To understand the real roots of ghosting, we need to understand the difference between the natural and covenant mindsets and how they manifest in dating decisions.  Although encouraged to be not of the world, LDS singles still live in the world.  As such, without sufficient awareness, LDS singles more easily succumb to being of the world in their dating decisions.

The natural and covenant mindsets differ mainly in what they value most.  Natural men and women most value self-gratification.  What satiates the desires of evolutionary biology to pass good genetic material to the next generation dominates decision making.  In contrast, covenant men and women most value making and keeping sacred covenants.  They’ll give up some things of this world to have the things of the world to come.

That difference cannot be overemphasized.  Placing higher value on the desires of evolutionary biology essentially turns the heart towards this fallen imperfect world and our mortal life in it.  That priority says temple marriage and the world of eternity are acceptable only if natural desires are fully satisfied in this world of mortality.  Exactly opposite, the covenant mindset places higher value on the desires of discipleship and turning the heart towards the eternal world to come.

Ghosting plays right into the natural mindset.  But women ghost more than men because the natural woman doesn’t have the same values as the natural man.  Both most value self-gratification, but what gratifies the natural man often doesn’t gratify the natural woman.

Natural men value youth and beauty because these women are more likely to bear healthier children.  But natural women don’t value youth; men can play their part well into old age.  Instead, natural women value looks, muscles, money, and status because these things make it more likely the woman will bear healthier children or the woman and child will receive support after the birth.  It’s all about perpetuating this life in this world.

Ghosting plays right into that mindset.  Because of what she values most, the natural woman is always looking for a better option that’ll make it more likely she’ll bear healthier children and/or have support after the birth.  That’s what ghosting essentially is.  It’s exchanging someone less desirable for someone more desirable based on perceived ability to perpetuate life in this world.

Conversely, the covenant mindset seeks to perpetuate eternal life in the world to come.  Because it’s not natural to think that way, the covenant mindset requires conscious choice and discipline along the road of covenant discipleship.

King Benjamin taught as much in his classic discourse to his people.  Mosiah 3:19 teaches how to overcome the natural man.  The same prescription works for the natural woman.  Just replace all the masculine words with their feminine complements.  Either way, putting off the natural mindset requires conscious choice.  And we do it through the Atonement.

But you can’t choose the covenant if you aren’t aware.  Without awareness, we’ll all simply do what comes naturally.  The world, either in ignorance or rejection of the covenant, fully embraces the natural mindset.  This is the world where LDS singles live.  Being not of the world means recognizing that influence and consciously choosing against it.

We can start by chasing away ghosting.  That’ll take time and patience.  After all, no one’s perfectly in the covenant mindset.  We’re all both the natural and the covenant according to we’re at on the path of eternal progression.  But when we start by recognizing that truth and then increasing our awareness of which decisions the natural mindset dominates and which the covenant, we can let Christ and His Atonement into every aspect of our lives.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

That attitude has everyone accepting only “top shelf,” which is great if you can get it but isn’t essential to maximizing your joy in life.  That maximum joy comes from embracing good enough. And just like worthiness is not flawlessness, good enough is not flawless.

How incredibly ironic that many LDS singles expect perfection in an eternal companion but then also expect they’ll be completely acceptable in their imperfection.  They expect the “perfect” person to love them for who they are as they are.  It’s as though change has no place in their equation.

But change is at the heart of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  Indeed, the idea we need to change or be lost forever is core to the Atonement, the central part of our Heavenly Father’s plan.  Expecting a companion who doesn’t need to change isn’t just unrealistic; it stands at odds with the gospel plan.  That plan has us here in mortality with imperfections galore.  We’ll all have many flaws as we journey through this mortal life.

Elder Wilcox noted the same principles as he responded to this hypothetical question:

Too many LDS singles aren’t progressing in their dating journey because they insist on not changing, that anyone who can’t love them as they are obviously isn’t the perfect companion.  But the truly perfect companion is one who will both love you as you are today and not leave you as you are today.  The perfect marriage is the union of two imperfect people who work together to perfect each other.  They accept each other as they each are today, but they don’t accept staying that way.

Some LDS singles undoubtedly reject the idea of change because they know what change will mean.  Seeing themselves in all their imperfections, they know how much work correcting those imperfections will require.  It’s much easier to cling to the thought of a “perfect” companion than to put the hammer down and do the work which change in self requires.

Yet doing the work is the more practical approach.  No matter your approach to your dating journey, the fundamentals will always operate.  You don’t progress without the necessary agreement, and you don’t get that agreement unless you’re agreeable enough.  So progress in the dating journey often means traversing a longer road of change through hard work.

That’s how all of life is designed to be.  Elder Wilcox recognized that design when he declared,

Just as worthiness isn’t about perfection but about patience and persistence in walking the covenant path, so your dating journey isn’t about finding the perfect person but about finding the type of person who’ll walk with you as you help each other become perfect together.

If you’ve sincerely tried to walk that path yet feel beaten down by failure after failure, don’t succumb to surrender and change your destination away from eternal blessings.  When the destination is eternity, it’s always better to deal with frustration by changing your approach.

Many share impatience as an imperfection, so it’s not surprising many LDS singles want the changes they seek to happen now.  Yet often the changes we seek will not come overnight or all at once.  Elder Wilcox taught this principle as he shared the story of Damon, a young man who struggled with his own changes.  In the end, Elder Wilcox recommended,

Good enough is not flawless but is committed to positive change.  Embrace needed changes in you and others as well as the work those changes will require.  And embrace the Lord by partnering with Him for your journey.  You’ll find it easier to make progress and more support as you do.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Something’s missing here.  It’s this truth: Results come only from action.  If you don’t have the results you want, you’re not taking the right action.  So instead of rationalizing your way out of doing what you need to do, learn what action you should take, and then take it.  Your time is now.

Life won’t always go as desired.  When it doesn’t, don’t just say, “Well, it must not be the Lord’s timing.”  Concluding so prematurely will keep you from the real solutions you need.

Too many LDS singles use the concept of the Lord’s timing as a crutch to excuse themselves from further involvement in their own eternal progression.  We all want to believe we can get what we want without making any changes in ourselves, that we just need to keep the standards and then the Lord will just deliver our desired companion when the time is right.  It’s an enticing  yet deceptive argument.

The universe doesn’t work that way.  To reap the harvest, you must sow the seed for that harvest.  To get a different harvest, you must sow different seed.  And you choose what seed to sow.  You can make you more attractive to your hoped for eternal companion.  Giving your all to the right things always produces the right results.

Ultimately, happiness is not about doing the right things but rather giving your all to the right things.  Without question the standards are some of those right things.  So is holding to the iron rod.

And so is eliminating habits that encourage potential companions to decide against you.  So is changing the way you think so your approach to life broadcasts an attractive rather than repulsive energy.  So is conquering your fears holding you back from achieving your potential.  So is partnering with the Lord so you can know what steps you need to take today to turn your life around and capture all the joy He wants you to have right now.

Rushing to conclude the Lord’s timing isn’t right just because you’re still single blinds you from seeing all you can do that’s right for you.  You’ll never get right results without right action.  No matter how much you’ve done, there’s always more you can do.

Results come from action and only from action.  Stop using the Lord’s timing as a crutch to justify inaction.  You don’t get results from anything but action.  Someone must act for you to get results.  That someone is you, and your time is now.

That undoubtedly irritates some of you, especially if you’ve sincerely given your all to secure your companion.  And I’m not discounting the Lord’s timetable for each of our lives.  He knows not only what’s right but when it’s right.

That’s why you need to partner with Him. When you do, you’ll know what you should do with the time you have now.  For most LDS singles, now is the time to take action to move towards eternal blessings.  It’s not just about keeping the standards.  It’s changing the way you think so you embrace a new way of being that makes you more attractive.

That’s the real secret.  Marriage is best pursued indirectly, not directly.  When you choose to make the right changes in you, you drastically increase the likelihood someone you want will want you.  Partnering with the Lord will help you know what changes are best for you to make today that will attract a brighter tomorrow.

The Lord does have a right time for each of us to receive eternal blessings.  But unless you’ve got revelation your time isn’t now, you’re choosing to be single when you use the concept of the Lord’s timing to justify your own inaction.  For most LDS singles, your time is now.  So get busy giving your all to all the right things for you.  When you do, you’ll move yourself closer to the blessings you desire.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

How did friendship come to be so bad?  That’s totally upside down.  Friendship is good, and when you understand the fundamentals of the dating journey, you can easily see you do want the Friend Zone.

It’s hard to get anywhere in any journey without having a good map and then getting your bearings on that map.  That’s what knowing the fundamentals of the dating journey does.  They provide that good map and help us get our bearings.

One of those fundamentals is understanding the different stages.  And the first stage of the dating journey is the Friendship stage.  You’re in this stage when you first meet someone, and you’ll be in this stage until you start dating.  In this stage, there’s no commitment of either party to each other; anyone can come and go as they please.  That lack of commitment is necessary to foster each person opening up enough to let someone else know them better, which you need to foster true friendship.

Friendship is the foundation of all successful long-term relationships.  That’s why the Friendship stage is the first stage of the dating journey.  Without friendship, a married couple won’t have the stamina to get through the difficult times and challenges that sooner or later come to every marriage.  If you want to build something that lasts, begin with a solid foundation.

The Friendship stage is where building that solid foundation starts.  You don’t necessarily need to have that foundation completed before proceeding to the next stage.  In fact, you’ll be building that foundation of friendship all along your dating journey.  But you should have the core established before going further.

Many singles encounter difficulty in their dating journey when they try to rush it.  Seeing singleness as something to escape, they want it over as quickly as possible.  That propensity to rush leads them to think they’re in one stage when they’re really in another.

Singles progress more effectively through their dating journey when they consciously choose to be in the stage where they are.  You may want to be dating someone, but if you’re in the Friendship stage, then be there.  That doesn’t mean you don’t look for opportunities to date.  It means you focus on friendship building skills you’ll need when you’re with whoever you do eventually marry.

So when you’re in the Friendship stage, be in the place where you are.  Focus on building friendships and enjoying people for who they are and what they have to offer without any expectation of getting something in return.  There’s no commitment in this stage of the dating journey, so you don’t have to accept anything you don’t like.

When you focus on being where you are, what was once complex and confusing becomes simple and clear.  Truly being in the place where you are allows you to let go of worries and concerns about the future.  You can’t cross a bridge until you get to it, so focus on crossing when you get there.

Being in the place where you are also allows you to experience more joy in your journey.  Because you’ve pushed aside concerns about future stages for when you’re actually in those stages, you’ve cleared the space for more joy to come into your life.  You can learn to enjoy people for who they really are without concerns about what they might offer you in return.  The friend zone then changes from the equivalent of some God-forsaken wasteland to a wonderful paradise of plenty where life just becomes enjoyable.  And isn’t that what we all really want in the end?

When the options before you seem untenable, it’s time to get some new ones.  Most people simply accept what they’re given, but the truly successful open new doors when the old ones close, even if that means making the new doors themselves.  If you feel your dating options are limited or even non-existent, it’s time to expand your horizons, dare to step out, and strike new ground.

The key to increasing your success is thinking probabilistically.  Target actions that increase your probability of success.  Often that means increasing the likelihood of crossing paths with acceptable prospects.  When you know what activities those types of people have in their life, it’s easier to find new opportunities to meet them.

For example, if you want a worthy companion you can take to the temple, you need to cross paths more with temple worthy people.  What activities do temple worthy people have in their life?  Service is a big one.  How do you cross paths more with people who have service in their life? By serving more yourself.

So expand the scope of your service.  Really delve into your ministering assignment.  Get more active with family history in family history centers.  Pray for and be attentive to service opportunities in your ward.  Spend more time in the temple.  My grandfather met his second wife while serving in the temple.

You get more opportunity to meet quality people when you cross paths more often with quality people.  The probability you’ll do that increases substantially when you position yourself for that crossing to happen.  And the best way to do that is to identify what the people you want to meet do in their lives and then do the same things in yours.

The advent of social media offers an amazing opportunity to do just that.  The business model social media platforms use lets you leverage them for free.  And when you understand the fundamentals of the dating journey, leveraging social media for dating becomes quite natural.

Too many LDS singles frustrate their own progress by thinking huge commitment when considering dating.  They aren’t being in the place where they are.  The dating journey has various stages, each with more commitment than the one before.  The first stage, Friendship, has zero commitment.  Guess what stage you’re in when you first meet someone?  Yep, Friendship.  So focus on building friendship when you meet people since that’s the stage you’re in.

Join groups that attract the type of people you want to meet, get active in group discussions, and you’ll increase your probability of crossing paths with quality prospects.  Then be in the place where you are — whatever stage of the dating journey you’re in — as you get to know people.  Your journey will go better when you’re in the place where you are.

My final suggestion I’ve mentioned before.  Long-time audience members will recognize my encouragement to adopt a personal ministry.  Find some contribution of goodness you can make, and then devote yourself to making that contribution.

Adopting a personal ministry makes you a more interesting person, which in turn makes you more attractive in dating.  And the people who’ll cross your path as you perform your personal ministry are more likely to be quality prospects interested in devoting themselves to causes similar to the one you embrace with your personal ministry.  What a wonderful foundation for a friendship that could grow into a wonderful foundation for marriage!

If you’re frustrated with the dating options LDS singles typically pursue, expand your horizons by imagining new options that approach dating in different ways while still based in the fundamentals of what you’re trying to do.  We all have opportunities all around us, and when we embrace new and different ways of thinking, we can see more of those opportunities and then take advantage of them.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

As I watched the film again recently, I couldn’t help but think about dating.  Johnny Lingo saw in Mahana something no one else saw.  Where everyone else saw an ugly woman worthy of mockery, Johnny Lingo saw a woman so beautiful everyone would remember her as such forever.  The obvious parallels to dating invite us to see others as they could be and not just as they are.  And indeed, we can make more progress in our dating journey when we see with Johnny Lingo eyes.

Perhaps the most important dating lesson here is the influence we have over our own dating journey.  What we think of ourselves truly makes the biggest difference.

Many LDS singles think other people determine their progress in dating.  I used to be one of those, but not any more.  Now that I understand my influence over the choices others make, I no longer have the victim mentality that once drove me to blame others for why I’m single.

Johnny Lingo certainly didn’t have a victim mentality.  He could have easily chosen to court another woman.  All the single women in the island village had their eyes on him.  And Mahana thought so poorly of herself she preferred hiding in a tree over facing her suitor.

But Mahana changed her tune after Johnny Lingo exercised his influence.  He didn’t make her change how she thought of herself.  Rather, he invited her to do so by thinking better himself of her and acting in accordance with that perspective.  He exercised his agency to influence others to choose in his favor.  That’s a powerful lesson we can apply in our own dating journey.

Johnny Lingo saw in Mahana the beautiful woman she really was.  And he helped her to see that for herself so she could release that beauty for all to see.  He truly walked with her.

So often in dating, we look at potential prospects solely as what they are today.  We then assume they’ll always be that way and judge accordingly.  And we certainly don’t do anything to help others become what they could be.  It’s much easier to reject them then walk with them towards their potential.

That wasn’t Johnny Lingo’s attitude.  If he’d taken that approach and viewed Mahana as the ugly woman everyone else saw, he’d have chased after some other woman in the village.  But Johnny Lingo saw Mahana as she could be.  And he walked by her side to help her get there.  In the end, that approach resulted in his wife being the most desirable woman on the island.

What if we took that approach to dating?  What if we started seeing each other with Johnny Lingo eyes?  How different would dating be for us?

Instead of seeing people as they are now, try seeing people as they could become and asking, “If this person were to achieve his or her potential, how attractive of a prospect would he or she be then?”  Johnny Lingo didn’t judge Mahana based on what she presented before he married her.  He judged her based on what he knew she could become, and he helped he get there.  That’s what he married, not the ugly girl hiding in a tree, but the beautiful woman who would elicit the admiration of all who saw her.

We LDS singles need to adopt this approach in dating.  We need to see with Johnny Lingo eyes.  When we do, we’ll see more opportunity all around us.  We’ll make more progress in our dating efforts.  And we’ll enjoy both our single and our married lives more.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

From the original Greek, a mote is a small piece of wood like a chip or splinter, but a beam is like a much larger structural member used to construct a house.  The contrast here has been applied differently but always with a play on the vast difference in perspective represented by the different size of the mote and the beam.  When applied to dating, that contrast enlightens how LDS singles can improve their dating lives.  It’s all in the lesson of the mote and the beam.

The Savior is talking here about judgment because in the previous two verses He encourages judging righteously.  And it’s a pretty simple analogy.  How do we condemn others in righteousness when we ourselves are so grossly lack righteousness?

Often we judge small imperfections in others as huge monumental issues.  But if we look inside ourselves, we’ve got issues that truly are monumental, just as a beam is monumentally larger than a mote.  “For all have sinned,” the apostle Paul declared, “and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

I know for my own self I’ve never claimed to be anything but a walking construction zone with more imperfections than Swiss cheese has holes.  So who am I to judge others for falling short when I myself am so lacking?

And that’s the point.  It’s not about refraining from making any judgments at all; it’s about recognizing how we’re all flawed and then allowing that recognition to lead us into empathy and compassion in viewing others.  Our intention turns from condemning them for their imperfections to considering how we can help them improve.

The application to dating should be obvious.  When evaluating potential dates, too often singles reject candidates based on imperfections when they themselves are certainly not paragons of perfection.

Singles often assessing those imperfections, however tiny, as monumental disqualifications.  They focus so much on having perfect they forgo the joy they could have if only they accepted good enough.  And as we’ve discussed before, you can have maximum joy with someone who’s just good enough if both of you give your all to each other.

That typically isn’t what happens, though.  Singles use whatever standards they have as a litmus test in which no imperfection is tolerated.  And since so many of us are wildly imperfect, no one passes the test, which leaves singles stuck asking where all the “good” candidates are and wondering why they can’t progress in their dating journey.

What’s the solution here?  The Savior advised us to take the beam out of our own eye first, and then we’ll see clearly to remove the mote in another’s eye.  Applied to dating that advice becomes this: Look to accept and improve yourself first, and then you’ll be better able to accept and improve a potentially good dating partner.

Instead of discarding potential candidates with their imperfections, singles should ask how they can help them to discard those imperfections.  The key here is assessing direction.  You need to allow and encourage potential partners to show they’re aligning their lives with the direction you want for your life.  If they demonstrate that willingness, you should investigate further rather than summarily rejecting them for their imperfections.

I’m not suggesting we’re interchangeable parts or that there aren’t acceptable reasons for rejecting a dating candidate.  What I am suggesting is that we need to be more accepting of imperfection in others, especially since each of us is bereft with imperfection.  The perfect partner for you is the imperfect one who’ll help you become perfect and who you in turn help to perfect.

So take in the lesson of the mote and the beam.  It may be hard at first, but you just might be surprised at how perfect for you some of those you previously judged as too imperfect actually are.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

And yes, I said singles should ask that question of themselves.  Your focus determines your reality, so if you don’t like your reality, take a look at your focus.  Making that change on the inside can make all the difference in your world on the outside.

And because we’re all designed to operate out of habit, whatever focus we do have we’ll continue to use over and over again.  That’s great if your focus creates a reality you want and not so great if your focus creates a reality you don’t want.

But it all starts within, so to change your reality on the outside, change your focus on the inside.  If your focus in dating is all about you and what someone else is going to bring you, then you’ll likely attract only those with a similar focus.  And the only reason they’ll want you is more because of what they think they can get from you and not so much with who you really are.

It’s little wonder we think this way.  Modern dating has an increasingly online component, so much so that we bring to dating the same thinking — the assumptions, perspectives, attitudes, and habits — that comprise our online life in other aspects.  And pretty much everyone spends a substantial proportion of that life online shopping.

The Internet makes getting pretty much whatever you want so very easy.  You look around at options from different offerings, compare prices, read and weigh reviews, and make a purchase.  A couple or so days later, your order arrives right at your door.  There’s no need to go anywhere.  And if what you get isn’t really what you want, you get rid of it.

We do the same thing with dating.  We swipe past photos of potential candidates who aren’t cream of the crop, filter profile details, and maybe read what others write.  We’d never reach out to a company offering an inferior product; we simply wouldn’t buy.  So why would we even think about talking to a dating candidate offering what appears to be an inferior candidacy?  The “right” one will arrive on our door in a timely manner and just lift us into bliss, because isn’t that what happens when your relationship is really right?

Are you catching the focus in this common approach?  It treats people like things, which of course trips us up because people are not things.  But it’s also all about what you get.  And that’s completely backwards because happiness in marriage is more about what you give than what you get.

Long time audience members will know I define happiness as giving your all to all the right things for you.  Notice there’s no getting in that definition.  It’s all about what you give, and it’s giving all of you to all that’s right for you.  Certainly your spouse counts as one of those right things.

Now I’m not suggesting we’re all interchangeable parts who can just marry anyone and be blissfully happy based entirely on what we give.  The relationship we’re talking about here is a two-way street; it can’t be all give and no get, for either partner.  But too often we focus so much on the getting that we ignore the more major contribution of the giving.

So instead of asking, “What will this person bring?” when evaluating a dating prospect, ask yourself, “What will you bring?”  When you focus on getting good with you on the inside and making the changes to make you the best you you can be, in that process you’ll cross paths with someone who’ll want to share the life you’re creating, a life in which you each give to each other the best you each have to give.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

This logic keeps many LDS singles single longer — in some cases, much, much longer.  Here’s a more effective approach: Live where you are in your dating journey.  Don't reject a date based on your standards for marriage.  Reject a date based on your standards for dating.

To live where you are, you must first know where you are.  Having a good map can be helpful for that.  As we’ve discussed before, the dating journey map shows these stages:

1. Friendship — In this stage, the commitment level is low.  People come and go as they please.
   
2. Casual Dating — There are two kinds of dating, and the first is casual dating.  The commitment level here is higher because you’ve agreed to go on a date but still low overall.  Once the date ends, so does any commitment of the partners to each other.  Everyone can date whoever they wish.
   
3. Exclusive Dating — When you date only one person who in turn dates only you, you’ve accepted a greater commitment level.  Hence the name of this stage where you explore being with one person exclusively.
   
4. Engagement — In this stage, you’ve decided to raise the commitment up yet another notch.  Here you prepare to formalize the highest level of commitment.
   
5. Marriage — Once you’re married, your dating journey as a single adult ends and your dating journey as a married couple begins.
   

No map will tell you where to go.  But once you decide your destination, a good map will tell you how to get there.  Understanding the different stages of the dating journey helps you know where you are on the map.  From there, the dating journey map tells you how to get where you want to go.

You don’t climb a mountain by constantly staring at the peak.  You climb a mountain by looking where your feet you are and taking a step forward.  Your focus, then, should be on the next step in front of you, not the end goal.

Once you know where you are in your dating journey, your next step is to secure the agreement for the next stage.  Without the necessary agreement, you don’t progress.  Period.  You don’t need to look beyond the agreement you need for the next stage.  That’s like staring constantly at the summit without looking where you put your feet.  Good luck climbing the mountain that way.

Many LDS singles have disagreeable dating experiences because they keep looking at that summit of marriage instead of the earlier dating stage where their feet are.  It’s no wonder they keep tripping over themselves and getting hurt.  If that’s your experience, here’s some free advice: Start living where you are.

If you focus on where your feet are and take the next step directly before you, and then the next one, and so on, eventually you’ll climb the mountain.  So focus on where your feet are: Apply standards of dating to dates.

This of course means you might date someone you wouldn’t marry.  So what?  That’s perfectly normal; everyone dates people they never marry.  Only by dating lots of people will you better know that right type of person who demands more serious consideration.

Because you’ll date people you’ll never marry, your standards will change with each stage of the dating journey.  You’ll casually date people you won’t exclusively date.  And you’ll exclusively  date people you won’t marry.

Recognizing these truths makes it easier to live where you are.  You can better enjoy someone’s company irrespective of whether or not you’ll marry that same person when you focus on that moment rather than on some agenda to achieve a future goal.

Applying standards of dating to dating helps you to live in the place where you are.  This in turn helps you to live more fully in the moment and makes you more attractive to someone who can help you be where you want to be.  And that will bring more joy in your journey.

Covenant men and women, on the other hand, value covenants over all else.  When an opportunity to gain something desirable for themselves comes along, they choose to make and keep sacred covenants, despite whatever they may lose for themselves.  They in essence say, “Something better may come along, but I choose my covenants.  Here I stand, and this is it for me.”

That difference may seem obvious.  But too many LDS singles prioritize self over sacred covenants.  I’m not talking about people going inactive or apostate, although you could apply it that way.  I’m talking about singles rejecting great candidates simply because they aren’t the absolute “best.”

What drives this behavior?  Singles mistakenly assume if they don’t marry the “best” they’ll be condemned to an unhappy future.  Approaching dating with this faulty assumption, the natural mindset either ignores or rejects candidates who would make excellent companions and bring a life of real joy and happiness.  That’s because natural men and women believe you must have the absolute “best” to be happy.

That natural mindset also drives behaviors that give dating its all too painful reputation.  For instance, ghosting wouldn’t exist without the natural mindset.  Singles who ghost dating candidates essentially prioritize their own self-gratification.  What they want — be it avoiding an uncomfortable conversation or pursuing a more attractive candidate — matters more than how others feel.  This doesn’t mean you should always surrender to what others want.  It just means you should be respectful of others as you search for the best path for you.

If the grass is always greener on the other side, natural men and women will look to get to that other side.  They gladly chase after anything better for them because to them what they want matters most.

In contrast, covenant men and women may see the same something better, but they value covenants above all.  So if pursuing something better means breaking their covenants, they don’t pursue it.  To them, making and keeping sacred covenants matters most.

Now I’m not advocating marrying just anyone who’s active.  You can have standards while prioritizing covenants.  Suppose you’re choosing between two dating options: The first rates a 10 on a 10-point scale (with 10 being the best) but consistently pursues self-interest, and the second rates a 7 but consistently keeps covenants already made.  The natural mindset urges choosing the first option, because 10 gratifies self more than 7.  The covenant mindset also sees 10 is better than 7, but the covenant mindset encourages choosing the second candidate, because the covenant mindset prioritizes making and keeping sacred covenants.

Now what if the second candidate rated a 3 instead?  The covenant mindset could turn that candidate away, because a partner who doesn’t bring something to the table and serves as little more than filler material will make it harder to keep the covenants which the covenant mindset prizes.  Clearly we need a sense of balance, but prioritizing covenants doesn’t mean other standards have no importance.

In reality, no one of us is entirely natural or covenant.  We’re all a combination of both, just as we are all mixtures of good and evil, light and darkness, strength and weakness.  The real question is “Which one will dominate your choices?”

Many LDS singles stand in their own way of marriage because they allow the natural man or woman to govern their dating choices.  True joy in married life comes from living the covenant mindset that says, “Something better may come along, but I make my stand here.  For me, this is it.”  This means you could “settle” for an allegedly “lesser” candidate and yet have the maximum amount of joy life offers.

So be a covenant man or a covenant woman who will say, “Something better for me may come along, but I make my stand here.  For me, this is it.”  When you do, you’ll find your dating life as well as your married life more enjoyable.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.