Dating With Intention: A Coherent First-Principles Guide For An Overwhelmed Generation

Dating With Intention: A Coherent First-Principles Guide For An Overwhelmed Generation

By:

Samuel Boateng Nsowah and Addo-Obeng Opoku-Agyeman

Abstract: Modern dating presents a striking paradox: despite unprecedented access to romantic advice, dating platforms and relationship content, fewer young people are forming stable, long-term partnerships, with many reporting exhaustion, uncertainty and emotional disengagement.

This paper intervenes by offering a first-principles framework for dating that treats romantic success as a structured human project rather than a product of luck, chemistry or digital matching.

It draws on two complementary bodies of material: one examining global dating patterns in the post-internet era, and another centering a Ghana-focused inquiry grounded in local experiences, cultural narratives and social realities. Using interdisciplinary insights from sociology, psychology, religious studies and development economics, the paper argues that modern dating is failing less because individuals want the wrong things and more because contemporary socio-technological conditions have increasingly weakened commitment, clarity and accountability.

It concludes that lasting love is built intentionally through mutual development, shared moral responsibility, rejection of false entitlements, and stronger community and family integration, showing that modern dating outcomes can be improved by reshaping both individual practice and surrounding norms.

Keywords: dating, courtship, Gen Z, mutual, entitlement, respect, Ghana, situationship, religion, parents

“If They Wanted to, They Would”
̴ a Gen Z, probably. 

Overstimulated. Overexposed. Overwhelmed.

Few phrases capture the modern intimacy economy better than these. Scroll through YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, even LinkedIn, and you are instantly met with an endless stream of self-appointed “experts” dispensing unsolicited advice on love, attraction and dating. Dating content now competes with dominant cultural obsessions such as productivity, fitness and self-care.

People narrate their romantic lives in real time: live date updates, post-date debriefs, and public confessions have become a genre of entertainment. Media networks have joined the spectacle, producing dating reality shows and lifestyle programming built around romantic pursuit.

And yet, despite this abundance of information and the explosion of self-help content, the dating market has not produced a comparable boom in stable love stories.

If anything, the statistics suggest the opposite: long-term partnership appears more elusive now than at any point in modern history.

In the United States, for example, the average relationship lasts only two years and nine months before ending.

Divorce rates remain high, marriage rates are declining, and one trend analysis suggests that just over half of Gen Z will ever marry.

Meanwhile, large numbers of single people report little interest in dating at all, and cultural commentary increasingly highlights Gen Z’s growing disengagement, particularly among men, from committed relationships.

Still, the evidence suggests the desire for healthy, lasting love has not disappeared. Beneath all the cynicism, people still want love.

Social media engagement, online discourse, and revealed preferences indicate that many people continue to long for meaningful intimacy, like all their ancestors from before.

The crisis, therefore, is not one of preference but of conditions. If the environment becomes favourable, many of these trends may reverse.

The authors believe that amidst this background, what is needed is a clearer, coherent framework, one that cuts through the noise, distils modern dating into actionable first principles and suggests a simplified, structured account may be uniquely useful. Essentially, this essay offers a simple, practical and no-nonsense guide to succeeding in modern dating.

The paper is divided into four key parts, including this introductory part.

In part two, this article examines modern dating through a global lens, tracing the post-2000 shift from courtship to app-based romance and the rise of situationships, soft launches, among other trends, to explain why expanding choice has produced diminishing certainty. In part three, we turn to a closer case study: Ghana.

This is not an arbitrary choice. Ghana sits at a unique intersection between the old and the new. On one hand, it retains strong traditions of family involvement, religious discipline, and community oversight in how young people form romantic relationships. On the other hand, it is increasingly exposed to and shaped by global ideas of individual autonomy, online performance and digital dating.

In Ghana, these competing worlds collide.

This collision makes the modern dating crisis unusually visible. The confusions of contemporary romance: unclear intentions, weakened accountability and fragile commitment, stand out sharply when placed against older cultural frameworks that once gave relationships structure and direction.

From the Akan idea of yɔnkoɔ, the notion of walking together through life as partners on a shared journey, to religious norms that frame sex as inseparable from responsibility, Ghana provides a cultural mirror through which modern dating can be examined with greater clarity.

The case studies relied on are not merely Ghanaian anecdotes but reveal universal truths about what sustains lasting love.

The conclusion, part four, reaffirms five foundational commitments for intentional dating: mutual building, rejection of false entitlements, unwavering mutual respect, moral accountability rooted in enduring values, and the constructive reintegration of parental and family guidance.

 

Before modern dating can be evaluated, it must first be clarified. Much of today’s confusion arises because “dating” has become such an unstable concept, used to describe everything from casual encounters to intentional courtship.

This part therefore establishes the conceptual foundation of the paper by examining the meaning and purposes of dating, tracing its historical evolution, and explaining the shift from pre-2000 courtship norms to the landscape of the post-internet era.

The term “dating” is arguably one of the most elusive concepts in contemporary relationship discourse. Its meaning shifts depending on the discipline, the research question, and the cultural context within which it is examined.

Some scholars conceptualise dating as a set of socially scripted expectations governing dyadic interactions between males and females, specifically, interactions that carry the potential for romantic involvement and are often structured by gender roles and sexual scripts.

Others view it more relationally, as a social arena in which individuals exercise and test capacities for closeness, trust, and mutual regulation before or during longer-term partnerships.

A more expansive approach defines dating as a deliberate and structured set of practices through which partners cultivate desire and sustain erotic as well as emotional intimacy within long-term relationships.

Within sociology and communication studies, dating is often identified by patterns that everyone in a culture recognizes.

There are ways to start dating and ways to end it. There are signals everyone understands. Some researchers focus on dating as a mate-selection process, that is, to look for and test out potential partners. Some focus on time, treating dating as the early stage before two people have made a real commitment.

Across all these different ways of looking at it, certain things keep showing up: time spent together, exclusivity, romantic feelings, and some kind of purpose. In Western contexts, people often describe dating as happening in four stages: first you meet, then you define what you are, then you bond more deeply, then you commit to each other.

The definitional complexity is further intensified by its overlap with evolving categories such as “going with” and “hooking up.” Moreover, many dominant definitions remain Western-centric. In more conservative regions, including parts of Africa and Asia, the purpose of dating is often foregrounded while overt romantic involvement is muted due to cultural, religious and social expectations.

In such contexts, dating is frequently framed as “dating to marry,” closely aligned with the old idea of courtship.

However, these differences are increasingly fading. Western dating patterns have diffused into conservative spaces through campus culture, television socialization, social media proliferation, urbanization, and other forms of cross-cultural interaction.

Consequently, romantic involvement is becoming a more pronounced feature of dating, while courtship-oriented norms are gradually weakening. 

Dating is best understood as more than just “looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend.” It is a social process through which people test attraction, build emotional closeness, and decide whether a relationship has long-term potential.

In other words, dating is an avenue for individuals to figure out if a future together is possible. Research suggests that people date for several reasons: to find a suitable partner, to experience intimacy, to explore identity, to gain social status, to have fun, and to explore sexuality.

These motives are fairly consistent across studies, but their importance changes depending on age, culture, gender expectations and whether dating happens offline or through apps.

Earlier research described dating as moving through stages. In early stages, people often date mainly for enjoyment and social experience.

As relationships become more serious, dating becomes more focused on selecting a long-term partner and preparing for commitment.

More recent frameworks also show that dating motives can be grouped into broader categories such as love and care, long-term family goals, status and resources, and sexual adventure.

Studies on first dates further show that dating goals are strongly influenced by context, for example, whether the person is a friend or a stranger, who asked who outor whether alcohol is involved.

In the end, dating is three things at once. It is a way to select a partner. It is a way to connect with another person. It is a way to grow as a person. It teaches you what you like, what you can tolerate, and what kind of person you could build a stable life with.

Modern dating apps have not changed the basic purpose of dating, but they have increased the speed and volume of choice. The old way was slow and focused on one person at a time. The new shift is quick, allowing one to screen through hundreds of options.

In the early 20th century, dating was much more structured and formal. Young people courted under family supervision, and the path to marriage was predictable. Men would politely ask parents or set up formal dates, and romantic outings followed clear etiquette.

By the 1950s, it was common for teenagers to be “going steady,” meaning they had exclusive sweethearts, and couples followed a script: dinner date, exclusivity, engagement, then marriage.

Everything changed with the 1960s sexual revolution and cultural upheaval. Easily available birth control, second wave feminism, and more permissive attitudes toward sex freed people from old constraints.

Casual dating and premarital intimacy became widely accepted. Instead of dating solely to marry, many people began dating for love, fun and emotional connection. The goal of personal fulfillment, that is, finding a partner who brings happiness and growth, became central.

As a result, the traditional courtship script largely broke down, and young adults explored many new ways of meeting partners.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, technology added another layer of change. The Internet and smartphones introduced online dating. Sites like Kiss.com and Match.com,and later smart apps like Tinder let people browse countless profiles.

Algorithms suggested potential partners based on interests or location. Each generation adapted differently: millennials largely entered the dating world through early desktop-based platforms, while Gen Z has grown up in an environment dominated by mobile apps and social mediavisibility.

Patterns of initiation have also become less defined: rather than a clear, formal invitation, dating now often begins with a swipe, a like, a follow or a casual text, blurring intentions and weakening traditional expectations about who makes the first move.

Another big shift is in the language young people use when they think and talk about dating. Words like “boundaries,” “deal breakers,” and “red flags” are everywhere. Influencers and therapists encourage everyone to set clear standards to protect their emotional and mental health. In some ways, this is good.

People are paying more attention to whether they are compatible and whether they truly consent. But it also means many peopleapproach romance cautiously. Among younger generationsespecially, dating has become noticeably self-conscious and, in some ways, risk averse. People focus on mutual respect and emotional safety when building relationships.

In summary, pre-2000s dating was defined by clear and stable traditions as well as shared scripts, whereas post-2000s dating is defined by personal choice, technology and self-awareness.Earlier generations followed established rituals to find a spouse or on the way to marriage. More recent decades have turned dating into an open road with no map, guided only by individual needs and the possibilities of modern freedom.

In today’s digital age, meeting people often starts on an app. Services like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge connect users through profiles and algorithms. But dating is now just as likely to begin on social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, where attraction can be sparked by a story, a repost or a casual interaction, followed by the increasingly normalized practice of “entering someone’s DMs.”

At the same time, older methods of connection have not disappeared: friends still play informal matchmakers, strategically posting or introducing people to create interest, while others rely on mutual networks, asking a friend to connect them to “a friend of a friend,” share contact details, or create a natural opening for conversation.

These avenues present a vast pool of potential partners, which can be exciting but also overwhelming. Swiping through hundreds of profiles or juggling multiple ongoing conversations across chats and DMs can lead to “choice overload,” making it hard to settle on one person when someone new might be a swipe or text away. In effect, dating sometimes feels like shopping for romance.

Much like online shopping, the abundance of options has produced what may be called romantic hoarding. People keep multiple conversations “in the cart,” ration attention across prospects and engage some only minimally, replying just enough to keep them available, in case their preferred option becomes too costly, “go out of stock” or falls through.

Even worse, many potential connections are “left on read,” “blue-ticked,” and quietly buried under endless chats and unopened conversations.

Some people describe modern dating as almost job-like. Daters often create polished online profiles like resumes and present themselves strategically. They may schedule dates carefully around busy lives, and you track how fast someone replies and measure their conversation skills. It can become a process of optimization, where each date is like an interview. This procedural approach means dating sometimes feels mechanical rather than spontaneous.

Many relationships today live in gray zones of uncertainty. A popular term is “situationship,” meaning a romantic connection without clear commitment. In a situationship, two people may date or see each other and even become intimate, but they never define their status.

This can be confusing and frustrating: one person might want more exclusivity while the other keeps their options open. The prevalence of behaviours like “ghosting” (suddenly disappearing) highlights how unclear communication can leave people wondering where they stand.

Cultural attitudes about romance have also evolved. Some people talk about “decentering romance”, which means treating love as just one part of life, not the whole focus. Many singles balance relationships with careers, friendships and personal goals.

A modern idea is “dopamine dating” vs “serotonin dating”: chasing the thrill of a new romance (dopamine) versus seeking the calm comfort of a steady partnership (serotonin).

Hookup culture remains widespread too: casual, no-strings sexual encounters are common, reflecting greater sexual freedom but also leaving some emotional uncertainty.

Some online communities and ideologies influence dating culture as well. “Red pill” forums (a controversial men’s movement) offer hardline, and sometimes toxic, advice on seduction and masculinity, while many feminist writers promote empowerment and equality in relationships.

These opposing perspectives show how political and gender ideas now colour personal romance. At the same time, academics are paying attention: psychologists and sociologists study how apps, social media and even brain science shape modern love. Universities and popular media now publish research and stories about love and relationships, showing that modern romance has become a subject of serious study.

Should your relationship be secret or open? That question has become one of the defining tensions of modern datingexperience. To many people, the question appears simple: a relationship is either kept “lowkey,” quietly hidden from public view, or it is made publicly visible through posting and constant documentation, so much so that every dinner, hangout, movie night and airport goodbyes becomes part of the public record.

But in truth, that framing itself may be misleading. The real question is not whether relationships should be open or secret, but whether they should be private or secret: most people instinctively value privacy, yet they simply disagree on how much privacy remains healthy.

The answer to this thorny question depends on the difference between these two ideas, because they affect relationships in very different ways. Although both involve keeping parts of your romantic life away from public view, privacy and secrecy are not the same. Privacy means setting boundaries: choosing not to share everything about your relationship with other people, whether because of personality, culture or personal preference.

Secrecy, however, means deliberately hiding information that matters to the other person in the relationship. In this sense, privacy controls what the public knows, while secrecy controls what a partner is allowed to know.

In Gen Z dating culture, this difference matters more than ever because relationships are increasingly shaped by public attention. Dating is no longer something that happens only between two people and a few close friends. It often takes place under the subtle expectations of social media, group chats and online reputation.

Couples today are not only building a relationship but also managing how it looks to others. Because of this, what used to be normal discretion now carries strong signals. Being “kept private” can be seen as mature and intentional but being “kept hidden” can feel like embarrassment, disrespect or uncertainty as to where things stand. Thus, many disagreements about posting are not really about social media itself, but about validation, seriousness and status.

Privacy, when used in a healthy way, can strengthen relationships. It reduces outside pressure, limits unnecessary opinions, and helps couples focus on each other rather than on public approval. In a world where people constantly share their lives online, privacy becomes a way of protecting something personal. Many Gen Z couples also understand that public relationships attract expectations.

Once a relationship is made official online, friends and followers begin to judge it, compare it, and interpret every change as a sign of trouble. Keeping things private can therefore give a relationship room to develop without constant outside noise.

Secrecy creates a different problem. It often produces imbalance, because one person feels fully included while the other feels uncertain. When someone hides a relationship, the partner may begin to question whether they are valued or whether the relationship is real.

Secrecy can involve excuses, avoidance and refusal to introduce the partner to friends or family. Over time, it becomes harmful when it denies social recognition. Being excluded from someone’s public life sends a message that the relationship is not fully accepted. This can weaken trust, because people generally need to feel openly acknowledged, not quietly hidden.

This is where the modern trend of “soft launching” and “hard launching” comes in.

A hard launch is a clear public announcement of a relationship, usually through direct posting, mutual tagging, or openly showing the partner. It signals that the relationship has moved beyond private experimentation into something serious. It tells others that the relationship is real and that the couple is not pretending otherwise. For many people, this public clarity can reduce confusion and show commitment.

Soft launching, on the other hand, is more subtle. It involves hinting at a relationship without fully revealing the partner or naming the relationship. People might post small clues such as a second plate of food, a hand in the frame, or a blurred picture. This has become common among Gen Z because it fits the uncertainty of modern dating.

Many relationships today begin in unstable conditions: long-distance lifestyles, busy schedules, academic and career pressures, and apps or platforms that expose individuals to endless alternatives.

Soft launching allows people to show that something is happening without exposing themselves to full public pressure. It reduces the embarrassment of, and need for, explaining a breakup and allows more control over how personal life is presented.

However, soft launching can also be confusing. While it can reflect healthy privacy, it can also become a socially acceptable form of secrecy. Because it is vague, it allows one person to benefit from the relationship privately while avoiding full public accountability. Sometimes it is simply caution.

Other times, it is a way of keeping options open. This is why soft launches often create tension: they exist in the gray space between openness and concealment. They can signal hesitation or commitment issues.

Gen Z is especially sensitive to these issues because they grew up watching relationships play out online. They have seen public breakups, cheating scandals, and couples who looked perfect online but fell apart in real life.

They also understand that what you post online can shape your identity forever. This makes many people more cautious about how they present their dating lives. Yet it also creates a problem: because social media has become a major way of proving commitment, privacy can easily be misunderstood as rejection or disrespect.

In the end, privacy is usually healthy and constructive, while secrecy is usually unstable and destructive. Privacy is about boundaries and personal control. Secrecy is about hiding and limiting what a partner can know.

Modern dating has created practices like soft launching because people are trying to balance self-protection with the desire for emotional seriousness. In a world where romance can easily become public content, the healthiest approach is often a clear agreement between partners about boundaries, recognition, and respect.

To understand how relationships can thrive today, it helps to look closely at one context: Ghana. Here, enduring traditions of family, religion and community intersect with modern pressures from apps, social media and global ideas about choice.

This part therefore examines what local experiences reveal about the principles that sustain love, drawing on success stories, relationship trends and research to highlight five core commitments: mutual building, rejecting false entitlements, prioritizing respect, maintaining moral accountability and valuing parental guidance.

This part adopts a measured, proverbial voice, echoing the style of African elders and Ghanaian storytelling traditions which teach through observation, example and instruction. Much of the discussion adopts a gendered lens simply because this reflects the realities of how these roles are culturally assigned, or because one genderis socially and visibly positioned to exhibit such responsibility.

However, this is without prejudice to the legitimacy of such cultural arrangements. It is adopted purely for clarity of analysis, not as an endorsement of traditional role assignments. Indeed, the authors remain fully receptive to evolving norms and the continuing progress toward more equal and reciprocal relationship structures.

Thus, the principle or standard is reciprocal: wherever the obligation applies, it should be taken seriously by whatever party finds themselves in the position described.

Before any person agrees to date someone, they already carry their own hopes, dreams and aspirations. One of the biggest mistakes in modern culture is the assumption that starting a relationship means giving up who you are.

The authors correctly assert that dating does not mean a person hassurrendered their individual identity nor have they lost themselves. This truth, while simple in its articulation, is profoundly difficult to practice.

In the Ghanaian context, there exists a subtle but pervasive societal pressure, particularly on young women to “settle down” in a manner that often implies the abandonment of personal ambition and goals.

A young lady pursuing a master’s degree is frequently asked, “Who will marry you if you become too educated?” A young man prioritizing his startup over an immediate marriage is labelled “unserious.”

These pressures, often exerted by extended family and even peer groups, attempt to force individuals into a false dichotomy: either you pursue your dream, or you pursue a relationship.

Healthy relationships reject this dichotomy. Two dreams are not in competition, and a healthy relationship does not ask you to choose. In the Ghanaian traditional worldview, the union of a man and a woman was never intended to wipe out one person’s identity so the other could shine brighter.

Among the Akan, the concept of “yɔnko” (friendship/companionship) in marriage implies mutual journeying. You do not carry your partner; you walk beside them. You do not put out their fire to warm yourself. You add your fuel to theirs, and they to yours.

A phenomenon has emerged in contemporary discourse, amplified by social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X (formerly Twitter). Young Ghanaian men frequently express admiration for a certain archetype of womanhood.

They speak of women who are “soft,” “submissive,” “successful,” “well-spoken,” and “carry themselves with poise.” They admire these women in other men’s lives; women who are already wives, already flourishing, already complete. In the view of the authors, one should not just admire or compliment; one must act before they talk. This view requires examination.

What does it mean for a man to “build” his woman? It is not to be misinterpretedas a paternalistic exercise wherein one moulds a partner into a predetermined image. Rather, it is the active investment of time, emotional labour, and intentional encouragement into the potential that already exists within your partner.

Consider the case of Nana Ama, a 28-year-old accountant based in Tema. In an interview with Yen.com.gh, she recounted how her partner of four years recognized her latent passion for graphic design, a field entirely unrelated to her accounting profession.

While others dismissed it as a “hobby,” her boyfriend purchased a Wacom tablet, enrolled her in a part-time short course at a reputable Accra design school, and consistently shared her early, imperfect work on his WhatsApp status.

Today, Nana Ama runs a profitable design studio alongside her accounting practice. That is building. That is the man who turns admiration into action.

Conversely, we must examine the pathology of the man who admires the finished product in another man’s home but resents the process required to produce that result in his own. This man desires a woman who is financially independent but begrudges the time she spends at work.

He desires a woman who is well-travelled and articulate but offers her no resources, neither financial nor temporal to facilitate travel or education. This contradiction is the source of much resentment in Ghanaian dating culture.

The authors seek to address another sensitive phenomenon. Some young women admire older, established men, the ones people call “sugar daddies”, while overlooking the potential in their own partners.

Your partner has the same potential as the man, whose ready success, you admire.

Some of the most striking success stories of the modern era are built on partnership. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, has often credited his wife Priscilla Chan with not just moral support but strategic insight, helping to turn an ambitious social platform into a global enterprise. Bill and Melinda Gates famously co-created the Gates Foundation, combining their professional expertise and shared values to tackle global health and education challenges.

Marie and Pierre Curie famously shared both laboratory work and scientific discovery, jointly advancing our understanding of radioactivity. John and Abigail Adams partnered in shaping early American political thought, exchanging ideas and sustaining each other through immense personal and public challenges. Albert Einstein has acknowledged the role his first wife, through her much better mathematical skills and critique, helped shape some of his groundbreaking earlier works.

Similarly, in startups across the world, young innovators frequently rise from dorm rooms or small apartments to industry leaders, sustained by partners who invest time, energy, and belief when the path is uncertain

Local examples are equally compelling. The partnership between former President Jerry John Rawlings and First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings illustrates the power of building together.

Though initially hostile, she accepted his pursuit after five years, and together they forged a lifelong partnership that influenced Ghana’s political landscape.Landmark initiatives, such as PNDC Law 111 and the 31st December Women’s Movement, emerged from their shared vision and collaboration.

The point is not to suggest that women (or anyone) should remain in a partnership if they no longer wish to be in it, or if they aspire to pursue higher goals independently because of some unrealized future potential.

It is a call to see that wealth and status almost never appear overnight. They are grown, slowly, often with the help of a committed partner.

One of the ills of the social media age is the mindset of immediacy and socialization of fast culture. Young people, exposed to curated highlights of relationships on Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, develop a distorted timeline for success.

They see the engagement ring; they do not see the five years of financial struggle. They see the wedding photos; they do not see the therapy sessions. They see the landed property; they do not see the sacrifices and the side hustles. Life is indeed a process.

Dr. Samuel and Mrs. Grace Amponsah, married for forty-three years and members of the Ridge Church in Accra, shared their testimony on a local podcast in 2025.

They married in 1982 when Dr. Amponsah was a newly qualified teacher earning a meagre salary and living in a single room at his mother’s house. Mrs. Amponsah, then Grace, was a seamstress. For seven years, they had no child. For ten years, they had no car. For fifteen years, they rented.

Today, Dr. Amponsah is a retired director of education. Their children are physicians and lawyers. Their marriage is cited as exemplary. When asked the secret, Mrs. Amponsah did not speak of grand gestures. She spoke of the year 1987 when her husband lost his teaching position due to educational reforms.

He was prepared to abandon his career trajectory and accept any menial job. She refused. She increased her clientele at the sewing machine, worked through the nights, and insisted he pursue his distance education programme.

“I saw the director of education in him,” she said, “when he only saw a dismissed teacher.”

That is the process. That is the merger of dreams. A successful dating experience is a story of becoming.

One of the most compelling modern examples of the quiet strength of long-suffering is the story of Barack and Michelle Obama, told in Michelle’s Becoming. In her memoir, Michelle Obama recounts the slow, demanding work of marriage, reminding the reader that long-suffering is not weakness, but one of the strongest forms of devotion.

Dating cannot be equated to marriage. It is necessary to state with absolute clarity that no person, regardless of how much money they have spent, how much time they have invested, or how much emotional energy they have poured into the dating stage, ever gains ownership over another person’s body. Your body is not currency. Sex is not a debt to be repaid.

Yet the pressure persists. A 2023 study examining dating abuse among young adults found that a heightened sense of entitlement was a significant predictor of men’s perpetration of abusive behaviour in relationships.

The study, conducted among college-aged populations, demonstrated that men who scored higher on entitlement scales were significantly more likely to engage in coercive and abusive behaviours, including sexual coercion.

In the Ghanaian context, this pressure is often camouflaged in the language of “proving love” or “testing compatibility.” Young women report being told, “If you love me, you will prove it.” That is not love; that is manipulation!

The traditional Ghanaian legal systems both customary and statutory have always recognized the distinction between pre-marital frameworks or arrangements such as betrothal or engagement, and marriage itself. Among the Ga-Adangbe, the act of “knocking on the door” is the formal commencement of marriage processes. Among the Ewe, the introductory rites signal that the families have consented to a union.

In none of these traditional frameworks is sexual access presumed prior to the actual performance of final marital rites. Indeed, such premature access will invite sanction and social disapproval.

There is a perception of entitlement in modern relationships that rests more on assumption than on merit. This entitlement is “artificial” because it has no basis in law, religion, contract or natural justice. It is manufactured by the parties themselves, often unconsciously, through a series of unspoken assumptions and breached boundaries.

A 2017 paper by Corinne Warrener and Anthony Tasso,interrogating the relationship between entitlement and abuse within a college population, gives hard evidence for this. Their research, which surveyed young adults aged 18-25, established that the sense of entitlement defined as “the act of privileging oneself over a partner”, is a critical explanatory variable for abusive behaviour.

Notably, the study found that while entitlement explained little variance in women’s abusive behaviour, it explained a significantly greater amount of variance in men’s behaviour. This suggests that male entitlement, in particular, is a dangerous force in dating relationships.

How does this entitlement manifest in the Ghanaian context? It manifests in the young man who, after funding two outings, believes he has “invested” enough to demand intimacy. It manifests in the young woman who, having cooked and cleaned for a man for six months, believes she has earned the right to dictate his female friendships. It manifests in the unspoken ledger that both parties keep, tallying expenses against affections, gifts against sexual favours.

While this question may be controversial to some, its resolution is essential for a healthy foundation of any relationship. It is simply not the duty or responsibility of the male in a relationship to be providing, financially, for the lady. This statement needs to be understood carefully. It does not prohibit voluntary giving. It does not condemn generosity. What it prohibits is the presumption of provision. It rejects the transformation of a man’s wallet into an automated teller machine to which the woman believes she holds the PIN.

In August 2023, a Ghanaian TikTok user, Akosuah Serwaa(@akosuah_serwahgh), ignited a significant national conversation.

In her video, she stated plainly that women should not expect their boyfriends to perform “husband duties” if they are not willing to perform “wifely duties.” Her comments attracted thousands of reactions, with commenters divided along predictable lines. One commenter, “Mr vice president,” stated: “I always say this!!! Don’t listen to those online, go all out, if my relationship fails, I’m trying again regardless”.

This discourse reveals the tension between traditional expectations and modern realities.

Traditionally, as documented in studies of Ghanaian dating culture, the man was expected to be the primary financial provider and the initiator of the relationship. Women were expected to exhibit respect, fidelity, and domestic capability. However, as the authors correctly identify, these traditional role assignments do not constitute legal entitlements. They are social constructs, and like all social constructs, they are subject to renegotiation.

The same logic applies to domestic work. Symmetrically, it is the view of the authors that it is also not the female‘s responsibility to be cooking, washing and giving the male any intimate or conjugal duty at the dating stage.

Again, this is not a prohibition on domesticity. A woman who enjoys cooking and voluntarily prepares a meal for her boyfriend is expressing affection. A woman who is coerced into cooking under threat of abandonment or disapproval is a victim of entitlement. A woman who is pressured to cook under threat of being left or judged is a victim of entitlement. The distinction lies in agency. The moment a task transitions from a gift freely given to an obligation demanded, it ceases to be an expression of love and becomes an instrument of control.

The same TikTok discourse referenced above included a comment from user “boatemahpapabi,” who responded to the cooking debate with pragmatic optimism: “If we cook and they won’t marry us it’s even giving us better cooking skills to start a cooking business”. This response, while humorous, demonstrates a healthy psychological boundary. The labour is not wasted even if the relationship fails. In such a setup and prevailing mindset, the skill remains and agency is preserved.

Perhaps, it is apt to emphasize here that partners would do well to shed traditional expectations and develop basic self-sufficiency in practical areas like finances and meal preparation.

If no one is entitled to money, no one is entitled to domestic labor, and no one is entitled to sex, what remains? The answer the authors have arrived at is simple: a mutual entitlement to respect.

Respect is not a luxury. It is the bare minimum of any human interaction, especially a romantic one. Respect requirespunctuality. A partner who keeps the other waiting for hours without communication is disrespecting their time. Respect requires transparency. A woman who keeps multiple vague relationships going without disclosure is disrespecting the other’s emotional investment. Respect requires honesty. A partner who lies about their job, their marital status or their intentions is defrauding the other.

This entitlement to respect is not gendered. It does not depend on how well your performs. You do not forfeit it because there is an argument or conflict. It is the baseline upon which any possibility of real love can be built.

Ghana is deeply religious. The 2021 Population and Housing Census reported that approximately 71% of the population identifies as Christian, 20% as Muslim, and 3% as adhering to Traditional religions, with the remaining 6% belonging to other faiths or no faith.
This religious demography inevitably influences the dating landscape. Thus, most of the norms shaping dating, courtship or other pre-marital arrangement are shared.

Take for example the prohibition against sex before marriage. Christianity, Islam, and Traditional Akan religion, despite their theological differences, converge on this single point of sexual ethics.

For the Christian position, 1 Corinthians 6:18 (NLT) is quoted: “Run from sexual sin. No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” Similarly, 1 Thessalonians 4:3 (NLT) instructs the adherents of Christianity that: “God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin.”

For the position in Islam, reference to Surah Al-Isra (17:32) reveals that: “Do not approach unlawful sexual intercourse. Indeed, it is ever an abomination and an evil way.” Surah An-Nur (24:19) and Surah Al Furqan (25:68-69) establish the gravity of this offence and the prescribed penalties.

Traditional Akan Religion for example institutes the practice of “kwaseabuo sika,” translated as compensation paid to the father of a woman for having sex with his daughter outside of marriage. This practice frames premarital sex not merely as a moral failing but as an insult and a compensable tort against the woman’s family.

These religious rules are not just words in Holy Books. They also show up in demographic data.

A peer-reviewed study published in the Review of Religious Research (2000) examined the relationship between religious affiliation and sexual initiation among Ghanaian women using data from the 1993 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey. The study found that religious affiliation was a significant predictor of premarital sexual engagement among women. Specifically, Muslim women were found to be “significantly less likely to report premarital sex compared to any group,” even after controlling for education, whether they grew up in a city or village, and their age group.

Further Baffour K. Takyi et al, explored what scholar Ali Mazrui termed the “triple heritage”; the enmeshing of Islam, Christianity, and Traditional African religion in Ghana. Their study confirmed that denominational differences in moral proscription continue to shape fertility behaviour and sexual initiation.

Thus, empirical data confirms that religion is not, as some secular critics contend, a mere private belief system without public consequence. It is, in fact, a powerful social institution that regulates behaviour and shapes outcomes.

Despite this clear doctrinal consensus and empirical evidence, a gap persists between what people say they believe and what they actually do.

The phenomenon of “partial obedience” is widespread. Young Ghanaian Christians and Muslims, while professing faith in their respective scriptures, often negotiate exceptions for themselves. They engage in sexual activity while maintaining that they have “not gone all the way.” They engage in oral sex and mutual masturbation, categorizing these acts as permissible because they do not constitute “intercourse.” This casuistry, while psychologically soothing, does not hold up under real scrutiny. The Biblical text does not command believers to “flee only penile-vaginal penetration.” It commands believers to flee sexual immorality (porneia in Greek), a term that encompasses a broad range of illicit sexual activity. The Quranic injunction to “not approach unlawful sexual intercourse” (la taqrabu al-zina) employs a verb (taqrabu) that suggests proximity. One is not even to approach the boundary.

The intersection of dating and morality in contemporary Ghana is perhaps most visibly dramatized in reality television programming, particularly TV3’s popular show, Date Rush.

A 2022 Master of Philosophy dissertation by G. Andoh-Mensah at the University of Education, Winneba, examined viewers’ perspectives on this show. The study, titled “Viewers Perspectives on Reality Dating Shows in Ghana: A Case Study of Date Rush Show”, employed focus group discussions and interviews with contestants. The research found that viewers primarily sought entertainment and social interaction from the show. Importantly, the study noted that while viewers enjoyed the romantic spectacle, they perceived the “real” in the reality genre as “partially scripted, not original or authentic”.

This finding is relevant to our discussion of religion and morals. When dating is commodified for entertainment, when emotional intimacy is performed for cameras and public consumption, the sacred and private nature of courtship is worn away. The Church and the Mosque must therefore compete not only with hormones and peer pressure but with a multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry that profits from the trivialization and cheapening of romance.

The authors trace the sense of entitlement among dating youthto a single source: demands. These demands, it is argued, arise from a ‘shirk of parental responsibility’.

This is a profound observation that is not talked about enough. The tendency to impose excessive expectations on a romantic partner is often rooted less in love than in developmental deficiency. Individuals frequently seek from partners what parents or guardians did not provide: affirmation, discipline, emotional security, practical training in finances and domestic life, healthy gender socialization, self-control, and non-violent modes of conflict resolution.

Thus, the person who insists that a partner must provide money, constant reassurance, domestic labour or sexual access is often not simply demanding a benefit, but unconsciously compensation: a determined search for all that was absent in their upbringing.

Empirical research supports this connection. Studies on childhood development and adult attachment consistently demonstrate that children who experience parental neglect or inconsistent caregiving are more likely to develop less secure attachment styles. These attachment styles, in turn, manifest in adulthood as excessive demands, jealousy, and an inability to trust.

Another angle this can be analyzed is in terms of cultural gatekeeping, especially in education.

A 2024 study by Aboabea Gertrude Akuffo, titled “Gatekeeping Girls’ Access to Education: An Exploration of Matrilineal Relationships, Gatekeepers, and Contentions at the Micro-Household Level”, provides historical context for this discussion. Akuffo’s research, which examined women born in Ghana between 1917 and 1957, demonstrated how maternal uncles, maternal grand uncles, and fathers collectively acted as “gatekeepers” regulating girls’ access to education.

These gatekeeping practices created two pathways: non-access and access with conditions (restricting girls to “reading courses typical to their gender”, trade/craft schools, schools of the gatekeeper’s choice and schooling up to an “okay for a lady”, “ready for marriage” or “enough for a good bride price” level).

While this research focuses on educational access in a historical cohort, its implications for contemporary dating culture are significant. When families gatekeep resources from daughters, they render those daughters dependent. Dependency breeds desperation. Desperation lowers standards.

When a young woman has been denied the opportunity to build her own economic foundation, she is forced to seek a man who can provide that foundation for her. This is not romantic; it is economic necessity. And economic necessity is a poor foundation for love.

Just a day to the release of this paper, Ghanaian social media has become awash with a scandal involving a Caucasian tourist who randomly, and easily, asks and picks Ghanaian ladies off the streets and popular locations without scrutiny or resistance.

The anecdotal analysis concludes that such ease, which is uncharacteristic of Ghanaian women or not shown towards their countrymen, can be explained by their economic realities. Other anecdotes of similar nature abound in different spheres such as the “borga” phenomenon during Christmas (aka Detty December).

But this “borga” and “obroni” phenomenon is not limited to Ghanaian women. Evidence abounds as to a similar propensity for Ghanaian men to enter into relationships with “sugar mummies” or “old white women” for purely economic or “green card” reasons.

“Daddy issues” has become a popular label in modern dating culture, and pop culture generally. In everyday conversation, it is often used loosely to explain patterns of insecurity, attraction, dependence, distrust, or emotional volatility in dating believed to result from absent fatherhood or a complicated relationship with one’s father or father figure. Yet the phrase also carries a strong stigma, functioning less as a neutral description and more as a cultural insult, frequently deployed to shame individuals, especially women, for relational struggles that may have deeper social and developmental roots. Thus, it is deeply disputed because it often reduces serious childhood experiences into a joke or stereotype.

Behind the casual language, however, there is a serious question to be resolved: does the absence of a father figure meaningfully shape a person’s romantic expectations, emotional regulation and partner selection later in life, or is “daddy issues” simply a convenient myth?

The debate exists because father involvement clearly affects social development. The connection between fatherlessness and transactional sex is one of the most well-documented findings in development sociology. A girl who grows up without consistent paternal affirmation is significantly more vulnerable to grooming by older men, more likely to accept material gifts in exchange for sexual attention, and more likely to confuse financial provision with genuine love.

On the other hand, that analysis may be quite simplistic. Romantic behavior is shaped by many forces: mothers, peers, culture, trauma and personal decisions. Ironically, despite the documented proof of the positive correlation of absentee fathers and poor male child outcomes such as school drop out,imprisonment rates, etc., the effect of absentee fathers on the romantic life of the male child has not received an equal scrutiny or stereotyping in pop culture. Thus, while it is acknowledged fathers matter in a special way, that uniquely influences how their daughters approach intimacy, the term “daddy issues” should be used cautiously. Ultimately, what the authors agree on is that fathers are to cater for their ladies, provide for their needs and other peculiar expenses and above all, develop the sense of constant and consistent communications with their children.

The authors wish to conclude this section with a plea: Parents are to have interest in the lives and choices of their children else they will go wayward.

This is not a call for authoritarian control. It is a call for presence. It is a call for the father who puts down his phone to ask his teenage daughter what she values in a partner. It is a call for the mother who invites her son’s girlfriend to Sunday lunch, not to interrogate her, but to know her. It is a call for family introductions that occur not when a pregnancy is already visible, but when the relationship is still young and malleable.

The family, as the original and most fundamental social institution, has no substitute. No dating app algorithm,however sophisticated, can replicate the discernment of parents who have known a child since infancy. No government policy, however well-intentioned, can replace the moral formation that occurs at the dinner table.

Dating is not an end in itself. It is a transitional stage: a bridge between personal independence and the shared responsibility of marriage.

The quality of that bridge determines the stability of everything that crosses it. This paper has argued, through scripture, empirical research, traditional wisdom, and contemporary testimony, that a healthy dating relationship is anchored on five immutable principles:

These principles, far from being oppressive, are rather liberating. They free young people from the exhausting cycle of unreasonable emotional demands and performative affection. They liberate the man from the role of automated provider. They liberate the woman from the role of automated caregiver.

They liberate both parties to focus on what truly matters: growth, service, and the slow, beautiful merger of two dreams into one reality. The dating culture we have is not perfect. It can change. It must change. That change starts in the heart of every young person who decides, today, to date differently.