About once a year at The Porch, I’ll give a sermon about dating. And without fail, those will be the highest-attended talks of the entire year. It is the topic to talk about.

Why? Because it’s one of the biggest hopes, goals, and thrills for most single adults. But it is also the biggest source of problems. It causes the most pain, the most heartbreak, the most angst, the most longing, and the most confusion. It’s eating everyone’s lunch.

The reason that dating causes so many problems is because, by and large, we’re all really bad at it. As a society, and as a generation, we’re doing it all wrong.

Fewer people are getting married. Once married, people are far more likely to divorce than in generations past. Not only are we bad at dating but we’re also rapidly getting worse. We’re not as good as our parents were, and not nearly as good as our grandparents were, despite all our seeming advancements.

So where did we go wrong, and how can we make it right?

As a “good Christian,” your first instinct might be to go to the Bible and see what it has to say about dating. And the answer is: not much. The Bible doesn’t really talk about dating. It certainly never uses the word dating, and it rarely gives any examples that in any way resemble what we think of as dating. In fact, the clearest example of a dating relationship in the Bible is probably Samson and Delilah, and that didn’t turn out very well for anyone.

So what gives? Dating seems like a very important topic; why doesn’t the Bible talk about it more?

The reason is pretty simple: dating as we know it didn’t exist when the Bible was written. Dating is a modern invention, and has only been around about a century. God, the inventor of marriage, didn’t invent dating. And the “better” we think we are at dating, the worse we are at marriage. This doesn’t necessarily mean we need to kiss dating good-bye, but we do need to figure out how God would have us date.

The first thing we have to consider is whether the Bible’s relative lack of dating is, in itself, telling us something. It’s not like people couldn’t date back then. They chose not to do it, or at least not to do it the way most people do today. And their results, in terms of successfully creating marriages that would last a lifetime, were far better than the results we get through dating today. You might disagree with my conclusion here, but my point is this: the modern phenomenon of dating has not made us better at marriage.

There are many reasons why our modern take on dating hasn’t been successful. In counseling hundreds of young adults (and observing thousands more) who are either single, dating, or engaged, I’ve noticed a number of common mistakes people make when dating. One common mistake is we are looking for “the one.”

If you’re looking for “the one,” or your “soul mate,” and you define that as being the one person in all the world who is perfect for you, I have some bad news: they don’t exist. You’ll never find them. They’re off riding unicorns with Bigfoot.

The idea of a soul mate isn’t biblical, scientific, or logical. Fact is, there are a number of people who could make a good spouse for you, and you for them.

The reason why this matters is because thinking that you do have a perfect soul mate can lead to some real problems in dating and marriage. In dating, it can keep you single far longer than you need to be – maybe forever. If you’re looking for someone who doesn’t exist, needless to say you’re going to have a really hard time finding them. It can cause you to be too picky, seeing a tiny flaw or minor difference as proof that they’re not “the one” for you.

It can also work the other way, causing you to rush into things or stay with someone longer than you should. If you become convinced that someone actually is your soul mate, then you tend to overlook red flags – even major ones. After all, you’re meant to be together, right? No, you’re not. That’s where the warnings about being “madly” in love and not listening to wise counsel come into play.

The idea of a perfect soul mate can also cause problems within marriage. It can cause people to look elsewhere when marriage gets hard, because supposedly if your spouse were “the one,” marriage wouldn’t require so much work.

No matter how awesome your spouse may be, they’re still not going to be perfect. As months and years go by, there will be times when they don’t inspire a magical feeling within you. So when you meet someone new, and different, and therefore exciting, there may be a temptation to think that this person is your soul mate. That you somehow got it wrong when you married, and you were meant to end up with this new person instead. And that’s wrong.

Here’s how you should look at this concept of there being one person in the whole world who you’re meant to be with: the person you marry is “the one” for you. But you don’t marry them because they’re “the one.” They become “the one” because you’re married to them. They’re the one you’ve committed to love for the rest of your life, and the two of you together become one (Mark 10:7–8). They are still the one when they gain weight, lose weight, lose their job, get cancer, or make mistakes. Because that’s what true love is. It’s not loving someone because they are perfect; that would be easy. It’s taking someone who is not perfect and loving them anyway, because that’s what you’ve sworn to do.

Is there someone out there more compatible with Monica (my wife) than I am? Yes! Thousands of men. I am 6'7" and messy. She is 5'3" and rather organized. There are ways in which we’re not an obvious match. But she’s the one because she’s the one I committed to.

If that doesn’t sound romantic to you, then you need to change your view of romance. You’ve been sold a fairy-tale, love-at-first-sight view of love and marriage. It may be cute for cartoons, but you’re an adult now, and you live in the real world. To me, it’s far more magical to be loved for who I am, flaws and all. I’m not Prince Charming. My bride, as wonderful as she is, is not perfect either. The only perfect person in all of history is Jesus, and he chose to love us – to give his life up for us – even though we are all imperfect, sinful people. He’s “The One.” And by loving each other as he loves us (1 John 4:19), my wife and I can be “the one” for each other.

This article is an excerpt from "Welcome to Adulting" by JP Pokluda, published by Baker Books, A Division of Baker Publishing Group September 2018. Available wherever books and eBooks are sold. Learn More: https://www.welcometoadultingbook.com/ @jpokluda #welcometoadulting