Finding the right person to date and to marry are two very important things in life. Something interesting that a lot of people forget is that there are not seven million people in the world to choose from there is a dating and marriage filter. This filter consists of propinquity, attraction, and commonality.

            I don’t like making a lot of assumptions but I am going to guess a lot of people do not know what the word propinquity means. Now I never knew this was a word but my father taught this concept to me at a young age. At the time by older brother was going on dates with a girl that lived an hour away with out traffic but with traffic it was more like two hours. My Dad told my brothers and I that we need to find a girl geographically desirable. Meaning some one who lives near us, that we don’t want to spend hours driving just to be with the person for 45 minutes. So we need to find someone who is near us so that we can spend more time with them.

            Another strainer in the filter of dating is attraction. Interestingly enough we like people who are attractive to us… no way. However we also find attraction in those that look like us more then don’t. The reason being is we like the familiarity of our own looks rather then some one who doesn’t look like us. This is interesting because the world family comes from the world familiarity.

            The last filter is commonality, which is also the hardest one to find. First, let me tell you commonality is not just having an interest in the same activities but having similar finance options and parenting ideas. Now to find these things out you must get to know the other person. This is were commonality has three subsections. To know someone you need togetherness, time, and talk. Togetherness tends to use activities that you both like and this also shows you how the other acts under certain situations. For example when my mother and father were dating my dad would plan a fun activity… then my mother would throw a wrench in his plans to see how he would act. This helped her to better understand who she was dating. The next part is time. One only starts to know a person after spending three months with them. Research finds that the best marriages that come about are couples that have been dating for one to two years. The last part is talk, talking is so important and really being honest with one another. Talk as much as possible and about as much as possible, my wife and I talked for at least four hours a day seven days a week for about three months before we starting dating. An important note to take is following the RAM model. This goes know, trust, rely, commitment, and then physical touch. The way this works is that a couple should never trust more then they know. Should never rely on the person more then they trust, and so forth. This is the best way to create a relationship with a person.

            I want to leave you all with one finial note of advice that I think every one should be reminded of. That the steps to marriage goes as follows, first date, second courtship, third engagement, then fourth marriage. These four steps are distinct different steps and one should not just slide into each step. Remember these are not for a relationship but for a person. One should date and when that person is ready to be married start a courtship with a person. When you have done that and are ready to be engaged take that step. Finally hit marriage. Do not rush these parts of your life but take your time there is no hurry for any of these part in a person’s life.