How to ask a girl out on a date.

My favorite love-to-hate Christian singles blog, Boundlessline, has done it again with a post on how to ask a girl on a date.  The poster, Ted Slater, recounts how he stealth group-dated his now-wife before asking her if she would “consider being in a relationship with [him].”  After asking for time to think about it, she came back to him a couple days later and said she would “enter into a courtship” with him.  Ted then asked the readership for suggestions on how to ask a girl out and what activities might make a great first date.

Predictably, the comments contain some horrible beta-boy ideas.

Here’s what the first commenter, David, said:

The best way I have found is to ask:

“Do you want to go on a date?”

Then figure it out from there.

Nothing sets a woman’s heart aflame for a man like a deflated, limp-wristed question that gives all of the power to the woman.  Men, if you want to show leadership and intentionality (the apogées of desirable masculine traits in the evangelical community), you cannot “respect” a woman’s wishes in this way.  What this question really means is, “Please take control of the direction of our relationship.”  Does that sound like leadership or intentionality?  (Answer:  NO.)  It also puts the woman in the difficult position of either squirming to find a way not to be forward about her interest if she wants to date you, or squirming to find a way to reject you politely if she doesn’t.  Neither choice is ideal.  Now, obviously, David must be finding some degree of success with this game plan, or he wouldn’t have recommended it, but it’s not a tactic that will make a woman more attracted to the man who uses it.  Only a girl with preexisting interest in the guy would tolerate being asked out in this manner…well, that or she’s desperate to land any date at all.

Here is a better way to ask a girl out:

1. Decide when and where you want to take her.
2. Go up to her and say, “I want to take you on a date to [place] on [day of the week].  I’ll pick you up at [time].  Your friends and your dad think this is a great idea.”

In three little sentences, you have demonstrated leadership (you are setting the agenda), intentionality (you’ve made it clear it’s a date), and charm (you are gently poking fun at the current courtship craze in evangelicalism, as well as a woman’s propensity to consult her friends’ opinions on all the decisions she makes).  See?  It’s not that hard.  The reason this approach works and is superior to David’s suggestion is that the vast majority of women find masculine confidence irresistible.  When you show a woman that you’re a man with a plan, and that plan includes her, she’ll go a little weak in the knees and, when you’re not around, squeal in delight to her jealous girlfriends.

Do note:  If you have demonstrated high social value to the girl already (e.g., you are handsome, charming, stable, popular with children, kind to old, disabled, and retarded people, able to quote Bible verses by memory, not afraid to pray in front of a group, a veteran of missions trips, a porn-denouncer, a worship leader who plays an instrument or two, a Bible study leader, and a regular volunteer for service projects and other church activities), you can probably ask the girl out cold and get a yes for an answer.  If your credentials are a little less sterling, you should build enough of a rapport with her first so that she doesn’t think you’re creepy and/or desperate.  But the minute you know she’s not scared of you, you should make your move.  (This helps keep you out of the Friend Zone.  As everyone knows, once you’ve been placed in the Friend Zone, it is very difficult to get out of it.)

Be bold.  Be brave.  Be direct.  Be calm.  Be prepared for rejection.

But be more prepared for success.

Your top three

Over at Boundless, there’s a recent post asking readers to write their top three characteristics they’re looking for in a spouse.  Most of the men (not a very large percentage of the comments) wrote briefly.  Most of the women wrote flowery descriptions of their ideal men that far exceeded three characteristics.  (Most of the women were also single.  Make of that what you will.)

I’ve had a list since I was 18 or 19 of qualities I’d like my future husband to possess.  It’s not 68 items long (as one Boundless commenter shared hers was), but it’s not short.  As I’ve aged, I’ve relaxed on some things, some out of maturity, some out of necessity.  If I had to limit it to three, though, they would be these:**

1. bright
2. funny
3. brave

I had originally written confident instead of brave, but I changed my mind because brave is more all-encompassing.  It implies confidence, but with the moral connotation of inner fortitude.  It’s easy for a man to be confident in an environment in which he is comfortable; it is much less so in an unfamiliar setting.  While confidence is alluring, bravery wins hearts.

**Stipulating, of course, Christian givens like “loves the Lord” and general givens like “is physically attractive to me.”  Seriously, now:  it’s the rarest of women who willingly marries a man whose appearance fails to incite even the tiniest of positive feelings.

What are your top three?

Dating: the thing that’s left to do after you’ve already evaluated the person for spousal potential.

When I was growing up, I never thought much about dating or marriage because I figured it was one of those things that just “happened” to you.  The process seemed simple:  you and a boy meet, you “like” each other, he asks you out and you go on a date (usually involving a meal), and if nothing went terribly awry, you could go on another date, and another, until you got to the point where you liked each other enough to get married.  The man would buy an engagement ring, get down on one knee, propose, and within a year of the proposal, you would walk down the aisle and begin married life together.  All of this would ideally occur by age 26, an age which gave you enough time to finish your education and experience living on your own and taking care of yourself, but not so old as to start getting bored and/or lonely.

Ah, the good old days.  Some people probably do still meet and marry in this fashion, but I feel like dating has increasingly started to resemble a war strategy, especially for those of us wishing to marry a fellow believer.  There’s now all this pre-dating business to be taken care of before a single dating-oriented word is uttered, and it seems like dating itself is more like negotiations for a (holy) business merger.

These days, for the conscientious Christian, merely laying eyes on someone of the opposite sex and liking what you see is no longer enough reason to ask for a date.  Instead, if you see someone attractive, your first move should be to spend an indefinite period of time observing that person’s character.  How long this period of time is supposed to be, I have no idea.  It should at least be long enough for you to engage in some heartfelt prayer asking God to show you whether or not you should ask this other person out, as well as consulting for guidance at least one older, married mentor in the church who knows both you and this other person.  (It goes without saying that if you are a man, you should have or soon be having a job which would enable you to support a wife who didn’t have to work.)  Once you get the go-ahead from your own observation, God, and your mentor, and you have a job, you may finally ask out the observee on a date.   While on the date (for which the man pays all), you should make clear that your intention in asking for a date is to explore the possibility of marriage so as not to “defraud” the other person into believing you have intentions that you don’t really have.

Phew.

I understand the reasoning behind this process, I do:  who hasn’t known about the guy in the youth group (or college and career group, or adult singles group) who indiscriminately asks out every available woman within a +/- 10-year age range, seeming to go down the line in level of attractiveness until he finally finds someone who will say yes?  Who hasn’t known at least one person who got asked out by someone who was very obviously not a potential?  And many Christian women have expressed that they would rather not go out with someone they didn’t know at all and/or would rather be “friends” first.

These are good intentions, and all things that should be done — but why should half of the legwork be completed before the first date?  Why can’t a Christian man see a Christian woman who catches his eye, ask her to go for coffee, and see if they like each other enough to go for a second coffee some other time?  I feel like all the “prep” just adds pressure to the already pressure-filled Christian dating scene.  By the time you get to the date, you’ve been calculated and tabulated and expectations are high.  If you go to a small church where everyone knows everyone else’s business, quadruple those expectations.

I’ve been thinking, though….is a good percentage of the Christian dating “crisis” really just the result of there not being many alpha males in the Church?  If a confident, charming, even mildly good-looking man chatted up a young woman, I find it very hard to believe that she would tell him she wanted to get to know him as a friend first.  At the very least, he would be able to get her number so he could set up a non-threatening coffee date.  The whole procedure that I’ve outlined above just seems beta to the max, something that’s designed to eliminate, rather than merely minimize, risk.  Or is it necessary?  Christian girls with an appetite for marriage do often have terrible cases of “oneitis,” which causes them to glom on to any potential suitor and hold on for dear life — until they are sufficiently emotionally kicked in the face enough to see that it’s not going to lead to the altar (after which they then mourn and mope for a year, making it impossible for any other guy to have a chance).

All around, dating in the church is a risky business — but, thanks to 2 Cor. 6:14, a requisite one.

Mark Sloan discovers the true purpose of dating.

It’s rare in the mainstream media to find examples of dating to determine compatibility for marriage.  Usually it seems that in movies and television, people date so they won’t feel like whores for having sex with the people they’re attracted to.  Having some sort of ~relationship~ with someone, even if said relationship has only lasted a couple of hours and has occurred completely within the confines of a restaurant, totally makes sex okay!  (Sexual feelings always make everything okay.  People freak about the doctor seeing them in a paper gown, but Mr. Tight Abs from the bar seeing the whole kit and kaboodle?  Totally okay if a significant amount of time, like a couple of hours or an equivalent amount of alcohol, has passed.)

So color me quite shocked, but in a good way, when last week on Grey’s Anatomy, shameless manwhore Mark Sloan decided that he was (a) lonely and unhappy, (b) wanted a wife and kids, and (c) decided to go out and find a wife who wanted to have kids.  I know, I was shocked, too!  This happened on Grey’s Anatomy!  The show where people regularly have sex in hospital closets and/or empty rooms in the hospital!

Prompted by his best friend/former lover Callie Torres, Mark zeroes in on Teddy Altman, who up until this point has been pretty lovelorn over the taken Owen Hunt.  Mark’s first attempt at asking Teddy out goes badly after some misunderstandings about breast implants for her patient (a guy whose heart has fallen out of place).  After talking to Callie’s girlfriend Arizona, Teddy decides that it wouldn’t be bad to date Mark — for fun.  He, after all, does not have a reputation for seriousness with women.

Later, Mark finds Teddy and tells her that he has some saline implants, and Teddy asks him if he will participate in the surgery.  He agrees, and she takes a chance and tells him that she actually is free for a date that night.  He is cheered by this news and mentions an Italian restaurant he’s been wanting to try.  She dims, realizing he wants a “serious” date, and counters with the idea of the local bar for a drink.  He tells her that he wants to have dinner so they can talk, and she freaks out and says she’s not available for dinner.

At lunch, Mark tells Callie and Arizona that Teddy only wanted sex and (not seeing the irony) wonders who treats people like a slab of meat.  Arizona reminds him that he does.  Later, during surgery, Teddy is impressed by Mark’s confidence and calmness, but when she compliments him, Mark sarcastically says that surgery is only his hobby and that his real interest is in his work as a male escort.

When Mark reiterates his failure with Teddy to Callie, Callie encourages him to move on to someone else.  (This is actually good advice.  Too many people decide in advance that someone is The One, or the closest thing to it, and then spend weeks or months in angsty agony when they could be out finding someone more amenable to a relationship.)  Mark sarcastically says that he can’t wait for dinner and a conversation, but Callie tells him that he should be taking women out to lunch instead.  Mark frowns on that idea because it’s not romantic, but Callie tells him that that’s how you get to know someone else:  in daylight, in public.  (Also good advice.  Much less pressure, plus lunch menus are cheaper at a lot of restaurants.  Hey, thrift is a virtue.)  Mark says it’s the least sexy idea he’s ever heard in his life, but Callie smartly reminds him that he’s had sex and that he doesn’t want sex, he wants a baby.  He remains discouraged, and Callie gives him a pep talk, telling him that he’s worth getting to know.  (At this point I was wondering why Mark doesn’t get together with Callie, but that’s an issue for the writers to resolve, and the underlying issue is one for a different post by me.)

All of this leads us to this scene:

Mark walks over to the nurses’ station.

Teddy sees him.  Gathering her courage, she approaches him.

TEDDY:  I’d love to have dinner sometime.  If you’re still up for it.

MARK:  I’m not taking you to dinner.

TEDDY:  Oh.

MARK:  I will take you to lunch.  Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight.
We’ll eat at a public place and maybe take a walk on a crowded street.

MARK (CONT’D):  We’ll get to know each other, see if we have
an interest in the same kind of future.

MARK:  Because I want to build a life, and a family, and I’m not
wasting my time on someone who doesn’t share that interest.

[Hmm, how does that sound to you, Teddy?]

MARK:  I’ll pick you up at noon.

TEDDY:  Okay, then.

-End scene-

That’s it, in a nutshell.  That’s what dating should be.  (And, for the record, it’s not a bad template for asking women out, either.  Direct, to the point, with a plan.)

Tough luck, old virgins.

Having grown up in the church, I feel like there are two different virginity messages communicated to the unmarried.  Which message you get depends on which age group you fall into.

If you are a teenager, you are bombarded with True Love Waits-type messages.  Youth leaders stress HOW IMPORTANT it is to SAVE YOUR ~MOST PRECIOUS GIFT~ FOR YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE.  This is (I suppose for teenagers) the ULTIMATE ACT OF LOVE.  Even more than actually consummating a relationship as an act of love, the act of saving that consummation is the true mark of love.  The reason that it is SO IMPORTANT to save your Precious Gift That You Can Only Give Away ONCE — did you hear me?  ONCE!!  ONCE ONLY!!  THINK ABOUT THAT before you let some hormone-addled boy with only one thing on his mind separate you from your Calvins — is that many terrible things will befall you if you don’t.  You might get a Loathsome Disease.  (This scare tactic was very popular in the ’80s.)  You will Have Regrets (this can range from good, old-fashioned guilt to terrible lingering memories of someone other than your spouse to learned behaviors, desires, and expectations that your future spouse will not share, therefore paralyzing and ruining your marriage).  Last but not least, and actually not mentioned so often now that birth control, contraceptives, abortion, and lack of societal pressure to marry exist, you might get pregnant.  Bottom line?  TEEN SEX = BAD.  Don’t do it.  Don’t even think about doing it.  And don’t even think about doing it with someone who’s done it, much less actually do it with someone who’s done it, because I think we all know what that makes you, hmm?

However, if you are 20 or older, you hear almost zero admonitions to maintain your virginity (or to remain abstinent in the wake of divorce or being widowed).  It’s like the church either assumes adult singles are so negligible in number that it’s not worth devoting a message to sexual purity after high school, or it assumes that single adults already “know,” so there’s no point in repeating such a message.  I think this is a mistake.  Most single adults live on their own, or at least apart from their parents, and are financially independent.  They are steeped in a culture which expects and often encourages non-marital sex, and their own bodies have been biologically ready to go for at least a decade and oftentimes more.  Who is more likely to give in, a teenage girl armed with teenage fervor for serving the Lord and teenage idealism for the Perfect Romance, or a 29-year-old with her own apartment who finally has a man interested in her after longing for a relationship for the past 15 years?

In addition, if you are a single adult who has managed to remain a virgin, the church’s attitude about marrying another virgin pretty much amounts to “eh.”  All of the True Love Waits admonitions from high school go poof, and you’re stuck with, “Suck it up, you’re not entitled to marry a virgin just because you’re still a virgin, and I can’t even believe you would put virginity on a pedestal.  Who do you think you are?  We’re all sinners in need of redemption.  Hmmph.”  Most single adults in the church, especially those over the age of 30, understand that realistically, there’s a next-to-none chance of marrying a virgin, but it smarts when all your life you’ve heard “Virginity Matters A LOT” messages…only to discover that these messages have an expiration date.  All of the messages about how important it is to wait and to share the Greatest Intimacy Ever only with your spouse suddenly become, “Well, does he (or she) feel bad about it?  Really, REALLY bad about it?  Has this person been keeping their pants on since starting to feel bad about it?  Yeah?  Well, then shut up and settle.”

I’m still trying to reconcile these two messages.  I understand the spiritual and general societal reasons to promote virginity to the youth.  Teenagers are swimming in hormonal upheaval and don’t have the emotional or financial means to deal well with any fallout.  But what about adulthood makes virginity so less important?  Is it better coping mechanisms?  More pragmatism?  Or maybe the church is just quietly accepting that most single adults are no longer virgins and through silence is acknowledging that it would be ~awkward~ to talk about it and make those single adults feel bad about something they presumably have already repented of.

You never know who you’re going to meet in the grocery store.

This post isn’t going to be a cute story about how I met the love of my life in the grocery store because we were standing next to each other in the checkout line, and I made an irresistibly witty comment about a tabloid magazine, and he laughed at the joke and agreed, and I realized he was exceptionally attractive and he noticed that although I was not the most striking woman he had ever laid eyes on, I definitely had the most beautiful Proverbs 31 ~heart~ he had encountered in the past decade, and he asked me to go to the Starbucks stand within the store, and then ten hours later we went home with ecstatic smiles on our faces, giddy that the Lord had seen fit to bring together two like-minded souls in answer to the prayers of myself and twenty of my closest small group girlfriends.  (Seriously, if this story were true, this blog would not exist.)

The unsexy reality is that the likelihood that you are going to meet your future spouse at the grocery store is pretty low.  If you did a survey of married couples, the percentage of those whose story began with meeting randomly at the grocery store would probably be in the very low single digits, if that.  Much like in the past, the majority of couples meet through family and friends.  Probably the next highest percentage meet through some shared activity such as work, church, school, or a hobby.  In comparison to the relative power of the aforementioned methods, which have the advantage of screening by those who know both your and his personality, character, and interests, trolling for a spouse in the produce section at Vons is far from the most efficient method.  You’re more likely to win free fries from the yearly Monopoly promo at McDonald’s.

I suppose it’s true that opportunity lurks at every corner and that luck — er, providence — favors the prepared, but I just can’t counsel women to feel guilty if they make a run to the grocery store looking less than their best.  (If looking less than your best, or at least looking not very good, i.e., like someone trampled over you, is your typical M.O., then we have an issue, but I’ll save that for another post.)