Most dating advice is somewhere between useless and vaguely haunting.
You know the kind. “It’ll happen when you least expect it.” “Just be yourself.” “There are plenty of fish in the sea,” which is comforting only if you’re open to the idea that modern romance is basically deep-sea fishing with emotional damage.
The problem isn’t that this advice is wrong. It’s that none of it tells you what to actually do. And for singles trying to date in 2026 — which tends to include a cycle of downloading apps and deleting them after 5 minutes of seeing the only available options — vague encouragement isn’t enough.
Eric Demeter, a relationship expert and author of several books, including How Should a Christian Date? It’s Not as Complicated as You Think, says helpful advice should lead to action. It should give people something concrete to practice whether they’re single, dating or stuck in the weird gray zone now known as “we’re talking.”
A lot of people, he says, start with a list. Not a casual set of preferences, but a full internal screening document for a future spouse.
“The first list I created many years ago contained over 30 obligatory qualities for my future partner,” Demeter says. “Yikes.”
He’s not against standards, of course. But he is against treating your ideal partner profile like a legally binding document. Lists can reveal what matters to us, but they can also box us in. Demeter says they often say more about us than they do about the person we’re hoping to meet.
“Lists will always reveal more about us than they ever will about someone else,” he says.
His advice: stop treating your preferences like permanent law. Hold them loosely. Write most of them in pencil. Chemistry, character and compatibility rarely show up in the exact packaging people imagine ahead of time, and some of the most important qualities in a partner don’t fit neatly into bullet points.
“Give God permission to add, subtract and modify it frequently,” Demeter says.
Another issue that still wrecks otherwise promising relationships is miscommunication — or more specifically, two people assigning wildly different meaning to the same situation. Which, to be fair, is basically half of modern dating.
Demeter points to a simple example: asking someone to coffee. One person thinks it’s a date. The other thinks it’s two friends fueling up with some caffeine. Nobody says the quiet part out loud, and now both people are stuck trying to decode eye contact over iced lattes.
“In my head, I meant coffee-date,” Demeter says, “but left unverbalized, she could very well be receiving mixed signals.”
He says this doesn’t stop once a relationship gets serious. Meeting parents, taking a trip together, spending every weekend together — each move can feel loaded for one person and casual for the other. Trouble usually starts when nobody bothers to define what any of it means.
“The bottom line is that when you feel there could be a discrepancy in the meaning of a circumstance, it’s important to communicate the significance you place on it,” Demeter says.
In other words: use your words. It’s less romantic than hoping the other person magically intuits your intentions, but it’s also how healthy relationships work.
Demeter also argues that some of the best relationship prep has nothing to do with flirting strategies or finding the right person. It has to do with becoming the kind of person who can sustain a healthy relationship once one actually begins.
He compares the work of preparing for marriage to training for a championship season. Relationships, like sports, require endurance, humility and the ability to think beyond yourself, which is exactly why so many people discover marriage is beautiful and brutally refining.
“Marriage will undoubtedly challenge all of our selfishness, pride and ego,” Demeter says.
That’s a warning signal for all the singles out there. Singleness isn’t dead time. It’s not the waiting room before your real life starts. It can be the season where God deals with the habits and insecurities that would follow you into any relationship if left unchecked.
“The time we invest during our single years becomes our own regular season and the optimal training ground for marriage,” he says.
For Demeter, spiritual maturity matters more than perfect dating technique. A healthy marriage, he says, grows out of a life already being shaped by sacrifice, discipline and dependence on God. Or, put less churchily: if you can’t handle your own selfishness now, romance is not going to magically fix it later.
Demeter’s final piece of advice is perhaps the one that’s most needed today: slow down.
In a church culture where people can go from first date to trauma dumping to matching tattoos in what feels like 11 business days, Demeter says one of the wisest things you can do is refuse to let feelings set the pace. He points to Proverbs 4:23 and says guarding your heart is less about fear and more about wisdom.
“The primary way we lead our heart … is by taking the relationship appropriately slowly,” he says.
For him, this looks like resisting premature intensity. Keep early conversations grounded. Let the relationship form around shared experiences instead of skipping straight to emotional intimacy that hasn’t been earned yet. Enjoy each other. Pay attention. Let clarity catch up before attachment gets too far ahead.
He also encourages couples to be intentional about physical boundaries, especially early on.
“Enticing activities like holding hands and kissing become tantamount to emotional Super Glue,” Demeter says.
It’s a memorable phrase because it gets at something most people know but don’t always admit: physical affection can make a maybe-feeling feel far more certain than it actually is. Boundaries won’t make a relationship boring. They just help keep emotions from outrunning wisdom.
And that’s what Demeter has spent his professional life helping others achieve. Long-lasting, healthy relationships — not ones built on cheesy Instagram graphics and bad online takes.
