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How to Get the Girl: Choosing Well

This blog is intended to help and bring insight to people. Please feel free to share this with others. It’s not a platform for shaming, embarrassing, or calling anyone out. Any comments of that nature will be deleted.

While it is addressed to the men, women are welcome to read, comment, and share, especially since their perspective would be quite valuable.

This is the third of a series of blogs on How to Get the Girl. If you’re starting here, I highly recommend going back and reading the previous blogs because these ideas build up.

Blog One: Mindsets – The Kind of Mindset Necessary for Pursuing a Woman

Blog Two: Assets – The Things a Guy Can Do to Boost His Value

None of these require any action yet. The guy is just preparing himself for this endeavor. You want to think things through and not just barge in recklessly.

This blog hopes to answer the questions: How do I choose who I am going to pursue? What qualities am I looking for? How do I know I’ve chosen the right one?

The short answer to this is simply:

Choose the one you would most likely love unconditionally for life.

Let’s break that down:

  • Choose – It’s your choice. Not up to your friends, family, or social network to decide. You will reap the rewards or suffer the consequences.
  • The One – Not the many. Not the few. If you haven’t decided on One Person to pursue yet, don’t bother. Figure yourself out first.
  • Most Likely – Even the best plans and intentions can go in a different direction. Maybe while dating, you learn things about each other that change your relationship. But at least, the one who looks most likely to end up there. Don’t pursue a girl who you obviously have no plans to marry.
  • Love Unconditionally – You like this girl’s good qualities, but you’re also prepared to love her despite her bad ones.
  • For Life – Not during college because you’re blockmates. Not because you happen to be hanging out together lately. Take your life and its many turns into consideration.

start and goal

This criteria leaves so much room for personal preferences. Physical preferences? All up to you. Career woman or stay-at-home mom? All up to you. Local or international? All up to you. (Of course, she has to agree too.)

I will say this, as a Christian I had two qualities that HAD to be present:

  • Christian: She needs to understand and share my love and faith in Jesus.
  • Not married: If she’s still legally married to someone else, she’s off limits.

But anything beyond those two is ALL UP TO YOU.

That being said, here are some common mistakes I’ve seen men make (and I’ve made myself) in choosing who they will pursue:

1. Falling for the idea of the person, not the person herself.

The guy has thought about being in a relationship with her and all the romantic scenarios are playing in his mind. But the moment they start dating and he has to deal with her real personality and character, he loses interest quickly. What was the problem? He fell in love with his own imagination of the person, not the woman herself. Following her on Twitter and stalking her on Facebook does not constitute knowing her

Before you go proclaiming your undying love, do you really know this girl? Or are you just acting out a role from a love song? Get to know her first. As M2M said: Don’t say you love me / You don’t even know me

Wow. Love advice from Pokemon the Movie.
Wow. Love advice from Pokemon the Movie.

 

2. Being emotionally driven, without any conscious decision.

A young man spoke with me about his feelings for this girl. He was crazy about her and couldn’t function well in school anymore. I asked if this woman was really his type. She wasn’t like others he’d dated in the past. No, he was certain. She was the one. He told her his feelings and they started going out.

8 months later, he had become cold, irritable, and obviously unhappy in the relationship. He told me he wanted to break up with her. His reason: one of her personality traits which he had found so adorable in the past was now irritating him. He had “fallen in love” and “fallen out of love.” But he didn’t love her.

If you’re falling in love, talk to someone and be open to their suggestions. I’m eternally grateful to my friends who’ve kept me from acting rashly during emotionally-driven decisions.

Emotions are fine. But don't ever let them drive your life.
Emotions are fine. But they don’t always make wise decisions.

3. Over valuing the physical.

Sometimes guys get together, talk about the women they want to be with, and describe them on purely physical terms, with Barbie-doll proportions. It’s humorous when you look at the people talking and notice the disparity between their physical features and what they feel entitled to in a partner.

Obviously, all guys value something physical about the woman. But too often, they’ve taken their cues from media and the internet, which show an unrealistic perspective on women. Even the girls who you like on screen don’t always look that way in real life, not without a battalion of hair, make-up, lighting, and post-production specialists.

More importantly, if you go back to the Mindset of Flourishing (first blog), if you are committed to loving and caring for a woman, she gets more and more beautiful with every day. My dad always tells new husbands:

I want to see that woman become more beautiful with every year that she’s married to you.

Carla was beautiful when we got married. But with every year I’ve been married to her, she’s become more beautiful, gorgeous, and lovable. That’s a fact I take much joy and pride in. In short, don’t choose a girl who’s just pretty now. Choose someone who you will help become more beautiful every year.

Gorgeouser and gorgeouser!
Gorgeouser and gorgeouser!

4. Choosing someone because other people think she’s perfect for you.

When you decide to pursue a girl, what she’ll want to know is why you like her. Not why your friends or family like her. By all means, get their opinion, but it must be your decision to stand by. You, and you alone, will suffer the bulk of the consequences if you choose carelessly. Or you will reap the never-ending rewards of a glorious marriage if you choose well.

Related blog by Dennis Sy.

5. Choosing her because she already likes you.

Some guys already feel the girl’s affections toward them. It flatters them and makes them feel good. And they confuse this with love so they decide to pursue her. It’s not. In fact, it’s selfishness. Because you’re only pursuing a relationship with her so she can keep making you feel good that way. When she needs loving, the guy suddenly has so little give. It’s because it was never love in the first place. Enter a relationship to give love, not just receive it.

Again, I hope this has been helpful! I love the comments and questions people have been posting. And I do my best to reply to all of them, so don’t hold back. In fact, on Monday, we’ll take a break to answer some of the questions that I think will be helpful to many people. See ya!

Related blogs:

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5 comments
  • This is amazing stuff! Such a blessing for me to stumble upon this blog! Any chance there’s a girl version for this too? 🙂

  • Thank you for the wonderful article.

    “Choose the one you would most likely love unconditionally for life”

    I really like this girl since college and it has been more than 10 years and i still like her. I am really “torpe”, the guy-next-door you will rarely find. Mahirap kasi we started as friends and I plan to visit her this Valentines at her home. I admit i am afraid to be dumped since she has always been the girl i really liked.

    Before I go to sleep, I really pray the last chapter of Proverbs entitled “In Praise of A Good Wife” and I always pray for Saint Raphael, The Angel of Happy Meetings”. Oh well. Whatever happens, this article will always inspire me. Thank you.

  • Hi P.Joseph! Can I raise a question? I’m already a career person and I am already eyeing on a girl but she is still about to go to college. I really feel that we are on the same disposition of liking each other but we cannot directly express it (the truth is, I’m a teacher and she is a student in our school). Should I express it to her after graduation and wait for her after college? Or off limits na lang muna talaga? Thanks! 🙂 God bless!

    • Hi Jash, thanks for your question. If she’s just entering college, is she 15? 16? I would think long and hard about the legal and career ramifications before pursuing a relationship with a minor. Especially if you’re a teacher in her school. Remember Blog #1: Mindsets – You’re goal is to help her flourish. How will distracting her from her college education and entering into a commitment with her help her flourish? Will it help her flourish with her relationships with her parents? How about her relationship with God?

      That being said, I married my wife while she was still in college. Carla went back to university at 26 though. 😉

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