I don't know what Christian dating is supposed to look like.
You are going to find a diversity of answers because you will find among those who claim Christ a variety in degree of worldliness.
Up until recently people got married to start a family. There was no dating per se, but a courting process that involved family members as to the selection of someone suitable with whom to build a family.
Over the last hundred years people started having fewer children. There were a variety or reasons given such as not being able to afford them, but most reasons boil down to not wanting the inconvenience or expense. This is a reflection of the degree of selfishness found in modern society.
In a way you can think that God created marriage and children as a way to force us to leave behind our natural selfishness of adolescence. We have now created a modern artificial society where God seems at best irrelevant. In this society, there is no reason to give up selfishness. In this society, children are an optional extra and faithfulness in marriage something that isn't completely expected.
If you look at the Amish or the Mennonites you will find families that have eight or more children. This is more like families used to be. If this is what you want, you need to "fish" in these type of waters.
If you want the average 1.6 children and live in the typical suburb, then you can pick almost any church and find almost anyone to "date".
You can use the number of children you want to be a measure of what type of family you want and this will tell you what type of dating you should pursue. If you want as many children as the Lord will give you, you need to not think about "dating" and focus on courtship and building a family that will live by faith in a very serious way.
Most people date in order to meet someone of the opposite sex with a view to marriage. In reality most people are looking for someone with whom they can have a "relationship". This process is made very difficult because Satan has done such an effective job in selling his idea of "falling in love"
What most people think of love is a collection of emotional sensations that include, desire, expectation, anticipation, hopefulness, and even lust. Real love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13. It is essentially selflessness. People allow themselves to be swept away by their initial emotional sensations and then after time has passes, find that their emotions are now stimulated by someone new.
If you want to turn dating into courting, on the first date, ask the following questions;
1. How many children would you like to have?
2. Do you think you would be able to live in poverty?
3. Do you think a wife should get a job to help support a family?
4. Do you think a husband should know enough to teach his family to live a Christian life?
5. How would you handle a spouse that suddenly became an invalid?
Another way to turn dating into courting is to measure the selfishness of the other person. The most basic way is to see how much time they spend talking about themselves and how much time they spend asking you questions.
If the other person looks at his watch and says, "Oh my look at the time, it is 7:30 already. I have to get up early tomorrow", you may find that you have dodged a very big "bullet".
If you are looking to meet someone who is Christian, you may want to join a Sunday school class or Bible study and listen to the discussion and questions that are asked. "Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks". You can learn a lot about someone from seeing what is in the heart.
If someone wants to live together before getting married, they probably do not have a high opinion of either marriage or family, but do have a high opinion of satisfying their own desires.
