Dating

The best way to discover your temperament is a combination of honest self-reflection, feedback from people who know you well, and a reliable assessment tool. Most people have a primary temperament and a secondary one, and they show up most clearly not when life is easy but when you’re under stress, in conflict, or falling in love. The Deeper Story Self-knowledge has always been central to the spiritual life. The Church’s spiritual directors have used temperament as a tool for growth for centuries, because understanding your nature is the foundation for cooperating with grace. You cannot grow in virtue if you don’t know where your specific struggles are. ...

Chastity in a dating relationship is the decision to love the other person according to their real dignity — not just when it’s easy, but especially when it’s hard. It’s not a cage that keeps you from love. It’s the thing that makes real love possible, because it clears the fog so you can actually see the person in front of you and ask the questions that matter most. The Deeper Story The Catechism is remarkably clear: “Either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy” (CCC 2339). That’s not a threat. It’s a description of how human beings actually work. When your desires are running the show, your judgment gets cloudy — and dating is the one season of life where you most need clear judgment. ...

Knowing your temperament helps you date better because it gives you honest language for patterns you’ve felt but couldn’t name. When you understand why you keep having the same kinds of dating struggles, you can finally stop blaming yourself – or the other person – and start making changes that actually stick. Self-awareness isn’t a luxury. In Catholic dating, it’s the starting point. The Deeper Story Most dating advice treats everyone the same. “Just be confident.” “Just communicate.” “Just take it slow.” But what does “take it slow” look like for a choleric who’s wired to move fast versus a phlegmatic who’s wired to barely move at all? Generic advice fails because it ignores the reality that God made each of us with a distinct nature. ...

Your temperament shapes how you communicate in relationships – how you express affection, raise concerns, and respond when things get tense. Two people can care about each other deeply and still feel disconnected simply because their temperaments process and express things differently. Understanding these patterns is one of the most practical things you can do for your dating life. The Deeper Story Each temperament has a distinct communication signature. The sanguine communicates with enthusiasm and warmth. They’re expressive, animated, and quick to share what they’re feeling – but they can talk more than they listen and sometimes say things they haven’t fully thought through. The choleric communicates with directness and efficiency. They get to the point fast, which can feel refreshing or blunt depending on who’s receiving it. They need to learn that not every conversation is a problem to be solved. ...

How you handle conflict in dating has a lot to do with your temperament. Some of us fight. Some of us flee. Some of us freeze. And most of us do all three at different times depending on how stressed we are. Understanding your natural conflict pattern – and the pattern of the person you’re dating – is one of the most practical things you can learn for building a relationship that lasts. ...

Temperament compatibility isn’t about finding someone whose results perfectly match a chart. It’s about understanding how different temperaments interact – where they naturally strengthen each other, where they might clash, and what virtues they’ll need to grow together. In Catholic relationships, compatibility is real, but it’s always secondary to virtue and shared values. The Deeper Story As we teach at FAFE, there are complementary pairings that tend to balance each other naturally. Choleric and phlegmatic is a classic example: the choleric brings drive and initiative while the phlegmatic brings calm and peace. Sanguine and melancholic is another: the sanguine brings joy and optimism while the melancholic brings depth and thoughtfulness. These pairings work well because each person’s strength fills a gap the other naturally has. ...

Theology of the Body is a way of understanding what your body — as a man or a woman — actually means, and what that meaning tells you about how to love well. It’s not abstract theology reserved for graduate seminars. It’s the most practical dating framework you’ll ever encounter, because it answers the question every single person is really asking: how do I find real love without losing myself in the process? ...

Physical attraction is good. Full stop. God designed you to notice beauty, to feel drawn toward another person, to experience the pull of desire. Theology of the Body doesn’t ask you to shut that down. It asks you to understand it — because attraction that stays on the surface can miss the person entirely, and attraction integrated with truth becomes the beginning of real love. The Deeper Story Here’s what John Paul II actually taught about desire: “Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount indicate that lust in itself does not reveal that meaning to man, but on the contrary dims and obscures it” (TOB). Notice — he didn’t say attraction dims the meaning of the body. He said lust does. There’s a crucial difference. ...

Theology of the Body says physical attraction is good — full stop. It’s not something to be ashamed of, suppressed, or white-knuckled away. Attraction is part of God’s design, a signpost pointing toward the communion of persons we were made for. The issue was never desire itself. The issue is what we do with it. The Deeper Story One of the biggest myths about Catholic teaching is that the Church is anti-body. John Paul II dismantled that myth for five straight years. He taught that “the body is called ‘from the beginning’ to become the manifestation of the spirit” (TOB). Your body — including its attractions, its desires, its responsiveness to beauty — is meant to reveal something true about the human spirit. Attraction isn’t the enemy. It’s a messenger. ...

The choleric temperament is the one who takes charge. If you’re choleric, you’re naturally driven, decisive, and action-oriented – the person who knows what they want and goes after it. In dating, your initiative is a real strength, but it can also mean you move so fast that the other person feels steamrolled rather than pursued. The Deeper Story Cholerics are wired for leadership. You see a problem, you fix it. You see a goal, you chase it. In a culture where many singles struggle with passivity and indecision, the choleric’s willingness to act is genuinely refreshing. You’re the one who actually plans the date, follows up with a text, and doesn’t leave things ambiguous for weeks on end. ...