Expand your horizons

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.

Last week we discussed the need to see others with Johnny Lingo eyes when dating.  Seeing what others could become and then walking beside them to help them reach that potential isn’t an approach many singles take.  But embracing it can help you see more of the opportunities all around you.

Still, some singles have limited vision.  They aren’t impressed with often cliquish singles wards.  Singles activities don’t really engage them.  They see online dating sites filled with rejects, people so entitled it’s no wonder they’re single, and scam artists who are just downright creepy.  And blind dates that seem to have more in common with a married friend’s desire to play matchmaker than anything else certainly offer no appeal.

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.

Increase your service

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.

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Leverage social media

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.

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Adopt a personal ministry

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.

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