5 Reasons You Are Struggling To Settle For Him/her by Pastor Kingsley Okonkwo: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Dating Pool Is a Buffet, Not À La Carte

Dating in this generation has become more difficult and more complicated. More people are connected than ever before, yet fewer of them are actually getting married. The problem is not a shortage of platforms to meet people. Many singles are simply unmatchable, not because of who they are, but because of how they think. The mindset and outlook of the single person is often the actual obstacle, no matter how many forums or connections are offered to them.

Reason One: They Are Ordering À La Carte in a Buffet World

• À la carte thinking is when a person orders exactly what they want off a menu, and the kitchen creates it specially for them.
• Buffet thinking is different. A buffet has variety, but a person can only choose from what is actually on the table.

Dating is more buffet than à la carte. Many singles come to the dating pool with an à la carte mentality, not realizing that what is actually in front of them is a buffet. They mix and match ten or twenty different people's qualities into one imaginary person, insisting on an exact height, an exact income bracket, an exact spiritual maturity, an exact look, until the person they are describing does not exist anywhere. So they wait, and keep waiting, for someone who was never going to appear.

The better approach is to choose from the table life has actually offered: from church, from the neighborhood, from the workplace. Even in a mentoring or matching context, a person is not meant to go chasing whoever they want. Rather, they choose from among the people who are genuinely interested in them. If there is no fish on the table, is there shrimp? If there is no shrimp, is there lobster? A person has to work with what is closest to what they want and what they can help develop, rather than hold out for a fantasy.

Reason Two: They Are Not Patient With Raw Material

Many people in the dating process expect the person coming to them to arrive already perfect. That expectation itself is the problem. No one arrives perfect. A person comes in raw material form: they will have some of the qualities being looked for, and potential for others. That means there is work to do together, and it is a lifetime journey.

Even the one searching is not finished either. A person who is still very much a work in progress cannot reasonably expect their "perfect" match to already be complete. Interestingly, those who bring the least to the table are often the ones demanding the highest quality in return, and that expectation is rarely met with mutual interest.

Reason Three: Everyone Is Chasing the Person Who Doesn't Want Them

A common pattern in the dating pool is that everyone is chasing someone who is not interested in them, while ignoring the person who genuinely wants them. A man pursues a woman who has her eyes on someone else entirely, while a woman who is actually interested in him is overlooked, because he has decided she is "not his level." Nobody wants to admit they are simply looking upward at someone unavailable.

• The person who seems "beneath" someone's expectation may not actually be beneath them at all. With partnership and support, that person can grow into the level being sought.
• That kind of growth together is often a better path than waiting endlessly for someone who has no time or interest.
• What often separates the person "chosen" from the person "overlooked" is not real character but something surface-level, like looks or income, and in matters of spiritual depth the overlooked person can often be the stronger choice.

No one should expect a specially created match to appear from nowhere. What exists are the human beings already living now, with free will, complexity, and imperfection. If someone genuinely likes a person and there is no real character issue standing in the way, choosing that person and helping them grow is wiser than continuing to chase someone who has already made their disinterest clear.

Reason Four: The List Itself Is the Problem

Many people build a checklist of requirements that, item by item, eliminates almost everyone who could actually be a match, and this list is often the very thing working against them.

An illustration: someone searching for a house who insists it must already contain two swimming pools, one of them triangular in shape, will almost never find that house. But someone who simply wants a house with enough space to build two pools later will find a home far more quickly, and can build the pools afterward. The more non-essential conditions added to a list, the harder the search becomes, even when many of those conditions turn out not to matter after marriage at all.

Height is a common example. A useless partner, someone irresponsible, unfaithful, or unkind, will still be a poor choice regardless of their height. But a person who meets every essential quality should not be rejected over something as small as height.

Reason Five: They Choose by Sight Before They Engage

The right order is to engage before choosing, not to choose before engaging. Most people select a partner purely from appearance at a matching site, a dating platform, or even in church, then only discover afterward whether that person is emotionally healed, kind, or spiritually grounded. Others who were never "stunning" on the surface turn out, once truly experienced, to have a way of thinking and behaving that is deeply attractive.

• Interest can begin from attraction, but a decision should never be made from attraction alone.
• A person's real qualities, such as commitment to God, willingness to sacrifice, and love for people, cannot be read from a picture. They can only be discovered through genuine relationship.

Reason Six: The Reality of Rising Expectations With Age

It is natural, particularly for women, to be drawn toward someone who appears "better": taller, richer, smarter. That instinct is real, but it has to be paired with realism. A person who has all of those qualities may still arrive in potential form rather than fully developed form.

The wiser approach is to marry patterns, not potential. Look at the pattern of a person's life: are they hardworking, teachable, willing to grow, and willing to work with a partner rather than against them? Someone who shows those traits, even while still developing, is a far safer choice than someone chosen purely on unrealized promise.

Every year that passes changes the field of options, and the earlier this reality is faced with clear eyes rather than fear, the sooner needless delay in the dating pool comes to an end.