"How Do You Meet Guys?"

This particular post is exactly a transcript of a response that I wrote to a friend, who asked me to read and comment on the article in World magazine, "How Do You Meet Guys?" (For a copy of the article see http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18064.) So here is my response.


The article, "How Do You Meet Guys?" asks some very good questions. I like it addresses both the perspectives of men and women, and I particularly liked the nod to secular culture. Growing up in public school with "Christian" classmates, I understand how that works. Many many many people I talk to fail to understand exactly what marriage is. My best friend is getting married in three weeks, yet there is no religious official at her wedding. Rather, she and her fiance are combining a lot of different cultural practices (drinking sake, exchanging leis from Hawaii, the bride circling the groom 7 times) as part of a "commitment ceremony." Does that count as a wedding? Or am I simply being legalistic?

Anyway. I'll do my best to stay on topic regarding the article, though I should warn you right now that Biblical marriage is probably my favorite subject in the world, and I'm sure that when I come to Washington we'll have (at least) one or two great conversations about it.

How to meet guys: From my own Christian perspective, I meet men socially. I rarely accept advances (and if I do, I rarely pursue a serious friendship) from men that I haven't met in a social context. It hasn't been a deliberate method on my part; I've just noticed that I'm more comfortable accepting the interests of someone whose friends I know and whose history I can access. Samuel came to Hillsdale with a group of life-long friends with him. I knew them first as my friends and then as Sam's. If there were any forseeable problems in our relationship, I had the resources to be able to identify them ahead of time. Thankfully, every person affirmed our interest in each other, so that was a relief.

I find it very interesting that so many students brought up _I Kissed Dating Goodbye_. Samuel was the one to label our relationship a "courtship," not me. I don't believe you would ever call a boy/girlfriend someone that you're courting, but I could be wrong. I'm also not sure if Sam and I are courting. Let me go further: A lot of the girls on here brought up the point that their men won't pursue a lady unless they know it can potentially end in marriage. Sam and I were/are the same way. In that sense, technically we're courting: We are in a committed, supervised relationship with intent to marry. I don't have a working definition of courtship, but that's about my best understanding of it. But this is a very...well, suffocating idea. YES, the ultimate end of dating/courtship IS marriage. However--let's get real for a second. If a man spends all of his time considering a girl from a purely social perspective--never asking her on a date, never talking to her privately and deliberately, never showing her specialized attention--he'll only ever reach the surface of that girl's character and heart.

My parents were very explicit in their instructions that I was allowed to date when I turned 16. And by date, they meant that I was allowed to go on a date. Finally, they explained their real stipulation: I wasn't allowed to be in a "serious," monogamous, committed relationship with one person until (at the earliest) my second semester of Junior year in college. 0_0 That's a pretty far leap. (Can you tell how well that advice worked? In case you didn't know, I just finished my sophomore year, and look at where Samuel and I are now.) My parents requested that I "date around," "play the field," "observe my options"--essentially (or as it seems to me), date a lot of different men, establish an inevitable small sort of emotional attachment to each one, and then cruelly drag them on as I openly made them watch me string along other men. While the methods are (to be honest) impractical (at least, to me) and potentially harmful, the desired result was a reasonable one: In order to understand a man's character, heart, mind, and desires, you have to be able to ask him about them. By dating around, I would be able to better glean an understanding about what characteristics, abilities, and aspects I liked and needed in a husband based on my various experiences with different men. Inevitably, they assumed, I would find one (or two or three) who would meet those requirements, and then (and only if it was my Junior year) could I consider properly dating them.

At this point, I'm tempted to tell you that this is an extremely long conversation to be had over a Facebook message (especially since there is still SO much to say!) and it would probably be better had in person, but at the least I'll wrap up my thoughts (or who knows? Finish the entire message? We'll see what my fingers decide to do).

My parents' method works. I know it does. I don't particularly agree with it, but that's because in today's culture, a girl who dates around with a lot of different men gets called nasty words, and I didn't want to be that girl. I also didn't want to be that girl who told each of my dates, "I had a wonderful time tonight; you're a great date; I hope we can do this again, but right now I have to get going on my other date with Other Random Guy Number 4. See you around campus!"

To get to the point: courtship requires a social context in which young people can get to know each other, an environment in which they feel comfortable enough to ask the "dating" questions (even if subtly) without fear of rejection. That's how Sam and I got together. We didn't decide to date initially and then get to know each other. We spent a lot of time together in a social context, and from there we asked the "dating" questions--marriage, future, covenant, children, medical care, discipline, careers, family, etc. When we realized what a strong connection we had, then we decided to give a relationship a shot. However, it was only because we realized that we had the chance to make a marriage potentially work some day. It was easy for us to make the transition from "if we get married" to "when." That's the ultimate goal of courtship, I believe.

I disagree, however, with the pressures that these people are feeling to find their "soulmate" even before establishing a relationship. I do agree with my parents that casual dating (NOT casual relationships--there is no such thing) can be useful in that it teaches us what to look for in spouses, so that when we finally consider serious relationships, we have a goal in mind. However, that doesn't mean that every relationship must be either a "do-or-die" scenario. The last man I dated had every good quality I could identify: Reformed, hard-working, loved his family, wanted a large family, intelligent, spiritually passionate. And absolutely, after two and a half years together, I thought we would get married. But that wasn't the case. And thank God it wasn't, because only by dating him could I have discovered the faults in our relationship. If we limit ourselves to pursuing relationships that are pressured to end in marriage, then we start forcing our relationships to fit into a pre-formed mold. We start seeing the relationship we want it to be, rather than the relationship that it is. That was my old relationship, because I went into it with a "marriage-or-bust" mentality. That's not healthy. Sam and I entered a relationship knowing that we COULD one day marry, but not that we MUST. Otherwise, it cuts out the roots of a relationship before it even has a chance to see the sun.

Does this message feel long enough yet? I'll conclude with one more thought. I'm sorry this is so long so far.

The one particular thing that shouted at me from the lines of the article is a recurrent theme in modern-day Christian relationships: the struggle to find a balance between love and respect. As one of the girls says, "We want them to be initiators.... We want to be wanted. We want to know we're desirable. Christian boys are scared of girls who make advances." What could be more plain? Girls crave love. They want to be romanced, wined, dined, and swept off their feet. Men who wait and wait and wait and wait until they're absolutely sure of a girl run the risk of letting girls feel undesired. Christ _pursued_ his Church. Ephesians 5 addresses yes, the need within marriage for a husband to love his wife, but also the universal need for women to feel loved in general. This, unfortunately, gets into a whole 'nother topic on the role of fathers and brothers, so we won't sticky our fingers on this subject more than is necessary.

Yet the article continues. Evans, a male engineering student, says that "he's afraid that if he met and married a girl in the next few years, she'd expect him to work as an engineer.... He thinks a wife would make it hard to switch to a less remunerative career." He's afraid of not being respected. He's afraid that his ability to provide for his family will be jeopardized not by his abilities, but by his wife's confidence in him. And it's true--too many women, in accordance with our sin natures, will love their husbands but not respect them. And similarly, husbands will respect their wives but not love them. Brett Harris, in the article: "guys who don't initiate...'give their heart, and girls spit on it and throw it away.'" The focus on relationships today is _love_ between both parties, not a proper and healthy distribution of love and respect. Thus courtship has turned into a method of maintaining "emotional purity" (which is absolutely a good thing) but at the unfortunate cost of allowing Christian boys to become respectable Christian men.

There is so much to say regarding the topic of Christian courtship/dating and relationships. Unfortunately, none of it is easy. I'll do my best to keep mulling over the article and further develop my thoughts. And I hope this helped to answer some of your questions. I look forward to your response.