Why You Should Kiss Dating (Apps) Goodbye.

In 1997, a 20-year- old named Joshua Harris published a book that would set off a firestorm of damage, destruction and controversy for decades to come. The book was called I Kissed Dating Goodbye. What is sad about this story is that the book itself isn't nearly as harmful as how it was used. I would argue that by far the majority of people who either caused harm or felt harmed by this book likely never even read it. The people that used it to cause harm just took the title and key concept of the book and ran with it. The people who it harmed just accepted that the people who were harming them were doing so based on what was actually written in the book - which it often wasn't.

In 2022, I devoted seven episodes of a podcast just to deconstructing this book alone. You can find it here, if you are interested, but I warn you, it was my first podcast. I recorded it all alone and it is the epitome of the phrase "do it ugly." The quality is not great - the first episode is really bad, but I also think it can do a lot to heal the damage that many people think was caused by this book.

There is often a strong belief among former Evangelicals that their churches caused harm that wouldn't have happened if they weren't in church. While it's true that Evangelicalism and purity culture did a lot of damage, "purity culture" didn't somehow just miraculously appear in the late 20th century, nor is it, or has it ever been, limited to any specific religion or even religious culture in general. In fact, I read this book when I was in my mid-to-late 20's and I found it to be incredibly freeing and helpful. As, I think, a lot of people did who actually read the book.

Although dating has always been fraught with complications, there is a particular damage that I believe has come with the rise of dating apps, which are based on the idiotic notion that more options are always better. The truth is, the more choices we have, the more time and energy it takes to make one. By now, many people are familiar with the idea of decision fatigue, which refers to how exhausting it can be to make a choice when faced with too many options. While we love the idea of having so many choices, what we rarely stop to think about is the cost of having that many choices.

Unfortunately, we have carried this same idea into dating. We seem to believe somehow that having more options is better. In reality, however, what tends to happen is that we just spend more and more time flipping through available options and less time actually dating - or perhaps even better yet - simply living our lives. What I would argue is that all the time we spending looking is actually cutting into the time we could be out doing things that actually make us happy, or, at the very least, spending on ensuring that when we do find someone we are truly compatible with, we are actually ready to be in a relationship.

This is what is so ironic about all the scandal attached to Harris' book. The overarching message of his book is not actually that dating is "bad" or "wrong" or "sinful" - as it was twisted to be by so many others. The real message is that the time we spend not dating is precious and valuable, and we should not only take advantage of it, but also use it wisely. Ironically, while the twisted message was used to cause so much harm to women and young girls, I think the true message is particularly important for women and girls. Which is almost assuredly why it was twisted and repackaged.

While men have always been encouraged to go off and "find themselves" ( or “sow their wild oats”) before “settling down,” women have largely had no such encouragement. I also believe an argument could be made that women date more because they feel societally pressured to do so, while men date more because (and only when) they want to.

While there is nothing wrong with dating and I think dating is a good and healthy thing, I think the enormous amount of time people spend pursuing a relationship now is time that could be better spent growing as a person and getting to know yourself better. Call me crazy, but I am a big believer in “if you build it, they will come.” I believe people find lasting relationships when they are ready for them, but too many people spend their time, energy and effort looking for the relationship rather than preparing themselves for them.

What I have learned from my own life is that the more time I spent working on myself, learning to overcome my own fears, doubts, inhibitions and to be my own best friend, the less desperate I felt to be "in a relationship." We think the antidote to that desperation is to be in a relationship, but I think the opposite is actually true. The more desperate you are to be in a relationship in the first place, the more unhappy you will be when and if you finally find one.

While I don’t completely buy into the Law of Attraction as it was laid out in the wildly popular book The Secret, I think that like all books (including I Kissed Dating Goodbye) there is certainly an element of truth to it. Particularly when it comes to “attracting” a mate. I think we waste a lot of time looking instead of spending it getting ready, so when someone highly compatible actually comes along, we often are not ready for the very relationship we spent so much time, energy and effort pursuing in the first place.

Mating is like buying a home, dating is like renting

One thing you'll notice about people getting ready to buy a home is that they plan for it carefully. Often years in advance. For one thing, they start cutting their expenses, which inherently has the effect of literally changing their lives, lifestyles and habits. They understand that buying a home is both a huge commitment and a huge financial burden, and so they plan carefully for it. If only we applied this same understanding to dating.

Dating is like renting - it's expensive, but not nearly as expensive as preparing for the long term commitment of buying a home (preparing for marriage/ long-term committed relationships). People don't buy homes because it's actually cheaper than renting - it's not. Far from it in fact. The reason people buy homes is that in the long run, you build up equity, the same way you do in your relationships.

I don’t believe in this idea of The One. I think mating is a lot more like buying a house. The longer you save, the more research you do and the more patient you are, the more likely you will be to end up with a home you will be very happy with for a long time to come. That being said, while you may have some idea of where you want to live and what you’re looking for in a house, there will always be at least a few compromises that will have to be made. The same is true of relationships.

In addition, just like buying a home, while you may have a long list of things you want, what it comes down to is a combination of what is available when you are ready to buy and what you can afford. That being said, the more desperate you are to buy a home/ be in a relationship, the more likely you are to make compromises that could leave you very unhappy, very quickly.

What few people seem to understand is that unlike buying a house, the biggest cost in relationships is not (usually) a financial one, it's emotional. In fact, if the biggest cost of your relationship is financial, I wouldn't count on it lasting too long, or expect it to be hell if it does.

Dating is like renting. Some people may never want to buy a house ("settle down") and that's okay. But if you do want/ plan to get married or settle into a long-term committed relationship, then it's important to understand that dating is expensive and the more you do it, the fewer resources you have. Imagine you want to buy a house. Do you think it's a good idea to move every 2-3 months, or even worse, bounce from hotel to hotel?

Unfortunately, we are given far better advice about how to prepare to buy a home than we are about how to prepare for marriage or long-term commitment. In fact, it's rare for anyone to even think of marriage or long- term commitment as something we even need to prepare for. Some people date just for the sake of dating, but would you chronically be house hunting if you had no interest in buying a home? And then, if you went to an open house and took up a realtor's valuable time only to tell them you had no interest in buying, would you expect them to not be upset?

Always remember, dating, like all relationships, is an investment - it takes time, money and energy. If a long-term or lifelong relationship is like buying a house, then the more resources you invest in dating, the less you will have to save up for buying a house. Again, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t date, it simply means you always need to be balancing your short-term expenditures versus your long-term goals.

Connect

Reach out anytime for support or questions

Get blogs, news and updates sent straight to your email!

© 2025. All rights reserved.

Based in Colorado

Deconstruct Reconstruct Recover