Rebecca St. James to marry Beefcake Missionary.

Friends, we are on the brink of the end of an era.  What era, you ask?  The first decade of the aughts?  No, we’ve already passed that mark, and moreover, I speak of something far more momentous:  the end of the era of Rebecca St. James’s virginity.

It was announced today in the press that Rebecca St. James has become engaged to Jacob Fink, a Colorado native and sometime missionary to South Africa who now resides in SoCal pursuing his “career in music” (whatever that means, which is most likely “doesn’t really have a job”).  Judging by the photo of the couple, Fink is your basic ideal Christian beefcake beta:  good-looking enough to be desirable, not dangerous enough to be sexually threatening or do something risky like skateboard down a railing or drink semi-copious amounts of alcohol.

For those not in the churchian loop, Rebecca St. James is a very physically attractive Christian pop/rock singer whose main claim to fame is her very public proclamations of her virginity and her determination not to have sex until she is married.  She has been the poster child of the True Love Waits campaign and, since she has been Christian-famous since she was about 16 years old or so and is now 33, it has been a very long, very public wait indeed.  So, with that in mind, congratulations are quite obviously in order.

But St. James’s case is an interesting one, and one made even more interesting by the articles that have been published about the announcement.  The first question is obvious:  what took so long?  St. James is very good-looking, so lack of male interest couldn’t have been a problem for her.  Moreover, she is famous in the circles where she would be most likely to find a husband, which certainly had to add to her perceived attractiveness.  (I believe that fame always adds to a person’s perceived attractiveness regardless of sex, if not in looks, then certainly in interesting-ness.)  And because St. James is both good-looking and famous, she had to have access to some of the highest-quality men that she would consider acceptable marriage material.  So what took so long?  Was she unreasonably picky?  Was she just too busy with her career to put in the time necessary?  Was she not that interested in marrying young?  Was her father’s dual role as her manager an impediment to her ability or desire to meet men?

Second, is Jacob Fink the best that St. James could do?  My knee-jerk reaction is no, especially given that Fink seems to have no significant life accomplishments beyond doing well in college and being a missionary in South Africa for two years.  We can infer from the articles that Fink has no notable pedigree, is not independently wealthy, and does not have a prestigious job (or any job at all?).  Yet St. James, who is famous and beautiful and far better of a Professional Virgin than Britney Spears ever was, is marrying him.  Couldn’t she have done better?  Don’t women want to marry up?  Why is St. James tying herself to a man she’ll probably have to financially support until she dies?  Well, there are a few plausible possibilities.  One is that at age 33, St. James hears the clock ticking and is more willing to settle.  Another is that St. James regards Fink’s beta qualities as Christian-alpha.  Ten bucks says he’s kind, good with kids, and devoted to a fault.  For someone with St. James’s mindset, which places top priority on fidelity and “cherishing,” Fink probably looks like a manly man uber alles.  Plus, I’m sure a good percentage of her brain is sublimated by his inoffensive beefcakey-ness.  My third theory is more of a subconscious level idea, which is that Fink IS actually the best that St. James could do, given her requirements.  To get someone as good-looking as Fink who also is able to keep it in his pants for somewhere between 28 and 36 years (I’m going to assume Fink is a virgin due to St. James’s statement “We are truly amazed at finding our dreams and ideals met in the love we’ve found. We are exceedingly grateful for this precious gift from God.”  [my emphasis] The whole thing seems cloaked in virginity-speak), St. James pretty much had to go beta.  A Christian alpha would have either married young or fooled around until he felt like marrying.  Additionally, Fink is good-looking enough to be sexually appealing while harmless enough not to be threatening.  St. James could date him and feel sexually attracted while not experiencing anguishing despair over her desire to surrender her virginity.  Fink allowed her to remain in control of her sexual destiny.

So what lessons can single Christian women take away from St. James’s story?  Well, one, it is indeed possible to meet and marry someone in your thirties.  The caveat is that however much more attractive St. James is than you, you need to subtract that from the attractiveness of Fink to get an idea of the ballpark where you’ll be playing.  Second, I think St. James is the exception that proves the rule, which is that for the most part, physically attractive men who may still be virgins in their late 20s or 30s and who are faithfully following God to the point that a devout Christian woman would find them attractive, are nearly impossible to find; that St. James is far more attractive than the average 33-year-old woman, which gives her opportunities the average woman will not have; and that St. James, despite the advantages of her wealth, fame, beauty, and virginity, could not get the “whole package” because Fink apparently doesn’t have a job worth mentioning in the press.

Why girls bolt after church.

In the comments of my last thread, Hermes asked:

Haley, if you’re taking topic requests, I’d be interested in your thoughts on women bolting for the door the second the church service or singles group gathering is over (and then complaining that they don’t get asked out.)

Usually it’s either:

1) They don’t want to stay and talk.

2) They’re shy.

3) They’re alone.

If a woman is alone (i.e., didn’t come with a friend or doesn’t really know anyone there), she’ll be less likely to stand around and be available for small talk.  It’s very awkward to stand by yourself and wait for someone else to take notice of you.  (Plus, I think it’s kind of humiliating.)  Most people also are not comfortable with approaching groups of established friends and injecting themselves into the conversation.  Established groups of friends are some of the most impenetrable, unfriendly groups around.

At the same time, you can’t just keep to yourself and blame everyone else for not making you popular.  I don’t have much sympathy for people who grouse about their unpopularity yet expect everyone else to do all the heavy lifting.

I think the best time to make contact with a person is before the service or meeting starts.  Establish rapport beforehand, then snag the person before they jet afterwards.  Especially when a person is by herself, it’s usually on you, the established attendee, to make the first move.  A personal invitation is a very powerful (and often effective) method of persuasion.

Man as a mirror.

I wasn’t going to write about Karen Owen and her, uh, list, figuring I’d have nothing new to add to the conversation, but I had an experience over the weekend that changed my mind.

I had arrived at Borders to meet some female friends for our weekly Bible study.  While two friends went and got coffee, I held down the table.  Having just awakened from an out-cold nap just about 30 minutes prior, I was still feeling a little groggy and trying to snap out of it.  I tried to telepathically will my friends to hurry back to the table so that I could order my own overpriced cup of coffee.  Tragically, my telepathy failed.

A large, hairy, possibly somewhat Armenian-looking guy with cornrows dressed in the drab guy uniform of knee-length shorts and an enormous T-shirt sat in the armchair to my right with his beat-up MacBook and headphones.  I didn’t really notice him until he got up and went to unplug his power cord near my table.  As he passed behind me, I heard him talking out loud.  I think he was trying to be lighthearted and jovial and attract my attention that way, but I was still groggy and didn’t care what a large, hairy, badly dressed man wanted to say to me if he wasn’t going to engage me directly.

I guess he also figured out that his indirect approach wasn’t working, so when he sat back down, he spoke to me directly, using my shoes as an opener.  He asked if they were Burberry.  I said no, they were $14 from Payless.  He said they looked like Burberry because of the plaid pattern.  I said that the plaid was the reason I liked the shoes.  He then asked if I was there for a Bible study.  (He must have seen my Bible with its gilded page edges.)  I answered affirmatively, and he went on to ramble about how he think it’s good to read the Bible, even if you don’t believe, because there’s good stuff in there with good morals and Jesus had a lot of good things to say, etc. etc.  I nodded a couple of times and agreed with him but didn’t encourage the conversation to continue, all the while trying to decide if this guy was legit or weird and wondering if I was being a bad Christian for not asking him where he thought he would spend eternity if he died tonight or doing other Christian Outreach Moves especially when he clearly had a positive attitude about Christianity and my goodness I REALLY needed some designer coffee or food so I would be more pleasant and awake.  Finally he concluded and decided to leave, and we bid adieu.

Later on that night, I thought about what had happened and concluded that I would have snapped to far greater attention had the guy who approached me better-looking, better-dressed, more articulate, or wittier.  I would have acted more interested and possibly even thrown out some charm if he had been more in line with the type of man I find attractive.

Then I thought about Karen Owen and how her List only featured athletes and how most people believe she was only discriminating in reporting her adventures, not in having such adventures in general.

I’ve read before that men consider the looks of their wives/girlfriends to be a reflection of their own quality as men; that men do think of women as arm candy, and the better-looking the woman, the higher-status he must be.  In a way, a woman is a mirror back to the man of the type of man he is.  I think the inverse is true for women as well, that the status of the man or men they’re associated with is a mirror validating their beauty and worth as women, the logic being that high-status men choose high-status women, therefore if a high-status man chooses me, I must be a high-status (read: beautiful, sexy, alluring) woman.  For someone like Karen Owen, an attractive but not pretty girl, the drive to secure a mirror that reflected what she wanted to see was pretty all-consuming.  That she apparently picked and chose who made it onto the List supports this theory, since a girl who gets the best must be one of the best herself.  A lesser man’s inclusion on the List would only have lowered her value in her own eyes, and in the eyes of her friends.  If men typically go only for what they think they can get, then it’s pretty depressing if the only men who are coming after you are unimpressive, because that means you must be unimpressive, too.

So to bring it back around to my experience with Big Borders Guy, on the one hand I tried to feel flattered that this guy was doing a daygame cold approach – and I am not approached very often, much less cold, so I should have felt extra flattered – but on the other hand, he was not the reflection of myself that I wanted to see at all, and I think it would take a toll on my ego if BBG-types were the only ones who approached me.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Or, perhaps more accurately, the spirit is reluctant, and the flesh is weak.

(Also, let this be encouragement to men to dress better.  If you look like you just rolled out of your parents’ basement and you try to approach women with minimal game, it’s probably not going to go in your favor.)

Prenups.

Lover of Wisdom recently asked my opinion about pre-nups and what the evangelical female consensus is about them…so, Lover of Wisdom, this one’s for you.

Prenups are not a topic that comes up often when I’ve talked with other single Christian women about getting married, but my general feeling is that most single, conservative Christian women do not want a prenup for themselves.  They consider prenups an insult to their loyalty and devotion and a sign of no confidence on the man’s part.  A man who wants a prenup is a man who believes the union cannot last, may already be looking for a way out, and/or is more interested in himself than in his future bride’s well-being.  The average Christian woman does not see a prenup as protection for the man – or for herself.

That said, I think the average single Christian woman might be more tolerant of a prenup if there were a very large disparity of wealth between the future bride and groom.  In most marriages, a bazillionaire is not marrying a pauper, as people tend to marry those of similar socioeconomic background – and in doing so, end up marrying someone with a similar attitude toward money (both the making of and management of it), which reduces the likelihood that one sees the other as a love ’em-and-leave ’em get-rich-quick scheme.  Additionally, most people tend to marry relatively young, which means that typically neither bride nor groom is at a point in their career where they’re making scads of dough.  If both bride and groom are, say, 30 or younger, there’s usually not much of anything to protect.

However, when a very rich person is marrying a very…not-rich person, all sorts of flags of suspicion immediately go up.  Since it is not common for people of very disparate economic status to meet and socialize, outsiders start to wonder how they met…why they met…what he sees in her…what she sees in him.  The flags go up even faster and harder if the poorer party shows unfavorable signs of being from a lower economic class, such as in manner of dress and comportment.  In this sort of case, I think even a church girl would recommend that the richer party get a prenup (if that person is dead set on marrying someone who seems like a bad deal to begin with).

As for myself, I don’t like the idea of a prenup for the reasons stated above.  I think it’s bad form for a marriage, which is supposed to be the melding of two lives into one, to start off with each party on opposite sides of a table and armed with lawyers who are seeking the best deal for their clients.  (Each party to a prenup should have his or her own lawyer.  I would never recommend to any couple to have the same attorney craft their prenup.  Hello, conflict of interest.  No, besotted couple, your love is not greater than the legal system.)  That said, I am not opposed to prenups in principle.  If a couple want to have a “contingency plan” in place, that’s their business.  In cases of large, inherited wealth, I can even see why anxious parents might urge their son or daughter to get one.  But in general, I would counsel any couple wanting a prenup to examine hard their motivations for and expectations about marriage and commitment.

Feeling free to flirt.

It has been my experience in the church that flirting is implicitly frowned upon.  Growing up, I never heard a youth group sermon denouncing flirting, but in advice columns and articles written to youth and singles, flirting is usually cast in a negative light.  Although flirting at its purest is a natural way for two people to express chemistry and attraction, it often leads to confusion, manipulation, and drama.  Women naturally interpret a man’s playful attention as romantic interest, and when that doesn’t result in a date, hearts get broken.  Men likewise can get their hopes up when a girl flirts back at their overtures, then crushed when the girl says she just wants to be friends.  Not surprisingly, the church would rather have its young people avoid all of the emotional turmoil, and so we end up with exhortations to “man up” and “take the lead” (for men) and “be available” (for women).

This advice sounds solid, if a bit staid (I always imagine an unsmiling man somberly informing a woman, pre-selected for her pristine Christian character, that he would like to court her for the possibility of marriage, and the woman gravely agreeing.  Then they both wanly smile off in the distance, content in following God’s Will For Their Lives).  It’s a complete picture, just one stripped of color.  But how does this work in practice?

Consider the following scenario:  Regular guy Mario attends a hip, modern church called The Pillar.  (It used to be called Sandals until someone realized that that was the same name as a Caribbean vacation company.)  Mario starts noticing that an attractive young woman attends the same Sunday school group.  Mario finds out, through strategic eavesdropping, that the young woman is named Peach.  After a few weeks of observation and finding Peach to pass muster, Mario begins talking to Peach on Sundays.  Peach is friendly but doesn’t give any obvious IOIs.  Mario wants to date Peach.  What should he do?  If he shows “initiative and leadership,” he could be LJBFed.  If he waits around for clear IOIs, he will be accused of lacking initiative and leadership.  Mario decides that LJBFing is a fate worse than death, so he doesn’t ask Peach out.  Peach, meanwhile, has her own conundrum.  She likes Mario, but she wants to avoid a reputation for being a flirt, so she doesn’t overtly encourage his attentions.  She also thinks that Mario might just be friendly, and flirting with someone who is not interested back would be embarrassing.  She decides to wait for a more clear-cut signal.  Mario and Peach continue in their holding pattern, at least until bad-boy Wario shows up, flirts up a storm with Peach, swoops her away, and leaves Mario grumbling that Wario is stupid and ugly and Peach is a jerk-lover like every other girl.

But what if Peach had flirted with Mario, only to turn him down when he asked her out?  Why would Peach send such mixed signals?  Well, it’s possible that Peach saw Mario as someone “safe” who would never ask her out.  I don’t know what it is about the feminine psyche, but a lot of times it’s much easier to flirt with someone you have little interest in romantically than to flirt with someone you have a crush on.  Maybe it’s because you usually feel more self-conscious around a crush, and you also don’t want it to be too easy for the crush to get you, because otherwise, how do you know if he’s actually interested in you?  Plus, again, women don’t like feeling like they are chasing the guy, and Approaching + Flirting = Chasing.

So what is the answer?  I don’t know.  I think it’s wrong to deliberately dangle the carrot in front of someone you have no intention of feeding it to, but at the same time I don’t think it’s a good idea to be so unreadable that no one figure out what you’re thinking.  Alas, there is no foolproof way to avoid bumps and bruises on the road to love.

Like paper near a flame.

One consistent drum beat I’ve heard in the manosphere is that of a nearly obsessive fear of marrying a woman with a low or nonexistent sex drive.  This coincides with the idea that a man needs to “test drive” a woman before shackling himself to her with a ring, because what if she never puts out after the wedding night and horror of horrors you didn’t know this was going to happen because like a chivalrous white knight idiot you never had sex with her before the wedding?  Or – even worse – what if she only wants to have sex for a couple of years and then, after she gets her baby, she never wants to have sex again?  Sure, there’s a lot of derision of Carousel riders, but when push comes to shove, at least a Carousel rider is going to let you ride.  (Well, until she finds the next rider and takes half of your fortune with her, but at least you got your turn, which for most men seems to be better than no turn at all.)

In the Christian community, male fear of a sexless marriage seems to be as widespread as outside the church, but even more intense and much more underground.  It’s intense because devout Christian men know that they have one shot at marriage, which in turn is their one shot at finding a sex partner for life, and underground because Christians like to pretend that sex is a mystery that doesn’t exist don’t like to talk much about sex other than “Teens, don’t do it.”  For the Christian alpha male, there’s not much cause to worry – Christian alpha males almost always get snapped up right after college, or, if they delay marriage, whenever they feel like it’s finally time to leave and cleave…er, I mean, whenever the Holy Spirit speaks to them about the next season of life.  (As has been said here before, did anyone ever believe that Christian dating guru, pastor-to-be, megaflirt Joshua Harris was going to have genuine trouble finding a wife?)  It’s really the Christian beta males who must trek through Mordor to get to Mount Doom, only to possibly discover Gollum waiting to chomp off their finger.

The conundrum facing Christian beta males seems obvious:  Christian women don’t want beta males any more than non-Christian women do, Christian women have been trained not to give any signals of attraction, Christian women want to be “friends” for an unspecified amount of time first…yet Christian women expect men to “man up” and charge ahead, brandishing leadership skills in every facet of life, but not in too sexy a way, lest he be branded a sex-craved deviant or cause a sister (whom he should be treating with absolute purity) to stumble, but not so unsexy that the woman would rather wash her hair.  And a brother is somehow supposed to divine his future wife’s sex drive out of this?

While I empathize with Christian men facing the Leviathan of holy dating, I also think that the fear of marrying a low sex-drive woman is overblown.  I don’t know any single Christian women who are not confirmed spinsters who aren’t jonesing for sex.  As one of my single Christian female friends has said on a number of occasions, “I need to get married soon, because I’m ready to explode.”  It’s like shaking an unopened 2-liter bottle of soda and leaving the cap on.  You may not see a ton of bubbles, but the pressure is most definitely building up inside.  Men, please be encouraged that you won’t be buying a bottle of soda that is flat, but a bottle that is very agitated and waiting for the right time to unleash a torrent of passion.*

Interestingly, this subject came up in the comments of a recent Boundless post.  What began as comments to the female follow-up to “I’ll Go Out With You If…” (featuring the usual drivel) somehow morphed into some women admitting that yes, they did have sex drives that they were working to keep a lid on.  In one comment, a poster named Ashley summed it up thusly:

This is probably unrelated to the actual topic at hand, but I have never been able to explain this to a guy in a way that he can understand. There’s just no good way to tell someone, “I am so fantastically, unrestrainedly into you that I’m going to need us to work on the relational/emotional/intellectual connection here and I am going to need you to not. touch. me. until we talk about it — and I really have to warn you, I may need you to pull the breaks on me.”

Commenter Andrea-Elena responded:

Or how about…

I haven’t gotten to be physical much with guys in my life and I’m longing so much to touch and do all those things that even if I’m not over-the-moon into you, I might still pounce on you just ’cause I like you enough and I find you attractive enough and women get horny too!!!

I feel as if I ought to have a business-size card with that on it to give to a guy when we first start dating.

…

I was inexperienced until the age of 23. So I didn’t really know my own “strength” (heh, heh). I didn’t know I could be or would ever be the aggressor in making out. And there were times I was. Sure, that’ll be awesome when I’m someone’s wife. But it’s awfully dangerous during dating, especially at the beginning stages when it’s so easy for the physical bonding to escalate and go at a much more rapid pace than the “who we are as people” aspect of getting to know each other. And some guys don’t defend their own boundaries very well at times. Just as some of us gals don’t either at times.

So, men, take heart.  Chastity is not synonymous with a lack of sex drive.  Sometimes women may seem distant with affection because it’s the only way they can stop the snowball from accelerating down the mountain.  That said, I think it’s prudent for a couple who are getting serious to talk about sexual expectations in marriage.  If those expectations don’t line up and there doesn’t seem to be a way (or willingness) to make them line up, then the relationship really should be reconsidered.  Generally speaking, instead of spending a lot of time worrying about whether or not his future wife is going to want to have sex with him, a smart man would use that time to work on making himself so irresistible that his wife would have no choice but to jump him and have her way with him.

* Another way of putting it:  I DIDN’T WAIT THIS LONG SO I COULD HAVE FIVE MINUTES OF LAME, DUTIFUL SEX ONCE A MONTH.

Hypergamy and the stigma of being the back-up plan.

There is a pretty impassioned hash-out going on at Boundless on the topic of why men don’t ask women out.  (Yes, Boundless went to that well again.  As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.)  As per usual, it’s a veritable cornucopia of insights into the modern evangelical female mind and young, evangelical relationships (or the lack thereof) in general.

One point that was brought up in the comments is that men risk their reputations when asking out women from a certain church.  If a man screws up his courage, asks out a woman, and she shoots him down, he is then socially obligated to wait an undefined period of time before asking the next woman out from the same group, lest he be pegged desperate, creepy, or undiscriminating (i.e., a wannabe player).  The risk factor is high, because one wrong move can decimate his chances with anyone for a long time.  No woman wants to be some man’s back-up plan when the most attractive option flames out.

When the topic has arisen on my blog, usually the proposed solution is just not to date women from your own church, thereby sidestepping the possibility of social ostracism.  (Of course, if you happen to find someone from another church, the single women at your own church will just despise you for not finding any of them up to your lofty standards.  Or, if they find the girl not up to snuff, they will decide that you like to slum.)

Given women’s hypergamous natures, however, I started wondering if more church women would say yes to a date with a man who had just been out on a date with another woman from the same church group.  Getting rejected by a girl in the group serves as a pretty unavoidable and obvious DLV.  If Jim Bob asks out Sue on Sunday for a date on Tuesday, and she rejects him, there is a very tiny probability that Wendy will say yes if Jim Bob asks her out on Wednesday after singles group.*  Wendy would likely cite the abovementioned reasons for rejecting him, but isn’t her hypergamous hamster the real reason?  Conversely, getting accepted for a date would be a big DHV and make a man more attractive to the other women in his social circle.  If Jim Bob asks out Sue on Sunday for a date on Tuesday, and she accepts, wouldn’t Wendy be more likely to accept a date from Jim Bob as well when he asked on Wednesday?  Someone needs to do a study on this.

* Exception:  Wendy has a pre-existing crush on Jim Bob and is doing the happy dance on the inside that she’s finally getting a shot at her dream guy.

Singles’ Top 5 Relationship Temptations (according to Perry Noble).

A friend Facebooked a blog post by Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina, discussing what he thinks are the top five temptations singles face when considering a relationship.  Here’s what he had to say:

#1 – Compromise! Hands down this is the first temptation…and I would argue that it is the girl that deals with this way more than the guy.  She begins wanting “Mr. Right” but will settle for “Mr. Right Now” if she perceives that all of her friends are getting married and she is not.  God has NEVER called His followers to compromise…EVER!!!  (And…ladies…if you are constantly having the defend the guy you are dating, then you know you are compromising.)

AND…ladies…if he is not pursuing you in a godly manner (which means he is not constantly trying to stick his hands down your pants) then drop him!

Yes, the abuse of exclamation points and ellipses is tedious, but if you can get past that, what we have is a grade-A example of the type of dating advice that leaves Christian singles single well into their 30s.  While there are plenty of marriage-obsessed young women out there who jump at the mere hint of any halfway decent man’s attention, this NEVER COMPROMISE advice is why there are numerous 30-year-old Christian girls who have never had a boyfriend.  I also think this type of advice plays into the pedestalization of women that the church is so (in)famous for – if you’re a female 4 who loves the Lord, waiting for your heroic Christian male 8 to wake up and realize you’re the one for him is just not going to work out well for you.

Re: men who are “constantly trying to stick his hand down your pants” – the most church alpha way of dealing with a woman regarding sexual desire is to acknowledge it openly and then draw a line in the sand and stick with it.  Constant pushing of limits can get you branded a pig who is just looking for a warm body.  Primly abstaining out of “respect” or pretending you don’t struggle with temptation will just make her angry.

#2 – Believing That Marriage Will Solve The Struggles You Are Facing While Dating! Marriage is a magnifier…and if it is a small deal when you are dating then I promise it will be a BIG HONKIN’ deal when you tie the knot!

Can’t argue much with this.

#3 – Going Too Fast! Anyone can fool anyone for a short period of time!  You need to date someone “until the new wears off!”  If two people are in a hurry to get married then it is usually because they are trying to hide something from the other person…or because they just want to have sex!

I don’t think that short courtships are a problem per se.  The problem is infatuation clouding good judgment.  Basically, if the only thing you like about the other person is making out with him or her, then you probably shouldn’t rush into marriage.  But if you have values in common and enjoy doing things together other than sucking face, then I don’t see how dating for 2 years versus 9 months is really going to make a substantial difference in the success of your marriage, especially when you’re out of college.

#4 – Trying To Be The Person That The Person They Are Dating Wants Them To Be Rather Than Who They Are – If you are having to lie about who you are to date someone…then you need to break up today!  Ladies…DO NOT SAY you love football and want to go to games with him if you don’t know the difference between the offense and the defense.  Dudes, DO NOT SAY you absolutely LOVE chic flics and want to watch them for hours if doing so drives you crazy!  If you are doing things you HATE to do…but have refused to be honest and tell the other person the truth…then you are being dishonest with them.

There’s a difference between being honest and being an intolerant stick in the mud.  If you don’t like football but your loved one does, be honest about it but be willing to participate without whining the whole time about your sacrifice.  Also, it’s okay not to do every single thing together as a couple.  Just because he doesn’t want to do something with you doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you.

#5 – Seeking Advice And/OR Affirmation From The Wrong People! Single people…please, if you want marriage/dating advice…then go to people who are actually married and have been so for a long time!  Why in the world would you ask a single person for marriage advice?  Why would you ask someone who has literally blown through relationship after relationship how to have a relationship?  Because they read a book?  Because they know some Bible verses?  REALLY?  If you want to know how to have a successful relationship…ask those who have one.

This is TERRIBLE advice.  By the same logic, you should not listen to teenage moms preach abstinence or alcoholics preach sobriety.  Truth is truth no matter whom it comes from.  It may taste better coming from someone who’s walking the walk, but marriage advice from married people isn’t necessarily going to be better than from an unmarried person.

Spectacular church alpha DLV.

This just in:  even a natural alpha is not immune to crippling DLV.

On Sunday two of my friends and I attended our church’s monthly after-service luncheon.  I think the luncheons are intended to be “a time of fellowship,” which generally means that people who already know each other table up together and share gossip what’s going on in their lives.  In other words, if you’re single, you’ve got about a 20% change of meeting the person who will one day become your spouse.

On this particular occasion, however, my friends and I had the good fortune of coming into contact with Wilhelmina, one of the church’s dowagers, who had zoned in on two male visitors and invited us to join them at their table so they would “feel welcome.”  Ha.  (Of course, now being schooled in Game, I took it as an indirect compliment that my looks are still viable.  Well, either that, or it was a pity invite, but my hamster will not allow that line of thought to dominate.)

The two male visitors were Vlad and Pushka, whom I immediately recognized as the two guys who had sat behind me and my friends in the service and talked the whole time in another language.  It turned out that they were Armenian Persians who were doing some church cruising.  Vlad was fat, dark-haired, and had a unibrow that would make Bert from Sesame Street envious.  He seemed nice but was not super-talkative, probably because his English was so-so.  Pushka, on the other hand, was the most alpha single guy I’d come across at a church in a long time.  He had a shock of unruly thick, red hair and the physique of a guy who enjoys weights, and he was very sociable.  Even better, he had an interesting backstory that added to the contrast of his being able to claim Iranian citizenship while sporting very red hair.  Before moving to the U.S., he spent ten years living in Spain – which allowed him to speak Spanish with my Spanish-speaking friends.  Nice move!

I was starting to think that this guy had incredible, natural game – he even had the presence of mind to act surprised and insist we looked much younger when he found out how old we were – when he mentioned his Canadian “almost-fiancee.”  When my friends pressed, he said that he wanted to propose to her soon, and that he had met her online through video games.

I’m pretty sure you could hear the crash of a boulder falling from a 70-story building when he dropped that knowledge.

While online dating has grown in acceptability, in church circles that’s more or less limited to eHarmony.  Among Christians, I’ve never heard of a couple being matched through any other service.  In addition, video games are pretty much the fastest way for a man to kill any desirability he may possess.  Even though gaming is a huge industry, video gamers – at least white, male gamers – are consistently considered bottom-of-the-barrel mate material.  And guys who use online gaming to meet chicks?  That they want to marry?? Forget it.

Here’s a clip from How I Met Your Mother that nicely sums up people’s feelings about those who gets their dates this way:

Pushka said that he and Vlad would come back to our church next week.  I wish him all the best.  And I hope he doesn’t talk as much during the service.

The perfect storm (stealth date follow-up).

In my last post, I discussed a Boundless post by Tom Neven about his daughter Hannah, who had gone on a stealth date with a male friend who she knew was interested in her.  Naturally, the readers, good Christians that they are, piled on in the comments on everyone involved — so much so that Hannah felt compelled to write a defense of herself.  Oh, Hannah.  This is something that I would never recommend doing except in a case of libel where it is imperative to your legal or job security that you right the record.  First of all, nothing on the internet is as important as people on the internet think it is.  It’s very easy to get into an internet echo chamber where every voice has an exponential effect on the noise, and before you know it, you’re swimming in the din over something as trivial as which objectively attractive actress is a 9 and which is a 10.  Second, who cares?!  Why get ruffled over what a bunch of keyboard critics whom you’ll never meet think of you, your beta boy, your dad, your approach to dating, or anything else?  Nine times out of ten, a person who takes to the internet to defend his or her opinion is only going to dig the hole deeper and give opponents more grist for the mill.  Let your opinion speak for itself.  If other people don’t like it, they can fight about it amongst themselves while you go out and do something constructive with your time.  Besides, most people are bad at putting out their own fires, hence the existence of the PR industry.

What Hannah wrote is not all that interesting, anyway.  Anyone with a clue about college-age church girls could have written a nearly identical blast (“blah blah blah, I am not shallow or vain, we don’t have any chemistry, why is everyone hating on me? I’m innocent and he needs to man up!”).  What is actually interesting is the variety of opinions expressed in the comments.  Boundless is only occasionally useful for advice, but it is eminently useful for taking the temperature of young evangelical thought.  Here is a smattering of “advice” from the Boundless commentariat (my paraphrases):

• The reason you don’t feel any sparks is because you didn’t start praying about it the minute he started giving you attention!  Elisabeth Elliot prayed when her third husband first started paying attention to her.
• You’re just an alpha chaser who is going to get her heart broken!
• OMG Hannah ur so wise and it was so totally not a date! U GO GURL!!11!
• Tom Neven, you’re a bad dad who humiliated poor Beta!
• Women should never initiate a DTR until they are asked out!
• We need to be more like Jesus!
• I am GRIEVED that I hurt you with my comments!  I am so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry!
• Women shouldn’t turn down any dates because they will get a reputation for saying no and then no one will ask them out!
• Don’t give up on chemistry, Hannah!  My own personal experience proves that chemistry is important!
• Hannah, I know you are a woman of substance because I have gone through the same circumstance!
• Hannah has the right to date only men with whom she feels chemistry!
• Men need to stop bringing their hurtful baggage to these discussions so things can stop being so tense around here!
• OMG WHY IS EVERYONE SO MEAN HERE? JESUS WOULD NOT APPROVE.

Sometimes when I read comments like these, I wonder if there is any hope for harmony between the sexes in Churchland.  I suppose the most salient point is that Betas now have even more motivation to “man up,” because of the fear that their target’s dad might take to a widely read blog to advertise their beta-ness.

Possibly the worst comment of all, more for its substance than its attitude, was that of a young woman who had dated a man for an entire year while not being at all physically attracted to him.  She writes:

A few years ago I had my first boyfriend whom I dated for about a little over a year. He was a great Christian guy, a true gentleman, always paid for me, and even remembered the exact calendar day of when we first started talking and our first date. The problem: I wasn’t physically attracted to him. We held hands once but I never wanted to do it again. I never let him kiss me either. Sure, he would have made a great husband and if I never broke it up, we would probably be planning our wedding right now.  The point is that I believe attraction and spark should be among one of the top priorities in a potential spouse. [AH:  my emphasis in bold]

OH MY GOODNESS.  I CAN’T EVEN WRAP MY HEAD AROUND THIS.  IS SHE A ROBOT?!?!?!  (…IS HE A ROBOT?!?!?!)