What is intentional dating?
Intentional or conscious dating means dating with a goal and plan in mind. It’s being strategic about your dating efforts so that you can maximize your relational ROI. It’s about decreasing the odds of investing your time in the wrong people and increasing the odds of doing so in the right people.
Dating is costly and risky. Dating people who are not suited to you is a drain on your time and energy. In economic terms, it has a huge opportunity cost. You could invest all that time into someone better suited to be with you. Ending up with the wrong person can also ruin your mental health. When your mental health is down, that negatively impacts all the areas of your life, not just relationships.
There’s intense evolutionary and societal pressure for people to find mates. After all, reproduction is how society sustains itself and expands. All living societies want to reproduce and expand—from bacteria to humans. Thanks to this pressure, people often rush into relationships that are not good for them.
The ‘reproduce at any cost’ program in their minds also forces them to stick to the wrong person and silently suffer.
If you don’t want to be in that position, you must maximize the odds of finding a partner best suited to you.
Why do people date unconsciously?
Most people don’t date intentionally. Look around you. How many healthy relationships do you see in your social circle? I’m guessing not many. Why is that? One of the main reasons most people are not in good relationships is that they didn’t choose their partner intentionally. They may have been very intentional with their careers, health, or hobbies, but they definitely didn’t bring the same level of intentionality to their romantic relationships.
Where do most people’s ideas about dating and romantic relationships come from? Of course, romance novels and movies. These brainwash people into believing that love is only a matter of the heart, not of the brain. That you find love when you’re not looking. The universe or fate will one day bestow upon you the person who’ll be perfect for you. You’ll fall in love with them, get married, and ‘live happily ever after’.
Decision based on minimal information
These messages convince you that you don’t need to be strategic about dating and romantic relationships. That should leave it to the universe, fate, or chance. When you’re unintentional about dating and relationships, you decide who to be with only with your heart. You choose your partner based on minimal information. Maybe you find them physically attractive. Maybe you like their personality and ‘vibe’ with them. I’m not saying these things aren’t important, but are they enough to decide to be with someone?
When you decide to be with someone based on minimal information, you’re likely to regret being with them when more information about them gets revealed. You only see the tip of the iceberg in the dating and honeymoon stage. You don’t know what’s hidden below the surface. That only gets revealed later on when you’ve invested significantly in this person. There’s no guarantee that you’ll like what you find.
Many people experience buyer’s remorse in their relationships and marriages. Evolution and society tricked them into being with someone based on minimal, vague criteria. They rushed into their relationships and were afraid of being left on the shelf while all their peers were getting into relationships or marrying. Their relatives told them:
“You can’t find someone who’ll meet 100% your criteria. You should make some compromises, too.”
Well, your relatives don’t have your subjective well-being in mind. They want you to reproduce at any cost, like the rest of society. If you reproduce at any cost, it benefits the genes of your relatives. The compromises you make when vetting a partner and the red flags you ignore will cost you dearly later.
Intentional dating aims to see the entire iceberg as soon as possible. Or see enough of it that enables you to make a sound decision. Of course, you can’t know everything beforehand. But trying to learn as much as possible increases the odds that you don’t experience buyer’s remorse later on.
Have you been dating unconsciously?
A strong sign that you’ve been dating unconsciously is that you keep attracting the same kind of partner. Maybe they look a certain way that reminds you of a childhood crush. Maybe their skin color makes your genes scream:
“That’s it! We want to mix with that.”
Attachment styles play a significant role in our mating choices. We unconsciously choose partners who fill up what was missing in our relationship with our primary caregivers. Or ones who display traits we have positive emotional associations with because our caregivers also had those traits.
Your attachment style will unconsciously make you seek a certain type of partner. Because it is unintentional, you’re unlikely to find yourself in a good relationship.
How to date with intention
It’s no different than choosing the right career. You have to first be super clear about what you want. To be able to do that, you have to be clear about who you want to be. When you’ve built a strong sense of identity, you have little confusion about what you want in each area of life. Having a clear vision of what you want your relationships to be like is a good starting point, but it isn’t enough. You must have written and detailed criteria for what you want in a partner. That way, you’ll tie all the loose ends and maximize your chances of finding the right person.
Only when you’re clear about what you want- your preferences, standards, non-negotiables, boundaries, and expectations- can you ask your potential partner questions to get a peek at the rest of their iceberg. People can be deceptive in the dating stage. They put on a mask so you can see what you want to see. To protect from this, always look at their actions. Hear what they have to say, but if it goes against their actions, vet them based on their actions.
Intentional dating questions
- What type of relationship do you want?
- What do you want from our relationship?
- What qualities are you looking for in a partner?
- What are your preferences, standards, and non-negotiables?
- What are your red and green flags?
- What negative qualities will you not tolerate?
