To be completely
transparent, I’ve written this post several times at this point over the last
semester of college. It’s a topic that, for whatever reason, has been weighing
on me a lot of late, especially with all the tragic sexual assault stories coming
out in the news. If you’re reading this, I guess I got enough courage to finally post my thoughts. The fact of the matter is that this is an
extremely hard topic to write about, not to mention the fact that I have little
to no actual experience with the “dating culture” having only been on one date
(prom) in my entire life. With that in mind, you can take this with a grain of
salt if you’d like. However, I do think that what I am trying to say here is
important.
Novel idea:
dating is an instrumental and fundamental part of discerning whether you should
get married to another person and as such, every date should have as it’s end
(i.e. purpose) the discernment of marriage to a particular person. Now, I know
that this makes a date a serious thing, and we’re all about non-committal, no
strings attached, casual dating these days. To be totally honest, though, I’m
kind of repulsed by casual dating. Why? Because it’s not dating.
One of the
biggest complaints that women have with men in the relationship circle is that
we aren’t intentional and we don’t communicate well. Inherent communication
difficulties aside, how can we expect men to be clear with their intentions,
when asking someone out on a “date” can mean a whole range of things, each implying
different levels of commitment, or lack thereof. An argument could be made that
I’m just complaining about terminology and should stop being old fashioned, but
terminology is exactly what I take issue with.
Asking a
woman out on a date is, or rather should be, a compliment to her. It should be
an acknowledgment that she is someone that you can see as part of some version
of your future. It’s saying, “Hey, you are beautifully and wonderfully made and
all the hard work you have devoted to bettering yourself spiritually, mentally, and physically hasn’t
gone unnoticed.” But when you just “casually” ask someone on a “date” so that
you can “get to know them better”, the compliment is diminished. Instead you’re
just saying, “You’re an interesting person, and maybe I want to get to know you
more, but I’m not really sure because I don’t want to take the time to get to know
you the hard way.” At the very least it’s an admission that you’re just not
ready to make a commitment to someone and be vulnerable about it.
This is not
to say that asking someone out on a date is automatically a long-term
commitment. Rather, I posit the idea that it is important to acknowledge that
the possibility for a long-term commitment is real and tangible and trying to
divorce that possibility from a date does violence to the whole situation. If
you aren’t ready to ask someone out on a real date, knowing full well the
emotional risk and other baggage that may come with it, then you just shouldn’t
ask someone out. There’s no such thing as “getting to know someone” with “no
strings attached.”
I maintain
that if you really are interested in someone, you should figure out what their
interests are and try to make those interests your interests. A lot of people
would say that this isn’t always possible, after-all, lots of people asked
their current spouses out the first time they met them. But here’s the thing, for
a relationship like that to work out, the man needs to know himself enough to
recognize that the woman standing in front of him is his future wife. Notice I
didn’t say he needs to know women, in general, enough. Marriage is not
something that you discern with another person. It’s a personal call that we
each answer, and adding another person to the equation only makes it harder to discern
whether you are on the right track in the first place, but I digress.
To answer
the original quandary about making the interests of those you are attracted to
your own interests, and the difficulty arising in doing so, the solution is quite
simple. Place yourself in situations where you will meet people that you could
marry, and where you will continue to be around those people for extended
periods of time. Join a club at your school that has a good Christian purpose.
Or join a bible study, or almost any other type of group at your church. But, once
again, this requires you to devote considerable thought to the type of person
that you think will make a good spouse. In other words, you need to prepare
yourself, individually, for marriage.
A great
example of this is a friend I had from highschool. Senior year I was with a
group of guys and we were all discussing college and our futures. One of the
piped up and said, “I’m joining a bible study to get a girlfriend.” We all snickered
at him, but he got the last laugh when we all found out he was the only one in
our group that was seriously dating someone six months later (and yes, he met
her at bible study). He knew what type of woman he would be compatible with,
and he placed himself in the right situation to find her.
The thing
is, if you are in a situation where you know that you are not ready for
marriage because you don’t know what you are looking for in a spouse, no amount
of running around with various people is going to reveal to you what you are
truly searching for. If you’re taking a shotgun approach to dating, you’re just
wasting your time, and emotionally messing with every girl you ask out. Wait,
bide your time, learn to control your emotions, learn what your own interests
are, clarify the vision that you have for your family in the future, and a woman
or man who shares those interests will eventually make themselves known to you
if that is God’s will.
My
grandmother said to my father once, “You marry a different person at 18 than
you would at 24.” The point being that, yes, people do sometimes meet the woman
of their dreams at 18 and ask her out immediately. However, the more you get to
know yourself, your hearts desires, the more you will realize what you really
need, and the easier it will be to identify whether someone fits that mold. To
those who are worried that by waiting, you may miss “the one” I say this, don’t
worry, because you’re not just idly waiting for your spouse to show up. You are
actively moving yourself towards them whether you realize it or not. You are
preparing yourself for them, and when you finally meet them, you will know what
to do because you are ready to handle the situation.
So, here’s
my challenge to all the college aged men out there. Wait and prepare. When you
meet someone that you are interested in, die to yourself, and do it the hard
way. Figure out what she is interested in, learn about her without toying with
her emotions. For most of us, we will spend almost four years in close
proximity to whomever we
may meet, you do not need
to rush things. But more importantly, devote time to learning about the desires
of your heart. Find out what makes your heart burn, and identify the
characteristics of the helper that you will need to make that vision a reality.
Spend time in front of the blessed sacrament and examine yourself. Ask God to
reveal to you who you really are, and His vision for what your future holds. Ask
him to prepare you to love your future spouse as he loves the church. “Whatever
you do, work at it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men.” Don’t
date causally, date heroically.
Spot on!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
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