A confession before anything else: we've both dated wrongly. This issue isn't written from above you — it's written from beside you, by people who made the mistakes and learned what they cost.
Most dating advice tells you to evaluate the other person. Start somewhere different — with what you're carrying that isn't casual to give away. Your time, your mind, your money, your body, your story: all entrusted to you, not currency to spend on the hope of being chosen. You can only offer wisely what you know you possess.
Before romance, friendship. Before chemistry, character. A friendship allowed to grow without the pressure of immediate definition will tell you more in three months than three intense weeks ever will — how someone handles a canceled plan, how they speak about people who aren't in the room. Friendship is the slowest, most honest interview a person ever gives.
People reveal themselves given time. Watch six windows: character, purpose and direction, family dynamics, how they handle money, and — underline this one — how they handle anger. How someone fights while dating is how they'll fight forever, unless the Spirit intervenes. A wedding amplifies the pattern; it doesn't fix it.
None of this is a checklist to interrogate someone through on a third date. It's simply what surfaces naturally when the friendship is given the time it needs. Better a clean no in month four than a confused yes in year four.
Pick the one window you tend to skip when someone excites you — character, purpose, family, money, or anger. Name it. That's usually the exact place slowing down would protect you most.