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

God causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep, and pulls a rib out of Adam and makes Eve. Can you image the feeling Adam had when he woke up and was introduced to the prettiest woman on earth (And this is not an exaggeration, there weren’t any others)? And with This, Adam has this sense of “finally”! Ever have that feeling? You go to school, work, church, you want a relationship, but you just can’t seem to find anyone that you really like. And then finally, there she is! Sitting in your science class! And you get that sense of, “Finally! I gotta get to know her!” This is how Adam felt only more so… He spent his entire life up until that point looking for woman and it wasn’t until that moment, when God presented Adam with Eve, with a helper suitable, with what Adam so longed for, someone he could relate to.

I think it’s important here to note that the reason God gave Adam Eve was because God could not fulfill Adam’s need for a helper suitable. This may seem weird to talk about, but have you ever thought about why God exists in a trinity? I think because, in the same way that Adam needed community, needed someone to relate to, needed someone like himself, we get that from God. God exists in a 3 in 1. This may be strange, but the point I want to make here is that God exists in a form of community. We are made in the image of God, in His likeness, (Genesis 1:26-27) so why would we think that we’d be any different? This need for another is God-given.

Please do let me be clear that this “need for another” does not mean we need to be married, but rather just that we aren’t made to do life alone. And while parts of the New Testament talk about it being better to be single, I just wanted to point out that often times, the feeling of “needing” others and the desire that you have for a boyfriend or girlfriend is completely God given, from the beginning of time.

Check out Genesis 2:18 again.
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

Like I said above, we need others, and this is how God created us. For many of you, that will manifest itself in the form of desiring a boyfriend or girlfriend, and that’s where our desire to date comes from.

So I ask you again, the same question I started with, why do you want to date? I think until you can honestly answer that question, you aren’t ready to date. And what I just presented isn’t the reason you date, it’s the history of our need for others. It shows that God created us to need each other, but why does that need to manifest itself in you dating the person you’re interested in? That’s a question you have to answer on your own, and I encourage you not to skip over it. Remember, the part of the house that’s important isn’t what happens when you start building, it’s how you start, with the leveling of the ground and the laying of the foundation. If you don’t do those right, the rest of the house will be messed up. So I encourage you to start by leveling the ground and laying the foundation for a great relationship by answering the question, “Why date?”