INTRODUCTION

Texas A&M University possesses a unique culture. It combines the traditions of a rich military history with the earthiness of agricultural and mechanical schools, anchored with a whole lot of we-can-do-it-because-we’re-from-Texas attitude. I loved going to college there, though, admittedly, when I arrived as a freshman I knew surprisingly little about the school.

So I will never forget the first time I entered the football stadium, Kyle Field. The football game did not start until the next day. Yet my roommates and I joined the throng of more than ten thousand of our fellow classmates as we entered the stadium a few minutes before midnight.

As an inexperienced freshman, I peppered my upperclassmen roommates with questions like, “So what is this we’re doing? Why are we here at midnight?” They explained that the student body always gathered the night before games in order to practice the yells that we would all be shouting in unison the following day. Like I said: unique. But it had a certain logic to it. A crowd of thousands all yelling the exact same well-rehearsed chant throughout the game had proven to be a successful tactic to intimidate and confuse opposing teams.

But then my roommates’ explanations took a strange turn. They continued, “So we will practice the yells for a few minutes, and then, at a certain moment, all the lights will be turned out and we will all make out with the person standing next to us.”

“Wait. What?!”

“When the lights go out you kiss the girl you brought,” they explained. “Or, if you didn’t bring someone, don’t worry. You hold up a lighter, and someone will find you and you will make out with them.” I laughed for a moment, but quickly ceased when I realized they were not joking. Suddenly, a wave of anxiety swept over me. This was an introvert’s nightmare. What am I supposed to do? I didn’t bring a date. Am I really going to kiss a random person? What if no one finds me? What if someone does and I really don’t want to kiss them? Do I cough? Act like I’m sick? Hit the ground? What does any of this have to do with football?!

In the end I admitted to myself that I wasn’t ready for this kind of pressure. I think I shook my roommates’ hands and then stared at my shoes until the moment was over.

But I remember in that moment how it struck me as fascinating that the simple act of turning off the lights could instantly create such a variety of strong emotional responses around the stadium. For some this would be thrilling. They came with someone cute they had just started dating, or with whom they felt there was some potential, and this was going to be an epic moment in their relationship. For others this would just be business as usual. They had been dating for fourteen years, which isn’t even right, but we all know those people who show up to college and they’re already like an old couple. They’d simply kiss like they always do, with most of the thrill gone. For others the extinguishing of the lights at this Midnight Yell suddenly flooded back the memories of the person they kissed at the last one, who was now gone. And that simple act of turning off the lights brought up a torrent of pain. Maybe for others that moment when the stadium went dark was yet another reminder of how they have always been so desperately alone. Or, like me, maybe it brought a rush of competing anxieties: the fear of being alone crashing into the fear of being in a relationship, creating a tsunami of panic.

Why mention this Texas A&M experience? Because in the same way that all those varied emotional responses were ignited with the flip of a switch at a college football tradition, I have found this very phenomena occurs in any room full of single people when you say the word dating. Though I have stood in stadiums full of college students who cheered when I announced from stage, “We will be talking about relationships,” I have also stood before rooms full of mid-to-late twentysomethings who groaned audibly when they heard the same sentence. Why such a disparity of responses from people relatively the same age?

For some the thought of dating conjures up all manner of stress because they feel so much uncertainty about how to do it. Over the years I have had hundreds of conversations with young people who ask me questions like, “What am I supposed to do if I am interested in somebody? What are the rules now? Do I call them? Will they think that’s weird? Who calls anymore? So am I supposed to try to corner her somewhere and tell her I think she’s pretty? That feels really stalker-ish! Do I just comment on their social media a lot? Should I send a private message, or is that trying to create a secret world too fast? Should I text? Is that too informal? Do I try to stay casual and say, ‘Let’s go hang out’? Or is that not clear and intentional enough? Should I ask them to go on a ‘date’ with me? Is that too formal, too old-school? What are the rules?!” For many young people the topic of dating creates little thrill. It mainly produces anxiety.

For others, dating is their absolute favorite topic to talk about. When the word comes to mind she thinks about the cute guy who did text. Her thoughts drift back to that moment when she saw his name flash onto the screen of her phone, sending a message asking if it’d be possible to go to dinner. She recalls with fond affection the moment she showed the text to her friends, and collectively all their adrenaline spiked and the comments began to fly: “He texted you! I told you he likes you! What are you going to say? Say yes! You’ll make such a cute couple. Your name goes so great with his last name.” Or, you are the guy who sent the text and felt your heart pound as you waited for her reply. After an agonizing few seconds you felt the deep satisfaction of success when you saw the response come in that she’d love to spend time with you. Smiling to yourself you dropped the phone and whispered, “Pay attention, world. A master is at work. Say my name!”

For some the topic of dating brings a rush of positive emotions because you know the thrill of being interested in someone and discovering that they like you too.

Yet, for others, when they think about relationships it does not conjure feelings of anxiety or anticipation, but those of agony. A few years ago at Breakaway, the ministry I led on the campus of Texas A&M, we held a worship service for thousands of college students at Kyle Field. I was addressing the toxic nature of secrets, how they can sap our energy and steal our joy. Though I challenged them to talk to a trusted peer or mentor about the things that were eating them up on the inside, I encouraged them, as a first step, to write down some of their secrets on a piece of paper and drop them in bins we had down near the track. Thousands came forward. Over the next few days my team and I read through the cards, praying for the students who wanted to release the burden of guilt and shame that they were already carrying at such a young age. What I saw surprised even me. Maybe three or four out of every five cards addressed the deep hurt and desperate heartbreak that accompanied a romantic relationship that had gone wrong. Some expressed regret over a relationship that they had stayed in too long. Others lamented giving away too much of themselves emotionally or physically to someone who was not worthy of their affections. Others expressed remorse over betraying trusts. The sheer volume of relational pain expressed in this mountain of confessions was overwhelming. Over my years in ministry among young people, I can tell you, nobody cries like the brokenhearted. The impulse within us to pair off into relationships is good, even powerful. But when it goes poorly, the decoupling can be intensely painful.

So if pairing off is both desirable and dangerous, how do we do it right? Before we delve into any advice about what to do, we need to figure out where we are. Surveying the lay of the land will help us in our attempts to navigate the complexities of life and love in modern times. So let’s begin with a few things we do know.

First, the vast majority of young people want to get married. The most rigorous and reliable surveys available today put the number in the high 90th percentile. So the rumors of the death of marriage have been greatly exaggerated.

Second, the vast majority of young people today will get married. Not only will they marry, the majority of them will do so in their twenties. In 2012, 80 percent of Americans over the age of twenty-five were, or had been, married. That’s four out of every five.2 An additional 13 percent, while not married, were said to be living with a long-term partner. While there are important shifts in our culture today regarding when, and if, to get married, the reality is most people on the planet want to be married and will be married.3 So if you are a college student reading this, you will most likely pass through the distinct life phases of singleness, dating, engagement, and marriage all within a single decade. In these two areas—the desire to get married and the likelihood of marriage in your future—you are not too unlike the generations that have come before you.

Yet, there is one way young people today are different than their predecessors. They are waiting longer to get married than any other generation in recorded history. Today, the average age for a young woman getting married is twenty-seven. For young men it is twenty-nine.4 To put that in perspective, in the 1990s, the average age a woman got married was twenty-three. Men married around age twenty-six.5 This is a significant shift in just the last couple of decades, which raises an important question. Why, if the majority of young people want to get married, are they waiting so long to do so?

As is often the case, there is not one simple answer. Instead, there are a variety of reasons, some of which may resonate with you more than others.

First is the fear of divorce. Many young people witnessed their parents’ divorce and still feel the pain it caused. In response they have vowed not to rush into marriage and risk making the same mistake. Others do not fear that they will mess up marriage, but that marriage will mess them up! In the past, marriage used to be viewed as the first step into adulthood. Now it is the last step. Believing a covenant relationship may interfere with their career goals, they choose professional impact now and defer personal intimacy until later.

Confusion arising from modern forms of communication plays a role in the delay in marriage as well. The rapid rise of technology has created several means of connecting with other people. Unfortunately, this has complicated the script of how to initiate romantic conversation. In the past, if someone wanted to ask another person on a date, he would call them. Today, many young people find that odd. Some believe it is more polite to text. Others think that is too informal. The lack of clarity in the prescribed dating scripts has actually slowed down the dating process.

Others become paralyzed by the endless dating options now available. A study conducted in Philadelphia revealed that in 1932 a whopping one-third of all couples lived within a five-block radius of each other before they got married. Only 17.8 percent were from different cities.9 Today young people can get online and interact with people all over the globe. Dating apps have made the pool of potential mates massive, which has resulted in young people slowing down their willingness to commit to a single individual. How sure am I that someone better won’t come along, when I see thousands of potential mates on my phone every day?

Compounding this stress is the pressure to find a “soul mate.” By this I mean the growing impulse to look for far more than a companion in life. I want someone who will fill every vacancy in me, awaken dormant gifts inside, and continuously enrapture me in otherworldly emotional bliss. This puts tremendous pressure on another human being.

As I researched all these factors contributing to the delay of marriage, I continued to ask the question, “What is underneath all of this? What motives are driving these trends?” When I contemplate the landscape of life and love for young people today, in many people I see fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of missing out. Fear of losing opportunities. I see so much fear in the hearts of young men and women. In others I hear pride. The insistence to live life on your own terms so that no one can threaten your freedom of expression.

In many I also see lust. Why commit to love someone emotionally if I can just use them physically? Fear, pride, and lust are the root of so many problems I see cropping up in relationships. When I see these, it makes sense why lifelong love is being delayed. None of these drivers aim at love. Love opens up and gives of itself freely. Fear closes off and withdraws. Love risks vulnerability for the sake of the beloved. Pride will not tolerate the risk of self for the other. Love embraces all of a person, on their best days and their worst. Lust says I only want the parts of you I can use. As long as fear, lust, and pride are in the driver’s seat, the culture will be speeding away from healthy love. And we are already seeing it in the culture. We are not headed in healthy directions.

For the first time in the history of the United States, the average age a woman has her first child is younger than the average age of a woman entering her first marriage. On average, women in America are having their first child at age twenty-six. The average American woman gets married at age twenty-seven.12 This is historic. More than 40 percent of children born in our country today are born to unwed mothers.13 This concerns me because studies show that on every measurable scale children are worse off when they lack the opportunity to grow up in a home with a loving father and mother.

From 2005 to 2012 one-third of all couples who got married in America met on a dating site. I am not going to bash dating websites. I have friends who met and fell in love with their spouses online. But what does concern me is that each new online dating portal tends to move more and more toward analyzing a person based on the one aspect of them that is sure to fade: physical beauty. This does not make for the wisest criteria for compatibility or successful and enduring marriages.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement recently explaining that since the advent of Tinder and other dating apps that promote “date” selection based primarily on physical beauty, they have seen a skyrocketing increase in sexually transmitted diseases. In 2015 in Rhode Island, since the advent of Tinder and Grindr, syphilis cases have risen 79 percent. Gonorrhea and HIV have increased by more than 30 percent.

Studies have also shown a significant increase in self-reported loneliness and depression in college students today compared to previous generations.15 And in the midst of the loss of the intimacy found in marriage, addiction has risen to take its place.

Why mention all of this? Because for all of our connectivity through technology, we have suffered a loss of community. Fear, pride, and lust are driving us into isolation or creating shallow relationships that do not serve human flourishing.

You may be asking, “What are you advocating, Ben? That we paddle back to some bygone era that was supposedly amazing where everyone got married when they were thirteen, had kids at fourteen, then milked the goats, churned butter, and built barns until they died at thirty?” No. I don’t have any misty-eyed, glowing view of some bygone era. There is no former port that I am trying to sail us back to.

But that doesn’t change the fact that when I look at us today I see a generation lost at sea, unsure how to navigate the increasingly tempestuous sea of life and love. We are adrift, battered by the winds and waves of these modern times. The good news, however, is that in the midst of uncertain seas, we do have a way to chart a course forward.

Several years ago a man by the name of Steve Callahan was lost at sea—after a terrible boating accident—in a little rubber raft for seventy-six days somewhere between Africa and the Caribbean. Though he was emaciated and dazed, he managed to take three pencils and lash them together to create a sextant—a navigational tool that allows you to use the horizon and the sun to get your bearings. Based on his application of these nautical realities, he was able to discern the latitude, catch the right current, and drift safely to the Caribbean. It was his understanding of fixed realities in the universe that helped him navigate his environment successfully. We have an opportunity to do the same. In the midst of uncertain relational seas, we, too, can look up and find our bearings by understanding the unchanging realities of who God is and what he is doing in the world.

That is why I wrote this book. I earnestly hope that these pages can give you clarity in relational uncertainty. In the pages that follow, we will focus on four distinct relational stages that the vast majority of human beings will pass through at some point in their lives: singleness, dating, engagement, and marriage. Each stage has a God-given purpose that you can either choose to embrace and fulfill, or not. Each stage also has some advantages and disadvantages that are distinct. We will identify the God-given purpose for each stage—the guiding stars we will navigate by. We will also identify and maximize the advantages of each stage and identify and minimize the unique challenges of each stage. I want to give you fixed points to navigate by, so you can sail on into the unknown with the confidence of knowing that whatever relational stage you are in, your life can be lived with an incredible sense of purpose. Let’s be clear from the outset: this journey does not start with you identifying a cute person who has some potential. You do not need romantic interest to discover your life’s purpose. Your journey begins with your Maker.

Back in the day, when a ship sailed into treacherous waters, often the captain had to acknowledge that he lacked the sufficient knowledge of the area to guide his vessel safely into port through the dangerous rocks and shoals. When that realization came upon a captain, before the days of modern communication, he would raise a flag that signaled to all around “I require a pilot.” When that flag ascended the mast, a pilot familiar with the area would jump into his little coracles, row out to the ship, and come aboard. The pilot would then commandeer the vessel and guide it safely through the uncertain seas. To signal to other pilots who may want to come aboard that they were not needed, the vessel would then fly another flag, one that was half red and half white. The flag declared to all who cared to see, “I have a pilot.” No other pilots were needed, and the locals could be assured that this ship was in safe hands.

Are you willing to admit the same need?

In the unpredictable waters of love, we need a guide. Someone familiar with the area. Someone who can navigate us away from the dangers hidden just under the surface that could shipwreck us. One that could lead us safely to shore. The good news is that we need not sail alone. The God who made you and every other human being on the planet can guide you safely home. The Bible tells us that God is love. Do you want a reliable guide in the unknown waves of love? Admit your need. Raise your flag and declare to God that you need him to take the wheel and guide you. This is where our journey must begin.