Verified by 
Key points
- Many single, religious people seek refuge in their faith to understand their dating experience.
- Immigrants and refugees tend to gravitate towards religion due to the cultures in which they grew up and the challenges they've faced thus far.
- Many hope that their faith will be rewarded in the afterlife, even if their day-to-day existence is frustrating or lonely.
- Finding success in the dating world may require a new perspective and undertaking a process of transformative personal change.
The laws that govern the process of modern dating aren't based on religious principles—at least not anymore.
Yet many single, religious people seek refuge in their faith to understand their dating experience. They may make statements that attribute their failure (or success) at finding an appropriate partner to God or another higher power. “I haven't met the one because God has something better in store for me.” “I'm not dating because I'm saving myself for marriage.” Or “I'm not finding my partner because people have changed.”
The theory of natural selection argues that all living things—including people—are fundamentally selfish, in that they strive to conserve and reproduce their genes by any means necessary. Finding a partner with whom to reproduce genes is, for many, one of life’s greatest challenges.
I argue that it presents a unique challenge for immigrants and refugees. This is because, in the modern world, there are a set of beliefs, skills, and behaviors that are necessary to adopt to make the process of mating possible and successful. Refugees and immigrants, in particular, often struggle to learn the social scripts that would allow them to navigate the modern dating waters.
As a result, they often fail (sometimes miserably) to find a romantic partner. And if they're religious, which many are, they may attribute that failure to God or the unfairness of the universe.
Why Immigrants and Refugees Often Look to Religion
Immigrants and refugees tend to gravitate towards religion for obvious reasons: Life thus far has not been particularly nice for them, so they hope for a better life in the hereafter. Immigrants and refugees are also often traumatized by childhood experiences that render them vulnerable to accepting superstitions and religious dogma because it helps them make sense of their complicated experiences
Immigrants and refugees face other romantic challenges, too. They may, as a result of their displacement, struggle to project an attractive and confident persona. Differences in language and culture may make it difficult for them to relate to the people they date. They are often misunderstood in the translation between cultures.
Language and culture are two sides of the same coin of communication and connection. Much of language is shaped by culture, and vice versa. Immigrants and refugees must often therefore completely unlearn old ways of being, doing, and knowing in the world and learn new ones.
Adopting a New Perspective
It would be nice—even, some would argue, fair—if the universe, God, or some higher power could somehow ease the experience of immigrants and refugees in dating. It would be nice if we lived in a perfectly equal society where kind, naïve people always got a fair shake. But we live in the real world, governed by natural selection, and where the universe is indifferent to human suffering and aspirations.
Religious immigrants and refugees often hope that, even if their life here is miserable or lonely, they'll be rewarded in the afterlife. Yet many philosophers argue that people have an inalienable right to happiness in this life. What’s the point of living a miserable life here in exchange for a happy but uncertain afterlife?
I argue that immigrants and refugees struggling to navigate their new culture must take the agency to redefine their life. Everyone has to start somewhere, and late is better than never. Because adopting an entirely new way of thinking, doing, and being often calls for transformative change, immigrants and refugees have to study the science of change.
This may not come easily. As the scholarship of Dale Carnegie showed, personal transformative change is neither easy nor linear. Change is painful, slow, and sporadic. Thus, even when they make an effort to let go of their old traditions and embrace their new culture, immigrants and refugees often find themselves returning to ingrained habits and behaviors.
Understanding the mechanisms of how change occurs will enable immigrants and refugees to have reasonable and reliable expectations. They should not expect to overhaul their ingrained ideology overnight. Beliefs and behaviors that have been instilled and practiced for years will perhaps take an equal number of years to change. In the personal transformation process, persistence trumps brilliance, and patience is the name of the game.
Although it is a hard idea to swallow, I believe that immigrants and refugees will be well served by coming to terms with the fact that the universe is indifferent to human suffering and aspirations and that their "survival" in the dating world depends on taking the agency to become active agents of positive change. As Gandhi put it, “Be the change you want to see in the world”—because even for the most religious, God will not intervene unless you take charge of your life.
