Stop Trying to Be the Best

When you’re dating, you put your best foot forward. 

If you go to a social event, you dress well, fix your hair, and try to project confidence. If you’re online, you take time to craft, edit, and revise your profile to present the best version of yourself. 

You are marketing yourself as a commodity. That’s doesn’t mean you have to be dishonest, but if we’re being honest, you try to present yourself as the best option out there.

And why not? We all do it in various situations every day. Most of us don’t show up to work unshowered and unshaved. We apply makeup and deodorant. We suck in our guts. We don’t give people a reason to dismiss us right away. We want to look good and come across as desirable. That’s perfectly normal.

But perfection does not exist.

And trying to present ourselves as perfect just results in revealing our imperfection. 

In the end, nobody really wants a saint or a flawless wax figure anyway. They want a real person. And despite what our profile might display, that’s what we all are: real and flawed and perfectly human.

One thing I learned along my journey through dating—or anything else—is that we don’t have to be the best. We just have to do our best.

Donald Miller writes: “There’s truth in the idea we’re never going to be perfect in love but we can get close. And the closer we get, the healthier we will be. Love is not a game any of us can win, it’s just a story we can live and enjoy.”

So it behooves us to take a little pressure off ourselves. 

The world is not on your shoulders.

Your future happiness does not depend on one bad date that might not work out. 

Thomas Merton said: “My deepest realization of who I am is—I am one loved by Christ.” 

When we start to grasp and absorb this truth, we don’t have to put on airs. Yes, we should still shower and shave and take care of ourselves. But we realize we don’t have to be perfect. We are worthy as we are.

In Matthew 10:29-31, Jesus said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Frederick Buechner recalled the story of an old dying woman who asked a friend to find her another woman to provide her company for whatever time she had left. The friend and the woman’s doctor went out at night, knocking on doors, but everyone was either suspicious, too busy, or felt unequipped to help the dying lady. Until they finally stumbled upon the home of a mother with a brood of children.

“Who's there?” she said. “And what can you want at this time of night?” They tell her the situation. Her warm, Irish heart cannot resist. “Will you come?” “Sure and I’ll come, and I’ll do the best I can.” And she did come, the account ends. She did the best she could.  

That’s all Good asks of any of us. Not to be perfect or have it all figured out. Just to do the best we can.

Early in the flirting stage of my relationship with my future wife, I enjoyed communicating with her. But I was also financially strapped, so I didn’t always ask her on dates like I wanted to. A friend told me to just be honest with her about it. It would be better than her wrongly assuming I didn’t want to spend time with her.

It was humbling, but I took my friend’s advice. 

I confessed that I sometimes didn’t ask her to dinner or a movie because I simply couldn’t afford it at the moment. She appreciated my honesty. 

It put her at ease and reassured her that I was genuinely interested in her. I didn’t present a false front or hide the truth from her. I did the best I could. And that brought us closer.

Mother Teresa put it another way: “God has called us not to be successful, but to be faithful.” 

We are not called to overwhelmingly impress everyone we meet. We will eventually disappoint them anyway. But when we are faithful, the best we know how, then I believe God’s success for us will happen. 

By all means, present the best version of yourself you can when you’re seeking a mate. Your matches and dates are probably doing the same. But be honest. Be real. 

Don’t try to be the best. Just do your best.