For many single Catholics today, the approach of St. Valentine's Day (Feb. 14) means getting ready to dodge a hail of arrows fired by more secular cupids than you can shake a heart-shaped box at.

The onslaught comes in the form of myriad signals sent by the popular culture — via greeting cards, advertisements, supermarket displays and so on — hammering home the idea that the end goal of dating is to “hook up” with “someone special.” The exact meaning of those sorts of terms is left to the parties involved to define.

Catholic observers agree that singles who buy into this ethos, especially the ones who'd like to marry one day, usually find frustration and misery at some point along the long walk on that proverbial beach.

“As goes the courtship, so goes the marriage — and usually worse,” says Father Thomas Morrow, author of Christian Courtship in an Oversexed World: A Guide for Catholics (OSV Publishing, 2003). “The solution is to go back to a Christian approach to courtship. Men and women should be taking the biblical approach to heart.”

This, he says, begins with the principle that “man is the pursuer and he pursues the prize.” He points to the example in Genesis of Jacob's 14-year pursuit of Rachel.

Father Morrow's observation is that men today tend not to woo and pursue like they used to. When asked why, he reports, many men complain about women who aren't willing to give them the lead.

But that's not true of all young women, says Anastasia Northrop of Cheyenne, Wyo., the young founder of the Theology of the Body International Alliance (theologyofthebody.net).

“A woman wants to be pursued and desired in the best sense of the word,” she says, adding that a male acquaintance recently assured her that “pursuit is very important for us men.”

Author and speaker Mary Beth Bonacci, founder of Real Love Productions, says there's “something very natural” about this equation — “and that's not stereotyping. It's acknowledging our nature.”

Reversing male and female roles doesn't fit with the Christian conception of courtship, Father Morrow says. “It's ridiculous for a woman to ask for a man's phone number. If the man is fulfilling his role as the pursuer, he will do the asking.”

And by the way, men: You pay — for both the dinner and the movie. “If he doesn't pay, she's not being treated like a prize” he's truly trying to win, Father Morrow says.

Friendship First

That's not to say the man needs to instantly make up his mind whether or not she's the woman he wants for his wife. In fact, Father Morrow says, couples are wise to “friendship-date” for the first one to three months. In this getting-acquainted period, the couple speak to one another just once or twice a week.

Michael Patrick of Atlanta says an ideal way to do friendship-dating is to make it part of a group experience. Double-dating, or going out with even three or more couples, is perfect, he says, for seeing a person's social side. How do they treat others? How do they interact? This will all come out among friends.

Roy Thompson, also of Atlanta, sees another benefit to the friendship-first strategy: It isn't as difficult or agonizing to put the brakes on a relationship in this phase, if one side wants to discontinue meeting. “If you're dating in a platonic way, there's not a lot of emotional attachment,” he says.

What if the pursuer decides he would like to move things from friendship to courtship?

Writer and speaker David Sloan, founder of the God of Desire seminars and Web site, counsels men to make the transition carefully and prayerfully. The commitment to formal courtship, he says, should only come “after we've taken plenty of time to get to know the real truth of who the person is.”

“All our relationships must grow out of our relationship with God as our Father and we as his children,” Sloan adds. “All romantic relationship must grow out of our recognizing each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.”

He points to the groom of Song of Songs, who exclaims, “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride” (4:9).

“We, too, must learn to love each other like brothers and sisters whose identity is based on being children of the living God,” Sloan says. “This is made deeper through friendship. Then we will be able to help one another grow closer to heaven at every step of our dating and courtship relationship.”

The different roles in courtship were written on our hearts but lost along the way, he continues. “We've got to recover the great glory and splendor of womanhood. Courtship and the beginning phase of dating is nothing other than man recognizing the glory of a woman and striving to earn her heart.”

For Northrop, a gesture such as opening a car door or carrying a bag is a beautiful way for a man to show he's attentive to a woman's needs and genuinely respects her — “as a brother in Christ and as a date, for sure.”

“Feminism got that all wrong,” thinking such actions imply that women are too weak to do anything for themselves, Bonacci says. The fact is, she says, “these little things say, ‘I honor you, I respect you, I put my strength at your service.’ I find that touching, beautiful, flattering.”

Nor should chivalrous behavior end when the wedding bells ring, all agree.

“The man must court the woman throughout the whole marriage,” Father Morrow says. “If he does, the man will always have a smile on his face. And the woman has to build him up, praise him, in the courtship and the marriage.”

Touch of Respect

One question that never fails to come up for dating Catholics: What is an appropriate level of touching?

According to Father Morrow, friendship-dating can include “a nice, warm hug because friends do that. They don't hold hands, but they do hug. There's something very non-exploitative about a friendly hug.”

Sloan speaks of what he calls the “snuggle zones” — and stresses that God must be invited in. “We have to be seeking the God of desire not only for ourselves but also for this person toward whom he has drawn us.”

That means praying in every aspect, “including when we're confronted with temptation,” he says. “Rules may be helpful, but prayer will protect us more profoundly than any set of rules when we experience temptation in our embraces.”

“The first thing to recognize is that God himself is the source of our attractions and desires for each other,” Sloan says. “Marriage may be the particular purpose of courtship, but it's not the ultimate purpose. The ultimate purpose is to be drawn closer to God and attain heaven through discovering both who God is and who we are as man and woman made in his image.”

“To me the bottom line of everything is respecting the other person,” Bonacci says. “These are human persons loved by God, not instruments for my own pleasure and satisfaction.”

Keep those words in mind, and you just might find the rest of your St. Valentine's Days worthy of the saint himself.

Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.