How to Avoid Dating a Jerk

by David George

Modern dating has become a test drive for marriage and a long-term relationship. Unfortunately many give it no more thought than test driving a car figuring that if they don’t like the person they can just end the relationship. Unfortunately, failed relationships leave us with a lot of baggage in our hearts: scars, wounds, fears and apprehensions. This “baggage” then follows us through the rest of our life into all of our other relationships until we get inner healing. So dating isn’t really like test driving a car because it entails a lot more risk. It would be like saying, “I’ll test drive your car and I’ll either love it and I’ll buy it, or I’ll get into an accident and be scraped up and bruised or possibly even end up in the emergency room with serious injuries.”

Solomon exhorted his son, “Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life”. Our heart is our truest self, the core of our being. It is where our beliefs reside. When we date someone, we open up our heart to them and they are able to plant either truths (“You are beautiful”) or lies (“You aren’t worth my time”) into our heart. These beliefs affect our motives and our emotions. Our heart is so valuable that God sacrificed his Son Jesus in order to redeem it. Our heart is too valuable to risk opening it up to a jerk.

We need to guard our heart by determining the character of potential dates before we pursue a romantic relationship. People generally show their true character when under stress or pressure. I once went on a camping trip with my youth group. There were two girls in the group that I was interested in and watching. The stress of the camping trip revealed that these two girls had very different character. One of them refused to help out at all with cooking, clean-up or anything else around the campsite. She even joked about how lazy she was. The other girl was ready and willing to pitch in and help all the time. She often was asking if there was any way she could help even after she got back from a 12 mile hike and was tired.

Of course it will take patience if we want to determine someone’s character before we date them. Our heart will want to jump into a relationship as soon as we think that someone is attractive and has a fun personality. But we need to guard our heart from getting into a relationship before determining their character. Instead of jumping headlong into a relationship we need to be patient until time and circumstances has revealed their character to be trustworthy. Then you will be confident that they are not a jerk.