My Two Days of Online Dating

As much as I love Facebook, I have to admit, I spend way too much time on it. I torture myself by scrolling through my news feed featuring many of my friends that are getting married and having babies. Lately I have been feeling left behind. I have never had a real boyfriend, and honestly, I have never had any real prospects. I have been interested in several guys before but they were not interested in me.

So I decided to do something I never thought I would do: I joined a dating website (I still cannot believe that I actually did it).

Being on the dating website was actually the opposite of what I expected. It is nothing like the Hallmark movies where the girl gets a hundred messages in two minutes. My notifications told me how many guys had viewed my profile and how many times each one did. The only request to chat I received was from a 31-year-old divorced father of one. I'm 23 and about to graduate college. There were two completely different worlds there. I am super shy, always have been. I am also super old fashioned, so I think the guy should make the first move. But, I was encouraged by the site to make the first move. I messaged a guy; he opened it, looked at my profile, and never messaged me back. After two days, I could not handle it anymore and took down my profile. I never should have created one in the first place.

I did not really think about how God viewed my decision. I know that God can work through and use anything that He wants to use. That is what I told myself when I signed up. I was just going to try it out, maybe meet a few guys. Maybe I would even meet my husband like the girls on those commercials have. I took it upon myself to write my story, and it did not work out quite like I had hoped. I became convicted about a couple of things during my two days on this site.

First, I was scrolling through profiles like I would scroll through Amazon looking for the best deal on a pair of shoes. Guys were doing the exact same thing to me. The whole process is pretty degrading. This kind of profile shopping took all of the humanity out of each guy I saw. An online profile cannot hold everything there is to know about a person. Sure, I learned what color his eyes are and what his favorite bands are, but that does not define who each man is as a person. I am so much more than what my limited space on my profile could ever say, and so is every one of those guys.

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. -Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

We are the image bearers of the most holy God. He created us to be relational and to seek to know others. We should not treat ourselves or others as a profile picture and a list of hobbies. Each person is valuable and worth taking the time to get to know. It is easy to look at a profile and know a ton of personal things about a person within just a few minutes. However, it is far more satisfying to look a person in the eye and learn what lights their heart on fire.

The second thing that I learned is that God is trustworthy. Even when I think that He is not listening to me, He is listening and He does care. He has already done so much for me. He sent His son to die an excruciating death to redeem me. He has cleansed me of my sin and invited me into His family. He cares for me and there is the ultimate proof.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. -Romans 5:6-11 (ESV)

It was the height of arrogance for me to believe that I could do a better job than God at finding myself a mate. His understanding far exceeds mine in every respect. He knows what is best for me and loves me. I have asked for forgiveness for my arrogance and am joyful because of His forgiveness. Jesus paid for all of my sins on the cross, including this one.

If you are in the same boat today, I want to tell you, you are not alone. Take comfort in knowing that God sees your loneliness, and He loves you. Trust in His goodness and wisdom. Be patient. His plans are infinitely richer and deeper than you and I could ever imagine!