Dating can be one of the most important areas in which a young Catholic needs both maturity and prudence. Romantic attraction is powerful, and a serious relationship can quickly occupy a central place in a person’s life. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The attraction between a man and a woman is part of God’s design and ordinarily points toward the possibility of marriage and family. Precisely because dating can lead to something so important, however, it should not be approached casually.

The fundamental purpose of serious dating is to discern whether two people could eventually marry. This does not mean that a young man should know from the first date whether a particular woman will become his wife. Dating is precisely a way of getting to know another person well enough to discover whether marriage might be possible. But if it becomes clear that marriage between them would not be wise or possible, there is normally little reason to continue an exclusive romantic relationship. They may remain friends, but continuing to date simply because they enjoy the companionship can deepen emotional attachment without any realistic destination.

This raises an important question for undergraduates. If dating is oriented toward marriage, when is the right time to begin? Many university students are several years away from being ready to marry. They may still need to complete their studies, establish themselves professionally and acquire greater human and spiritual maturity. There is no universal rule that a person must wait until graduation or until he has a permanent job before dating. Some students meet the person they will eventually marry while still at university, and circumstances differ considerably. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask whether a serious relationship makes sense when marriage remains a distant possibility.

A romantic relationship requires time and emotional energy. As two people grow closer, they naturally want to see one another frequently, communicate regularly and become increasingly involved in each other’s lives. A young man may initially imagine that dating will mean going out together once a week while the rest of his life continues unchanged, but serious relationships rarely remain so compartmentalized.

University years are themselves an important period of formation. A student needs to study seriously, develop friendships and broaden his experience of life. He should learn to relate naturally to many different kinds of people rather than allowing his social world to narrow too quickly around one relationship. He also needs time for prayer, apostolate, reading, cultural interests, physical exercise and the ordinary responsibilities through which character develops.

An exclusive romantic relationship can sometimes crowd out these other goods. A student may gradually spend less time with friends, become less involved in university life or allow his studies and spiritual commitments to suffer. This does not happen in every relationship, and a healthy relationship can certainly help both people grow. But young people should be aware of the danger of becoming so absorbed in one another that other important dimensions of life are neglected.

Friendship deserves particular attention. The undergraduate years provide an unusual opportunity to form deep friendships that may last for decades. A young man who spends nearly all his free time with his girlfriend may graduate having invested little in these friendships. If the romantic relationship later ends, he may discover that he has allowed much of his wider social life to disappear.

A healthy dating relationship should therefore enlarge rather than shrink a person’s life. Two people should continue to have friendships, responsibilities and interests beyond each other. They should be able to participate naturally in groups rather than becoming an isolated couple who gradually withdraw from everyone else.

This is also one of the best ways to get to know someone realistically. When two people spend most of their time alone in explicitly romantic settings, they see only a limited side of each other. Both are usually making an effort to be attentive, attractive and agreeable. Romantic attraction itself can make it easy to overlook weaknesses or interpret everything favourably.

We learn much more about a person by seeing how he or she treats people from whom nothing is expected in return. How does a young woman speak to her parents, siblings, friends, strangers or people who inconvenience her? How does a young man treat his own family and friends? How do they respond when plans go wrong, when they are tired or when someone disagrees with them?

These ordinary situations reveal character more reliably than a series of carefully planned dinners and evenings together.

For this reason, couples should spend time in varied settings. They can meet one another’s friends and families, attend social events, volunteer, go hiking, visit museums, play sports or take part in activities that place them among other people. They should see each other outside the predictable atmosphere of conventional dates.

It is especially helpful, when appropriate, to become acquainted with each other’s families. Family life often reveals dimensions of personality that remain hidden elsewhere. We see how someone responds to people with whom relationships are longstanding and sometimes complicated. We may also gain insight into expectations about marriage, family life, communication and conflict.

None of this means that a person is simply the product of his or her family. People can grow far beyond unhealthy patterns they experienced while growing up. But family relationships provide valuable information about how a person has learned to love, communicate and deal with difficulty.

Dating should therefore be a process of seeing reality clearly. Romantic attraction is important, but it is not enough for marriage. Two people need to discover whether they can build a life together.

For Catholics, chastity is an essential part of this discernment. Sexual desire naturally becomes stronger as emotional intimacy grows, and a couple who sincerely intends to remain chaste should not assume that good intentions alone will always be sufficient.

Prudence requires boundaries.

A couple should avoid circumstances in which they know temptation is likely to become unnecessarily strong. Spending long periods alone late at night in a bedroom, apartment or other highly private setting can make chastity much more difficult. The point is not to treat physical attraction as something bad. Attraction is good and belongs within God’s design for marriage. Precisely because it is powerful, however, it needs to be governed by reason and love.

True love never asks another person to become an occasion of sin. A young man who cares for a woman should want to protect her dignity and her relationship with God, and she should want the same for him.

This requires mutual responsibility. Chastity is not primarily the responsibility of one person policing the behaviour of the other. Both should agree about the kind of relationship they want and help one another remain faithful to it.

Physical affection should express genuine care without deliberately seeking sexual arousal outside marriage. Couples need prudence because the same gesture can have different meanings and effects depending upon the people involved and the circumstances. Rather than searching for a technical boundary defining exactly how far they can go without crossing into grave sin, they should ask a more mature question: does the way we express affection help us love one another as persons, or is it gradually turning the relationship toward sexual gratification?

The Christian understanding of chastity is not simply a collection of prohibitions. Chastity teaches us to integrate sexual desire into genuine love. It helps us see the other person not as someone whose body exists for our pleasure but as a person with an eternal destiny.

This is particularly important during dating because sexual intimacy can create a powerful sense of closeness before the couple has actually discerned whether they are suited for marriage. Physical involvement can make it harder to evaluate the relationship clearly. A person may remain in a relationship because emotional and sexual attachment has become strong even when serious incompatibilities are becoming apparent.

Chastity protects freedom.

It allows two people to get to know each other without prematurely acting as though they already possess the intimacy proper to marriage.

A couple should also remember that paying for a date, giving gifts or investing time in a relationship never creates a right to physical affection. No one owes another person sexual or romantic intimacy because money has been spent or expectations have developed. Genuine affection is always freely given.

Prayer and the sacraments are essential if a Catholic couple wants to live chastely. They should attend Mass faithfully and maintain their individual spiritual lives. As the relationship becomes serious, it can also be helpful to pray together in an appropriate and natural way.

If they fall into sin, they should not become discouraged or rationalize what has happened. They should go to Confession, reconsider the circumstances that led to the fall and establish wiser boundaries. Christian life always allows us to begin again.

A relationship that repeatedly leads both people into serious sin should be examined honestly. It is not enough to say that they love each other if the practical effect of the relationship is to draw both away from God. Genuine love should help the other person become better.

This points toward the larger question a young man should ask when considering marriage: what qualities should he look for in a woman?

The first is character.

Physical attraction matters in marriage and should not be dismissed as superficial. There should normally be genuine attraction and affection between the couple. But beauty and chemistry cannot sustain a marriage by themselves. Character becomes increasingly important as the years pass.

A young man should ask whether the woman he is considering marrying is fundamentally a good person who is trying to grow in virtue. Is she honest? Can she be trusted? Is she capable of generosity and sacrifice? Does she treat people well when there is nothing to gain from doing so?

He should also ask what effect the relationship has on him. Does being with her make him want to become a better man? Does she encourage his faith, responsibilities and friendships, or does the relationship gradually pull him away from them?

The same questions should, of course, be asked about him. A young man discerning marriage should not merely evaluate whether a woman meets his standards. He should ask whether he himself is becoming the kind of man who could be a good husband and father.

Marriage is not primarily about finding a perfect spouse. It is about two imperfect people who possess enough virtue and maturity to give themselves faithfully to one another and to continue growing together.

For a Catholic, shared faith is a major consideration. The Church permits marriage between a Catholic and a non-Catholic under certain conditions, and many such marriages are loving and successful. Nevertheless, religious differences can create genuine difficulties, especially when children arrive.

Faith shapes fundamental questions about the meaning of marriage, openness to children, Sunday Mass, prayer, moral education and the sacraments. When husband and wife share the Catholic faith and genuinely practise it, they possess a common spiritual foundation that can strengthen family life considerably.

A Catholic young man should therefore take religious compatibility seriously rather than assuming that these questions can simply be settled later.

He should also consider whether the woman he is dating has the human qualities needed for marriage and motherhood, just as she should consider whether he has the qualities needed for marriage and fatherhood.

Parenthood requires patience, generosity, firmness and affection. Children need parents capable of setting limits without making the home harsh, sacrificing personal preferences without becoming resentful and remaining loving when family life becomes demanding.

No one possesses these qualities perfectly before marriage. People continue to mature throughout life. The important question is whether the basic character and direction are present.

Emotional maturity also matters greatly. Marriage brings two people into close daily contact over many years. Each spouse will inevitably discover the other’s weaknesses, insecurities and sensitivities.

A mature person should gradually be able to receive correction, apologize, forgive and discuss disagreements without turning every conflict into a crisis. Someone who can never admit fault or who consistently reacts to disagreement with hostility will make married life unnecessarily difficult.

At the same time, we should avoid expecting psychological perfection. Nearly everyone brings some wounds, insecurities or difficulties into marriage. A history of depression, anxiety or other mental-health struggles does not by itself make someone unsuitable for marriage or parenthood. What matters more is whether difficulties are recognized and responsibly managed, whether appropriate help is sought when needed and whether the person has sufficient stability and self-knowledge to enter the commitments of marriage.

A prospective spouse is not a rehabilitation project. Dating someone primarily because we hope to rescue or change that person is usually unwise. Compassion and romantic discernment are different things.

We can help someone who is struggling without concluding that we should marry that person.

This is an important distinction because romantic attachment can create unrealistic optimism. We may see serious problems and tell ourselves that marriage will somehow solve them. Usually marriage intensifies unresolved difficulties rather than making them disappear.

People certainly can change, sometimes profoundly, but we should normally discern marriage on the basis of the person who actually exists rather than the person we hope he or she may eventually become.

The same principle applies to ourselves. We should not enter marriage expecting another person to repair our loneliness, insecurity or lack of direction. A spouse can provide extraordinary love and support, but no human being can carry the burden of being another person’s entire source of happiness.

Marriage is a communion between two people who give themselves to one another, not an arrangement in which one person is expected to complete or rescue the other.

A Catholic couple must also discuss children seriously before marriage. Catholic marriage includes openness to life, and both should understand what the Church teaches about the gift of children and responsible parenthood.

It is not enough to assume that these questions will work themselves out later. A serious couple should speak honestly about their hopes for family life, their attitudes toward children and the sacrifices parenthood may require.

They should also discuss other practical matters before engagement becomes irreversible: attitudes toward money, work, family responsibilities, where they hope to live and how they understand the roles of husband and wife. Agreement on every detail is neither possible nor necessary, but major differences should not be ignored simply because the couple is in love.

Dating is partly the process of discovering these realities.

This is why it should neither be treated casually nor made unnecessarily solemn from the first meeting. A first date is not a marriage proposal. Young men should be able to invite a woman for coffee or dinner without treating the occasion as though they were already entering a serious relationship.

There is value in a healthy social culture in which young men and women meet naturally, form friendships and learn to relate to one another without every interaction immediately becoming romantic.

For undergraduates especially, this broader social life is important. University should be a period of forming friendships, developing social confidence and learning about people. Mixed group activities allow young men and women to know one another in a more natural setting and often provide a better foundation for eventual dating.

A young man may nevertheless meet someone during university whom he has serious reason to believe could become his wife. If both are sufficiently mature and marriage within a reasonable period is realistic, there is no principle requiring them to avoid dating simply because they are students.

The question is not whether undergraduate dating is always right or always wrong.

The question is whether the relationship corresponds to reality.

Are they moving toward something they could reasonably act upon? Is the relationship helping both people grow? Can they maintain their studies, friendships, spiritual lives and other responsibilities? Are they living chastely? Are they gradually discerning marriage with greater clarity rather than simply becoming more emotionally dependent upon one another?

If the answers are positive, the relationship may be very good.

If not, they should have the maturity to reconsider it.

Dating should ultimately be an education in love. It teaches us to move beyond the question, “How does this person make me feel?” toward the more demanding question, “What is truly good for this person?”

Sometimes love will lead a couple toward marriage.

Sometimes honesty will require them to end the romantic relationship.

A breakup can be painful even when it is the right decision. Two people may genuinely care for each other and still recognize that they should not marry. Continuing simply because separation hurts can deepen the eventual pain.

Maturity allows us to distinguish affection from vocation.

Marriage requires more than being in love. It requires a realistic decision that this is the person to whom I can give myself faithfully for life, with whom I can build a family and with whom I can help seek holiness.

For this reason, dating should gradually become more realistic as the relationship develops. Early attraction naturally emphasizes what is appealing. Serious discernment eventually requires us to see the whole person.

We should not search anxiously for defects or approach dating as though conducting an inspection. But neither should we ignore what is plainly before us.

A good marriage does not require two flawless people.

It requires two people capable of truth, forgiveness, sacrifice and growth.

A Catholic young man should therefore approach dating with both hope and seriousness. He should not be afraid of women or of romantic love, nor should he allow the desire for a relationship to dominate his undergraduate years.

He should use these years to become the kind of man who will one day be capable of marriage: a man with faith, friendships, competence, self-control and a spirit of service.

If he meets a woman with whom marriage becomes a realistic possibility, he can begin discerning that possibility with generosity and prudence.

He should get to know her in reality rather than merely through the atmosphere of romance. He should respect her chastity and guard his own. He should pay attention to character, faith and the way they help one another grow.

Above all, he should remember that Christian dating is not primarily about finding someone who will satisfy his needs.

It is preparation for a possible vocation of self-giving.

The question is not simply whether he has found a woman he enjoys being with.

It is whether the two of them could one day stand before God and freely promise to give themselves to each other for life.

When dating is approached in that spirit, it can become what it should be: a joyful and prudent discernment of whether friendship and attraction are developing into the kind of love from which a Christian marriage can be built.

*By the Via Virtutis team

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