Choosing a mate is one the three most important decisions you’ll make in your life. This is not like picking out a car or a house. Typically, those things are all about what you can afford; well maybe there are some similarities, but I digress.

Picking out a mate is a much more complicated thing. You may be attracted to a red Tesla, and perhaps you’ll have that car for 5 to 6 years, or you do the smart thing and take a two-year lease. There’s not an enormous amount of commitment to it, but when you’re choosing a mate, you are truly choosing someone to share the rest of your life. And even if you aren’t with that person forever, sometimes the aftermath lasts that long. You’re choosing someone to be a part of you, two become one.

The beauty in choosing

You are willing to give up everything for that person, even sacrifice your life. Everyone else in the world takes a subordinate place. You accept them for who they are, all of them. Their flaws and all. That’s right, that muffin top over their waist, the wild beast snoring, the halitosis that somehow didn’t bother you as much before, bad credit, crazy ex, rude and disobedient step children, the whole ball of wax.

You’re choosing everything they were, everything they are and everything they will be. When you choose them and say I do, you’re saying I do to it all. Well, at least that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing. It is also a frightening and bone-chilling decision.

The hell in choosing the wrong person

Choosing the wrong person however, can be the worst decision of your life. It can leave you in psychological ruin, destroyed financially, in jail or in the grave.

Take it from someone who has been married and divorced twice. They were the worst decisions I’d ever made in my life. Choosing the wrong women for me affected my life for over 20 years and I’m still counting, mostly because of having children with them (within marriage, not before). My intentions were pure and I thought I was doing the right thing, but wanting something to be a certain way, doesn’t mean it ever will be. So when I say THINK One hundred million times AND PRAY, I speak from a place of madness and flailing red warning flags.

How do you define the man or woman of your dreams? Is it a feeling in your soul, is it the completion of your list of must haves, or is it the clouds spreading apart and light from heaven shining on them?

So how do I choose?

I believe there are two main approaches.

1. Use your heart S.O. SWV

Your heart skips a beat every time you see them. You’re drawn to them like a moth to a flame. You lay awake at night, the illumination of their face drawn on the back of your eyelids. You love the smell of their skin, the sound of their voice, the way they walk, their laugh intoxicates you. When they touch you, your skin perks up. Your friends, family and co-workers, don’t see what you see, but you think they’re all crazy. Your love is too deep, too rich for mere mortals to understand.

They make you feel like there is only the two of you in the whole world. The only other half that makes you whole. Sure you see the glimpse of the bad character traits, but they pale in comparison. The reality is that love is typically lopsided to one side or the other and you find yourself the one who is an emotional wreck most of the time. It’s like a sugar high; in order to not come down you have to keep popping Oreos.

The sentiment makes me all gooey inside. And love the way that God designed it is one of the strongest forces in the world. Unconditional love will cover a multitude of faults. Sounds perfect right? Nope.

The trouble with it

Here’s the reality. Most people will never ever love unconditionally. You will indelibly, at some point in your marriage or relationship, reach a moment when you don’t feel love, so what do you do then? All of those things that love covered come flooding to the surface like the toilet overflowing on Thanksgiving eve with a house full of people, after 12 servings of macaroni and cheese, potato pie and peach cobbler.

Love is an emotion. It’s certainly expressed through action, but at its core, it’s an emotion. And all emotions are fluid, meaning they come and go, grow, fade, and ultimately they change. Talk to any couple that’s been married a significant amount of time, and I assure you, most, if not all, have had their moments of not being able to stand each other.

Emotion does not lend to a strong foundation. In fact, it may cause you to ignore how truly weak your foundation is. The rainbows and butterflies in your eyes may result in not seeing the ugliness underneath that you are ultimately signing up for.

2. The List

I’ve always been a romantic, for as long as I can remember. So I’m not sure if it’s just me or if most people write a list of all of the things they want in a mate when they grow up and get married. I did. I still have it. It is in my opinion the most logical way to approach such a gigantic decision.

My list in portion was: great communicator, romantic, God loving, extremely intellectual. These things were at the top of my list, but it went on to include other things. Name one other scenario where you would buy something without knowing what you’re buying? If you don’t write a list and check it off as you get to know someone, you’re doing yourself a grave injustice.

You have to take the emotion out of the equation. Making emotional decisions often times leads to bad decisions and as already discussed, making a bad decision in this magnitude is disastrous. No one takes it seriously until they are living the consequences. And also have a list of No Nos (see: The Dark List). That one is just as important.

There are simply too many factors that go into making emotional decisions: our cultural backgrounds, current state of being, tragedy, social influence and so on. Emotionalism breeds knee-jerk reactions and critically awful choices.

Having a list combats these biased feelings-ladened decisions by bringing your brain into the equation. Giving it the last word. Kashif said it best, Love changes. The plus side is, at least you’ll typically like the person that you choose, if you choose based on your list.

The trouble with it

Sometimes you’ll find yourself with someone who you respect, care about, like, but do not love. This of course begs the question, do you have to be in love to choose the right one? I know, I just blew my own mind.

Love and chemistry sometimes are the only things that keep you in a situation that you’ve committed to. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve loved someone I didn’t like. Have you ever called someone and within five minutes of the conversation, you found yourself asking why did I dial this number? Like without love and passion can become sterile and business like. I believe marriage and relationships should enhance our lives.

Love draws you in, in situations that you sometimes want to (and need to) run from. And there are those cases where staying is a good thing or at least it turned out that way.

My Advice?

In a perfect world, you’d have both. The dream of dreams and the fairytale. But how many of us find that? Make a list. Check it twice, three times. And when someone rolls up, start to measure them against your list. You’ll save an enormous amount of time.

Truthfully, falling in love later, is better than falling out of love, or realizing it was just lust and you were never in love at all. Predictably, you’ll have to decide where to compromise, so rank the traits on your list in order of importance.