Where to Meet a Marriage Partner

How and where you meet someone will set the stage for what happens next. Let’s compare three ways of meeting a person of the opposite sex.

Your social network – This includes meeting a friend of a friend, or meeting someone at church, some group activity, work, etc.
Bars and dance clubs – Striking up a conversation with a stranger in a setting where people are expecting to meet strangers.
Internet dating – Meeting a stranger through internet match making services or chat rooms.

I believe a healthy relationship is one where there is honesty and mutual respect, and where marriage is honored by withholding commitment and sexual intimacy until the wedding day.

Now let’s score these three ways of meeting someone, considering features that may determine whether the relationship starts in a healthy way.

Initial Attraction – Physical attraction is important to the initiation of a relationship between a man and a woman. However, a relationship is more likely to be healthy if it is based on a balance between physical attraction and interest in a person’s character and personality. Picking up someone at a bar is based almost purely on physical attraction. On the internet, your initial attraction will be based more on a person’s personality as it comes across in writing. In your social network, your attraction will be based on a more balanced and complete understanding of who a person really is. If 10 is a perfect score here, my scoring would go like this:
Social Network – 9
Bars and Clubs – 2
Internet Dating – 4

Healthy Order – A relationship will be healthier if people get to know each other before they begin to consider romantic possibilities. It will also be healthier if they don’t make any commitments prematurely and if they postpone sexual activity until marriage. Your social network gives you the advantage of getting to know someone as a friend or associate before you ever have to consider romantic possibilities. The bar may have you thinking of romance before you know a thing about the other person. This obviously sets the stage for shallow, short-term relationships. Internet relationships vary in their order of development, but are hindered because you only get to know what a person chooses to reveal about their self. My scores:
Social Network – 10
Bars and Clubs – 1
Internet Dating – 3

Honesty – The more you know about a person you meet, the more they are likely to be honest with you. Dishonesty at the outset of a relationship will either destroy the relationship later, or it will damage the trust between two people. Internet relationships are famous for dishonesty. People lie on the internet about their age, their weight, their career, and their marital status. The bar doesn’t favor honesty either, but at least you can confirm something about how the person looks. Your social network provides information from a variety of sources and fosters honesty from the beginning of a relationship. I think we’re seeing a pattern in the scoring.
Social Network – 10
Bars and Clubs – 4
Internet Dating – 2


Confirmation – As human beings, we can be pretty foolish in the area of relationships. There is an important benefit as a relationship develops in finding confirmation from friends and family that the relationship makes sense. The more people that know both of you well, the more confirmation you will have available to you. In your social network, you will have many more people that know you both and can offer an unbiased perspective. (Though there may also be some biased and unhelpful input.) The bar scene may offer some mutual friends who can help. The internet offers the least help in this area.
Social Network – 9
Bars and Clubs – 2
Internet Dating – 1

My scoring is completely subjective from someone who strongly favors life-long, solid relationships with trust and mutual respect over shallow, short-term relationships. But, here are the totals:
Social Network – 38
Bars and Clubs – 9
Internet Dating – 10

By the way, Rutgers University’s National Marriage Project has found:

"The most likely way to find a future marriage partner is through an introduction by family, friends, or acquaintances."

You can check it out at their website: http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/pubtenthingsyoungadults.htm