If you know you’re headed for Boston it’s easy to get on the right bus. You just follow the signs in the bus station. But how do you go about finding a partner who shares your goals and your values?

The way dating works in today’s society is very hit and miss. Imagine in the movie “Love Story”, ancient as it is, if they just didn’t happen to happen to be in Harvard library at the same moment. Would he have fallen in love with someone else? Go back to how your parents met each other. Odds are there were many coincidental factors. Is this what you want to put the most important decision in your life into? Do you want to count on coincidences? The divorce statistics are appalling, and certainly one of the things that marriage counselors will say is a very important factor, is lack of communication. There’s a reason for lack of communication. The reason is that the people never saw each other as humans, but rather than letting their hearts and minds talk first, the desire to find someone attractive, which is only natural, spoke first. When you meet someone casually, all you know about them that first moment is how they look. You have no idea where the bus you have just gotten on is going.

Because of this, in traditional society, men and women would meet each other through a third person. The purpose of the third person wasn’t to force the match. The purpose of the third person was to sift. If a young woman, for instance, knows that the sort of man that she would admire and want to allege herself to would have to be an idealist, then she could tell this to the third person and that’s going to eliminate a lot of people who are on the very edge of decency. If the man knows that to him the most important quality in a woman is compassion, for instance, telling this to a third person is going to end all the possibilities of meeting people who are admirable, brilliant, sharp, but not compassionate. So if a person has any idea whatsoever of what’s most important to them, and they have the words with which they can convey it to a third person, then the odds are that they’re going to spend a lot less time on nonsense. Far less potential for a heartbreak.