You are your own worst enemy.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about career and career progression, and the more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that, generally speaking, you are your own worst enemy.  Sure, it would be nice** if we all lived in a pure meritocracy where the people with the best work ethic or the best brains or the best teeth or whatever got the promotions, and all the useless, lazy suck-ups got to eat our dust, but that isn’t how the world works.  Relationships matter, and how you conduct  yourself matters.

When I was temping a lot, I never stayed in one place long enough to learn the personalities at that place.  Broad personalities, yes, such as “he is very friendly” or “she is always in a bad mood,” but not the detail that you pick up after interacting with and observing the same people week after week after week.

Most of us are so self-absorbed that we don’t realize that people are silently forming opinions about us.  They are quietly aggregating our actions and drawing conclusions from the way we interact in the break room, to our conduct on the phone, to the small talk we make on the elevator.  People remember if we smile at them or walk on by with no acknowledgment that they’re there.  People notice if we’re late.  People notice if we have a messy, disorganized desk or a neat, clean desk.  People notice when others dress well, or dress sloppily.  And all of these assessments go into people’s silent perception of you.  Ultimately, they want to know:  are you easy to get along with?  Are you trustworthy?  Are you dependable?  Do you do good work?  Or are you a power-tripper, a corner-cutter, two-faced, negative, or tactless?

I think evangelicals these days are very prone to ascribing all progressions in life to a nebulous idea-cloud of “God’s will” (while all regressions are YOUR FAULT REPENT NOW), but the truth is that we have a lot of agency in our professional lives.  No, we can’t “make” our boss promote us, but we can do everything we can to show that we deserve it, and we can certainly openly go for it.  We can develop a top-notch reputation of honesty, trustworthiness, dependability, and quality of work.  We can show good judgment and integrity.  We can show a servant’s attitude – not a doormat’s attitude – but an attitude of humility.  No one likes a person who makes sure that everyone knows that certain tasks are beneath his pay grade.

If you’re not getting all that you think you should get out of your professional experience, take a very honest look at yourself and see if you’re not your own worst enemy.  There are so many people out there unwittingly destroying others’ goodwill toward them by constantly complaining, or acting like they’re too good for their job, or by being lazy or undependable, or by failing to show tact and consideration toward others.  Likewise, so many people feel stuck in their jobs because they’re unwilling to step out and take a risk for what they really want.  Most of the time, being a “nice” or “good” person isn’t enough.

Bee-tee-dubs, this also applies to your romantic life.  If you feel you’re getting passed over by the people you want to notice you (or you’re just getting passed over in general by EVERYONE), take a good look at yourself and see if there are ways you’re letting yourself down.  Could you dress better?  Is your hairstyle unflattering?  Do you wait for others to engage you, rather than initiate conversation because you’re an interesting person who finds others interesting?  Do you keep eating cupcakes because you “know” it’s impossible for you to lose weight??  If you’re really not sure where you’re going wrong, ask a trusted friend who also has tact to identify areas where you could improve.   Your friends most likely have formed some silent opinions that they’re not sharing with you.

**Obviously, a pure meritocracy would suck for those with no talents.

If you don’t manage your life, your life will manage you.

If you’ve taken Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University course (which I have and highly recommend), you’ll know that one of Dave’s sayings is that if you don’t control your money, it will control you.  I was thinking recently that this overall principle applies to life as well:  if you don’t manage your life, your life will manage you.

We all know someone with a chaotic life.  The person is always stressed, always catching up, always overworked, always looking for misplaced things, forgetting things, and trying to squeeze things in.  Maybe the person is usually able to get all of their work done, but they’ve expended a lot of energy to make it happen.  Meanwhile, there are other people who seem to be able to cross everything off their list without breaking much, if any, of a sweat.

If you’re directing a lot of your mental energy every day just trying to stay on top of things, it’s going to be hard for you to move forward.  You’re just expending too much time and energy inefficiently.  You only have so much gas in the tank, and you might not have enough left at the end of the day to devote to doing the things you need to get ahead.  Life doesn’t roll out the red carpet for you, and the sooner you structure your life according to this fact, the better off you’ll be both now and in the long run.

The quest for the Earl of Piety.

The “quest for the Earl of Piety” is really just (my fanciful) name for Christian hypergamy, which in my opinion is the culprit of many Christian women remaining single unnecessarily long.  As much as the manosphere likes to complain that even church girls are OMGSLUTS!111!!1!! (and I’m not denying that there aren’t a bunch of those out there), there are also a lot of Christian girls who (typically) have grown up in the church, taken all of the teachings about virginity and purity to heart, and have never fallen off the wagon, so to speak.  They want to be wives, they want to be mothers, they want to serve God, they’re serious about ministry and having quiet times…and they can’t find a Christian man who’s good enough for them.

Case in point:  Amy Seed of Boundless.

In a recent perusal of the bloggift that keeps on giving, I came across Seed’s article, “A Revealing Question for Dating.”  In it Seed describes how she was in relationship exclusivity negotiations** with a presumably Christian man she was attracted to and had gone on several dates with.  After those several dates, she still wasn’t sure that he was relationship-worthy, so she asked him, “What do you picture your household being like when you’re married?”.  (**I know this sounds horribly clinical, but Boundless-style courtship resembles taking inventory for retail.)

Not realizing this was his Last Chance with this girl, Prospective Boyfriend failed the answer for not “sharing her vision.”

In the initial blog post, Seed did not describe what exactly this dude said to merit failure.  However, she did specify that her future husband should not only share her vision, but also presently display the various characteristics necessary to fulfill that vision:

I know I desire a home filled first and foremost with the peace and love of God, followed closely by joy and laughter. I want it to be continually filled with the praises and worship of God. I want my home to be a haven for those who need rest, guidance or simply a friend. I want a marriage and home atmosphere where imperfection might be obvious, yet shines with evidence of the Holy Spirit at work.

In order to make this vision a reality, my potential spouse should be a spiritual leader and a man in pursuit of holiness and goodness. He should be someone who can lead children by example in the Lord and not just by authority. The right man will be humble and hospitable so people feel welcome in our home and not as though they’ll be judged for sharing their struggles.

Once we know what we desire in marriage, we should strive to date people who not only share our vision but display the characteristics needed to fulfill it.

Several readers thought that Seed was being too judgmental against the guy, so she provided a more complete answer in the comments:

Don’t get me wrong, he had a great answer. On the surface, we were looking for the same things. But on a deeper level, there were things missing. He believes in God, but he wasn’t at the same place spiritually where he was striving for closer communion with Him. I know those things can change, but we also had a lot of lifestyle differences. Asking him that question was kind of just a matter of confirming whether or not things that are very important to me are things that even mattered to him without me in the picture.

In answering my question, he didn’t mention anything about leading a family spiritually or God being central in the marriage. He might not have opposed those things, but they didn’t seem to be on his radar either. The fact that he didn’t hold faith in God and serving God as important as I do is something I foresaw leading to a lot of problems. I didn’t want to go into a relationship that was dependent on him working toward those things because of me instead of naturally wanting them himself. He was making a genuine effort, but that was just for me and while he was with me, not the rest of the time.

She later added:

He was intelligent and sweet, and he treated me well. He was someone I could joke with one second and then have a very real, serious conversation with the next. He asked about my boundaries and was extremely respectful of them. I figured that since he was making a genuine effort, was seeking marriage and was being intentional with me, I would give him a chance. I was hesitant for certain reasons, and he was very aware of those. But as time went on, I discovered the words didn’t quite match up with the actions as far as seeking God and pursuing a lifestyle pleasing to Him.

So what we have here is a generally good guy, considerate and respectful of Seed’s physical boundaries, who had good chemistry with Seed and who began dating her KNOWING that she was a Christian whose Christianity was a priority in her life, get shot down for not, in Seed’s opinion, sufficiently seeking God.  I don’t want to knock someone for not dating someone where there was genuine incompatibility, and it does sound like Seed gave him a fair shake, but situations like this are a recipe for prolonged singleness for Christian women.

Not knowing more than what Seed wrote, I’m sorry this happened.  The truth is that many Christian women, if they want to marry a man to whom they are attracted, may have to settle for a man who is not as “spiritually advanced” as she is.  Just look at the male-female ratios in many churches, and look at the pickings.  The ratio is not advantageous to women, especially the ones who aren’t drop-dead gorgeous, or at least reasonably cute and perky and have that future-youth-pastor-wife personality.  But just because a man doesn’t say that his first intention is to spiritually lead his family and grow closer to God and provide a safe haven for joy and laughter or whatever DOESN’T mean that he’s not going to grow spiritually, or that he won’t grow with his wife’s encouragement.

In a later comment, Seed wrote that the guy admitted that he acted more spiritual around her but had a secret non-Christian side that he wasn’t apologetic over, and that is how she knew it would NEVER WORK.  Maybe she’s right – but I’ve seen a lot of guys – guys who are good at heart – go through a wilder phase in their 20s and then come back to the fold after they got married.  It’s why so often, writing off an otherwise attractive man for “insufficient spirituality” in the hopes of snagging the Earl of Piety is such a fool’s mission for the average Christian woman.  There just aren’t enough of those guys for every girl who wants one.  I mean, it’s one thing if the guy is adamant that he wants nothing to do with God or Christianity (or is actively professing a different faith), or has unequivocally stated that he has no intentions of ever exploring his spirituality, or that he genuinely believes he’s good with God right where he is and doesn’t have any interest in going any further, but that wasn’t the case here.  Nor did Seed indicate that she had a specific calling to missions or other sacrificial calling that would make any union with a less spiritual man genuinely problematic.  Again, not knowing the situation personally, I can’t say with confidence that Seed made the wrong choice…but it really does sound like this guy got the boot for a potentially fixable problem.

I get where Seed is coming from; I used to think the same way.  I grew up in the church convinced that I had to have a “spiritual leader” for a husband, who wanted to attend small groups and Be Involved and lead in prayer and want to do family devotions and the whole kit-and-kaboodle.  I was convinced that those were the ingredients of a good marriage, and if a guy wasn’t showing those attributes at, say, age 22, then he had effectively removed himself from the running.  Well…quick guess as to how many of Earls of Piety I’ve come across in my life, and who have been single, and who were attracted to me, and to whom I was attracted back.

As I have gotten older (and remained single), especially in the months since my dad passed, I’ve begun reevaluating what I thought were the “essentials.”  My dad, at the time he married my mom, was not a model Christian man.  He had grown up in a Christian home but was caught up in a lot of typical young man behavior.  He knew my mom was a more serious Christian than he was, and he was fortunately wise enough to recognize that if he married her, she would help him grow.  And she did.  My dad never became an Earl of Piety – it was not in his personality – but God became a priority in his life.  In the later years of his life, he ended every day on his knees next to his bed in prayer.  If my mom had judged my dad by Seed’s criteria, there would never have been a marriage.  (Fortunately, my mom was CRAZY about my dad and also naive enough to believe that because they grew up in the same denomination, their marriage would be much like her parents’.  Ha!  She definitely experienced a rude awakening.  But back then, young women didn’t enter dating armed with a 463-bullet point evangelical checklist full of things like “must enjoy discussing theology,” “only listen to Christian music,” and never telling a crude joke.  (These are all things that Seed mentioned as must-haves for her happiness in a relationship.))

One other comment:  Seed talks about how this guy didn’t “share her vision.”  Her whole decision-making process centered around herself and her own ideas about marriage.  I think it would be beneficial for single women to frame it rather as “can I share HIS vision?”.  Because ultimately, that’s what you’re signing up for in a marriage, Christian or not.  You’re signing up to be this guy’s first officer (to use an Athol-ism), or to be the COO to his CEO, however you want to put it – the point of you is not to set a goal and wait for him to meet it, but to look at his goals and see if you can be a part of them.  Women who are waiting for a man who can meet their lofty standards are usually destined to wait a loooooongg time.

Christians who don’t promote young marriage don’t actually care about chastity.

Reader Nate Winchester sent me a link to this article from The Catholic World Report: “Should We Bring Back Young Marriage?”

It’s a longer article, but it’s a good read.

My take on the issue of young marriage is that if Christians are actually serious about chastity, then they HAVE to support young marriage.  And it seems to me that Christians at large are not serious about chastity.  All of the “True Love Waits”-style campaigns, purity rings, abstinence education – all of that means NOTHING in the face of biology…or at least it ends up meaning nothing if you’re alone with your boyfriend in your apartment at night and you’re in love with each other, or at least happen to think each other is hot.  I mean, what do parents REALLY THINK is going to happen?  Maybe not the first time, but given ENOUGH time.  That they’re just having Bible study at 1:00am?

Are adult Christians just stupid?

Is it not obvious to anyone with half a brain that human beings were not designed to delay sex for two or three decades after coming to sexual maturity?  Yet we have Christians not blinking an eye at full-grown adult singles waiting until age 35 to marry for the first time, because that was just God’s perfect plan or whatever.

Maybe these Christians (because THEY married at age 21 or 22 and never had the delightful experience of having unfulfillable sexual desires for 10 or 20 years) think that anyone can wait because THEY were able to wait for, like, five years.  Maybe the only singles they know at church are low sex-drive 2s, or girls who became chubby single cat ladies by age 26 and are totally content to serve in the nursery at church while patientlyyyy waiting for Mr. Right that everyone knows will never arrive – isn’t it obvious that waiting is a realistic and achievable goal?

Or maybe it’s that as long as the couple weren’t cohabitating before marriage, then we can totally assume that they weren’t having premarital sex, right?  Even though they dated for five years!

I think some of it is that there are a lot of married Christians in the church these days who had premarital sex, and they just don’t want to address it, because then THEY might have to come clean about their own fornication, and nobody wants to go there because (A) no one else’s business, and (B) awkward.  So everyone just turns a blind eye to what they know is going on, and it’ll all work out because we’re all forgiven and everybody makes mistakes and no sin is greater than any other sin.

Until someone gets pregnant.  But even then, everyone rallies around the brave single mother (no abortion = hero for life) and volunteers to babysit.

We hear a lot these days from pearl-clutching Christians about how evil the world is and how depraved the culture, etc.  If Christians are really serious about changing the culture for the better, then they need to get serious about promoting young marriage and stop telling singles (either explicitly or implicitly) that they have a long time to find someone and it’s better to go off and have adventures while they figure out who they are.  And they also need to stop telling people that the 20s are a “season” in which you can work on yourself to become closer to God and therefore marriage-worthy or whatever.  By the time you hit your 20s, you should already be well-formed enough to be a good candidate for being a spouse.  That has not so much to do with how many various experiences you have in life but very much to do with your fundamental character.  Marriage shouldn’t be about bringing two “experts in life experience” together but rather about bringing two young people who may be inexperienced in life but of solid character together.  All the life experience in the world means very little with no character.  Age 22 is not a good age at which to BEGIN to develop character.   Yes, it’s a good thing to have done some introspective thought about who you are and what you want, but this idea that we have to be practically irrevocably formed before even entertaining the thought of marriage is wrong-headed.  If anything, too much formation makes it that much harder for someone to get married and stay married.

 

Meg Jay: Why 30 is not the new 20.

In case this video hasn’t made the rounds to your internet neighborhood yet –

Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist whose practice focuses on 20-somethings.  In this TEDtalk she discusses why now is the time to invest in your life, rather than believe your 20s are a ten-year freebie pass to mess/wander around because life and direction are just going to be there for you at 30.  I think she is actually the first person I’ve heard who tells people that the decisions you make today can cut off possibilities for your future (such as the ability to have a family when you want one).  Even church advice is typically of the “get married young, but if God doesn’t bring your mate into your life in college, just keep hoping and praying – God’s timing is perfect!” variety.  Meanwhile, girls are turning 30, dressing frumpy, and waiting for that sacrificial leader to walk in the door on Sunday and choose them.  Good luck with that!

Jay’s talk is important because a generation of young people has been raised to believe that they can have whatever they want, whenever they want – they are just that special, and all they have to do is wish hard and it will happen.  Especially now, with the ubiquity and immediacy of texting, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media, you can get stuck in a bubble where reality doesn’t intrude – where you don’t (and don’t have to) contemplate reality.  This makes getting hit in the face with reality even worse, AND you’re totally psychologically unprepared to deal with it.  While Dr. Jay does not give Christian advice, she does hit a lot of the same areas that the Boundless types are always harping on, except Dr. Jay does it in a way makes a lot more sense and is far less annoying.

Also, although Jay focuses on twentysomethings, her advice is good for any age.  Now is always the right time to take stock of your life, get focused, and do things that will help you get where you need to go.

Should Christians EVER go on dates with (presumed) non-Christians?

For those of us who have grown up in the church, probably the cardinal rule of dating that is hammered home again and again and AGAIN is to never date an unbeliever.  This is because if you date an unbeliever, you will have premarital sex, never go to church again, and basically ruin the rest of your life.

When you’re in high school, or even college, this seems like pretty solid advice.  For girls, you are advised to keep holding out for that ambitious young man who loves Jesus and is a spiritual leader and material provider who will love you sacrificially and be a good father to your children whom you will raise in the faith, trusting God every step of the way as this young man challenges you to grow in your faith and prays for you to love Jesus even more as you have your couple devotions which he leads.  You know this guy is out there, because God is writing your love story and you are using this season of singleness to fall in love with Jesus even more in anticipation of the spiritually appointed meeting of this young man, who is also using this season of singleness to grow into the strong, faithful leader that God intends him to be.  Sure, you’re frustrated because the guys in your youth group seem immature and only interested in the popular girls (which you are not one of), but you can hold out, because you can’t imagine your life beyond age 25 and by then you’ll surely be married.

I’m not sure what the equivalent advice for guys is, but I’m guessing it’s some combination of never looking at porn, confessing your boners to other men, and praying and averting your eyes when you feel temptation.  Also, praising God for redeeming the precious young women in the group who had been deceived by men who only wanted to use them for sex.

And again, all this seems like a solid game plan……..provided you’re married by age 25.  It’s just – what about the rest of us for whom that cutoff point passes, and we’re still single?

By this point, you are:

• out of college
• in the workforce, full-time
• starting to feel uncomfortable in “college & career” settings
• but too young to be part of the “dregs of the church SMP baby mamas/broken divorced people singles” scene at church

The young married people you know have fallen into the Young Marrieds Abyss, where conversation now revolves around mini-vans, preschool, coupons for Kohl’s, and recipes on Pinterest.

The older married people you know don’t know any young singles to introduce you to, or if they do know anyone unmarried, that person would not be a good match for you.

As a good Christian, you do not troll bars, and if, on the off-chance, you happen to go to a bar with some friends (where you feel very uncomfortable), you are DEFINITELY not there to meet men, because good men don’t go to bars – especially not to bars with the goal of meeting chicks, because everyone knows that girls who go to bars are trampy sluts – and a marriage-worthy Christian man would NEVER look for wife material at a bar – and so you know going in that you have already written off every man in the bar, full stop.

So you go through some very long dry spells where the most male attention you get is from a 44-year-old church creeper from the singles group, but there’s a kind of cute guy at work who probably is not a Christian, and you know this because he sometimes drops the F-bomb, but he’s nice to you and you think that sometimes he’s sort of flirting with you, and after a while you start wondering…….would it really hurt so much to go on a date with a non-Christian??  I mean, a date is not a proposal, and you’re 30/32/35/38/41/43 and not getting any younger.

At this point, Christian advice tends to bifurcate.  On the one hand, you have the hard-liners who feel that The Bible Says, and if you never go on that first date with a non-Christian, you will never have to deal with all the problems that come from Unequal Yokeage, which is the whole point of The Bible Says in the first place.  Plus, where is your faith?  God can work miracles.  Keep hoping and praying for your miracle.  Everything God does is perfect and in His own time – there will be so much greater and more rejoicing as you look back on this season and recognize His faithfulness to you.  And if you never meet anyone, then that is God’s plan for you and you can serve Him so much better as a single person, anyway.  Those people who have to spend time with their children?  They can’t serve at church potlucks and crisis pregnancy centers the way you can.

On the other hand, you have the people who approach dating slightly more recreationally.  These people don’t see the harm in going out with someone because it’s Just A Date, and Just A Dates don’t have a lot of big-picture significance.  Why not spend some time getting to know someone else?  It’s just a date, and early dates are casual.  No harm, no foul.  Plus, if you start to get a reputation for saying no to those who ask, eventually NO ONE will ask.

The two positions, as far as I can tell, are irreconcilable.  If you go to a church full of The Bible Says-ers, you will be frowned upon if word gets out that you went out with a non-Jesus-lover.  (You can tell if you attend such a church, because if you mention a young man to the women at church, the first or second thing they will ask about him is if he is a Christian.  If you say “no” or “I don’t know,” they will immediately advise you never to date a nonbeliever.)  But – are you doomed to zero dates over the course of a decade or more, potentially turning down a number of men just because they swore in front of you?  Is it really worth being alone all the time?

I don’t know what the answer is.  I just feel frustrated with the state of things.  And I feel despair when I read comments like this one from MontanaMoxie at Boundless:

I enjoyed listening to the panel discussion on 2nd dates. It sounds like CO Springs has a pretty great Christian singles dating scene.  Maybe I ought to move there!  Just kidding, of course…but I’ve been a little discouraged this weekend.  I’ll be turning 33 years old this week, and I haven’t ever been on a first date as an adult, let alone a 2nd date.  I don’t know how I’ll get to marriage someday (something I highly value, study and prepare for, desire, respect, etc.) if I can’t even get to a first date.  I suppose I’ll keep asking God to work a miracle, because I think that may be what it will take!

Really?  REALLY??  I know the Christian wing of the manosphere loves to focus on tearing apart and mocking the Saved Single SlutMoms, but there are a bunch of MontanaMoxies in churches, too – girls who have been churchpilling all their lives and have gotten nowhere romantically by doing so.  They’ve been told to trust God, and fall even MORE in love with Jesus, and to stay chaste, and to look for that Strong Leader Guy, and to IKDG and not date casually, and to keep hoping and hoping and hoping and praying and praying and praying – and the clock keeps running.  Meanwhile, guys feel like they’re at a job interview when they go on Christian Dates.  In the same thread at Boundless, Corwin aptly sums up the Christian Dating Problem from the male perspective:

I’ll be completely honest with you, I hate Christian dating, haven’t been on a date in well over a year, and have little interest in dating a Christian girl ever again because it often seems like first and second dates are more like a driver’s licence exam than a social evening. Did he show ability to take risks by asking me out in person? Nope, he used Facebook — two demerits. Did he show ability to provide by jumping up to pay for my $3 coffee? Nope, he was in the bathroom when I ordered, so I had to pay — three demerits. Did he show leadership by picking a venue conducive to conversation? Nope, he took me to a crowded place that he should’ve known would be too loud to talk deeply — six demerits…and that’s a fail for this dude’s godly husband potential.

Of course I’m exaggerating, but I really have found that the expectations and judgements that are made on Christian first dates are quite extreme. I really don’t think you can accurately assess anyone’s leadership or provider or parenting potential the first time you go out with them. No one is truly themselves on a first date either due to nerves or trying to be impressive, yet statement like “if he can’t lead a first date, he can’t lead your children” make it sound like it’s totally legit to give guys one high-pressure shot to prove who they are to women.

Christians love to talk about how “the world” is so messed up and “worldly” dating is so messed up – maybe they should look at the church, because as far as I can tell, it’s not any better inside the church.

Sorry if this is a downer, guys – just feeling frustrated at the moment.

Poll results: who’s reading Haley’s Halo?

I discovered that unless I’m willing to fork over some cash, I have a limit of 200 responses.  Since I’m not willing to part with money for a survey, I have closed the poll for now.  Thanks to everyone who participated!

The results confirmed what I had always suspected, but here’s the breakdown:

1.  Males were 75% of the respondents; females 25%.

2.  Suburban readers were 56% of respondents; urban, 31%; rural, 14%.

3.  Almost 2/3 of respondents (65%), sit on their butts all day at work in an office.  22% work from home or have some other nontraditional job.  13% are blue collar/labor intensive workers.  I realized after I created the poll that I neglected to provide an option to select “student.”  I’m guessing that the students and SAHMs marked themselves in the work from home/nontraditional category.

4.  As I expected, the majority of readers (65%) who responded attend a casual-style church.  29% attend a dressy/upscale church, and 6% admitted that their church is full of superfrumps.

Overall, the results describe a pretty average contemporary American Christian person – you work in an office, you wear jeans to church (and probably sing songs about rivers that flow to God, or how God takes your breath away, or something like that), and you don’t live in the bowels of a major city.  What this means as far as my comments about fashion is:  the average reader probably doesn’t have to push it as far as I recommend in order to get good results.  It really all depends on what level your community generally plays at.  If wearing non-sandals qualifies as dressy in your area, then wear those.  Just aim for a notch above what the rest of the guys are doing.  If your officemates are still wearing the ’90s cube-dweller uniform of pleated khakis and a blousey blue button-down shirt, then wear some slim flat-front pants and a colorful plaid shirt.  It’s still the same basic outfit, but in a more attention-grabbing way.  And GET IN SHAPE.  The clothes often do make the man, but the body often makes the clothes.  Clothes look better on better bodies.

 

Take the survey and help me help you!

In light of my last fashion post, I thought it would be helpful to have a better idea of the sartorial status and needs of my readership.  Please take a minute and answer the following survey.  It’s only four multiple choice questions!  This (I hope) will help me get a better idea of where my readership is at, fashion-wise.

Thanks in advance!

ETA:  On Question 4, if it is common in the summer to see people wearing baggy T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops at church on Sunday, then you do not attend a casual-dressing church.  Ahem.

Wear clothes that fit.

This is a looks post.  Insert standard disclaimer about inner beauty, yada yada yada.

The best ways to look better (and sexier) are to (a) be in shape and (b) have clear skin.  You can’t really separate the two, because a pizza face will defeat a bangin’ body, and nobody will care about your luminous, dewy skin if it houses a 300-lb. body.  Body and skin are two areas where pretty much everyone has room for improvement, too.  Unless your job is to be professionally fit and beautiful, there’s always a next level you can achieve in these areas.

But let’s say you have a decent body and decent skin – are you undoing much of the good of those attributes by dressing poorly?  I’ve talked about this before, but FIT is the number one thing that can make the difference between frump and fantastic.  Clothes that fit properly advertise that you are put together, savvy, and confident.  Clothes that fit poorly suggest that you are sloppy, complacent, and/or timid about yourself – NOT that you are so focused on God that you can’t be bothered with the ~things of this world~ like fashion.  Also, fit is not about sexy, plunging necklines or short skirts (for the ladies), or leaving half of the buttons of your shirt undone (men).  It’s about wearing clothes that are correctly proportioned to your body type.  When you wear clothes that accentuate your body (as opposed to showing it off in a trashy way), you’re basically saying, “I’m comfortable with my body, and therefore myself.  I’m a person you want to get to know.”

Hipsters aside, most Americans wear clothes that are too baggy.  Part of this is probably because too many Americans are also obese or overweight, but how is anyone supposed to see what is good (and sexy) about you if you are hidden inside a fabric bag?  This morning at church I sat behind a row of five twentysomethings, and the frump was plentiful on the part of the women.  The woman who put the most effort into her outfit was overweight, and the other two were wearing jeans and boring knit tops (and no obvious hairstyling or makeup).  Zzzz.  The guys looked like they had put more effort into their looks than the women (the guys, too, were wearing jeans that sort of fit), but they could have bumped things up a couple of notches, easily – like going for darker, fitted denim and collared shirts.  This is the pickings for singles in the church?

It’s just…if you are single and would like NOT to be single, then stop making it harder for other people to see your inner beauty!  If you LOOK like you have inner beauty (yeah yeah yeah, I know, we shouldn’t judge people on their exterior – but when you see someone dressed like a thug, do you not try to move away from that person?  so much for not judging people on their exterior…), then maybe people will be more inspired to talk to you to see if you DO have inner beauty.  If you’re making people look past 50 extra pounds or through swathes of fabric of an XXL shirt on a M body, you’re just making it harder for someone else to connect with you.

Also:  I’ve really come around to the idea that men should always tuck in their shirts.  It just looks sloppy (and kind of stuck in 2001/wannabe member of Rascal Flatts/”cool guy church dad”) to leave it untucked.  Even for knit polo shirts.  Tucking in the shirt and pairing it with a nice belt adds a subtle but nontrivial level of polish to an outfit.  NOTE:  the shirt needs to FIT – tucking in a billowy blouse-shirt is NOT sexy.  But billowy blouse-shirts aren’t sexy and should never be worn in the first place.  NOTE 2:  the pants need to fit as well.  NOTE 3:  do not attempt if you have a big ol’ gut.  But having a big ol’ gut isn’t sexy, either.

Rebranding submission.

Mention “submitting to your husband” to the average woman, and she’ll look at you like you just suggested that the U.S. should bring back slavery.  These days submission has such a negative rep that trying to sell women on submission is like trying to sell paleo dieters some carbs.  In my opinion, given the current cultural climate, trying to pound the submission drum is just going to come up against a lot of resistance.

Last weekend I had lunch with a recently married friend and got onto the subject of submission.  While she had a knee-jerk reaction to the word itself, she actually agreed that deference was a part of her marriage and that it worked for her and her husband.  So maybe submission just needs rebranding.  When a woman hears “submit,” she thinks “become a doormat, throw brains out the window, let husband become a tyrannical dictator.”  Of COURSE women are going to reject submission when it is so closely correlated with those ideas.  But deference – and the connotation of agency involved in the decision – that seems a little more appealing.

So maybe the subject should be approached from that angle – ladies, can you defer to your husbands’ decision-making?

I suppose we can quibble over whether women should just suck it up and ACCEPT that the Bible says submission so therefore they have to SUBMIT whether they like it or not, but there’s also a reason that chewable pills taste like fruit, so………