How many chances are enough before giving up?

Scenario:  Duke, a single man from your church, asks you on a date.  You note that Duke is neither physically off-putting nor a psycho/stalker/rapist/killer/child molester/creeper so, despite not having any pre-existing interest in him, you accept.  You haven’t been on a date in a while, and you have taken to heart the admonition to give decent men a chance.  Duke takes you to Johnny Rocket’s and doesn’t chew with his mouth open, talk about himself the whole time, or forget about the biblical prohibition against fornication.  In fact, he is well-spoken and gracious, and he even leads in prayer as he asks God to bless your cheeseburgers to your bodies.  You find out during conversation that Duke has a stable, well-paying job, owns his own house, has a good relationship with his parents and siblings, has interesting, non-weird hobbies, and desires marriage and children.  Even better, there are no awkward pauses; the conversation flows with relative ease.  Still, while there’s nothing wrong with Duke, you don’t feel excited about being with him.  As the date progresses, this feeling nags at you.  He is a great guy, so why isn’t any adrenaline flowing?  You try to figure it out, but no answer presents itself.

When Duke asks you to go out with him again, you say yes.  But then you go on your next date, and you still don’t experience a single tingle of excitement, even though Duke is undeniably a wonderful man.  This time when he asks you for another date, you hesitate.  Do you give him another chance?

This is a question that ties single Christian women in knots.  How many chances do you give a man before you decide that not only is the magic not there, it’s never going to be there? You’ve been told over and over in your women’s group at church that you need to be receptive and encouraging to young men who have taken the risk of asking you out.  So what if you don’t feel anything right away?  Sometimes the best love is gradual…like an iceberg!  It’s better to get to know each other first; that way you don’t have any pesky desires for sex feelings getting in the way.  Besides, if he’s the right one, God will turn your heart toward this man and you will be able to entertain all of your new, married friends with stories about how you once wondered if you could ever love your dear, darling hubby.

You agree with this advice…at least you do in theory.  You do want to give men a chance, and you don’t want to be the worldly fool who threw away a great opportunity and spends the rest of her life lamenting her Greatest Mistake.  Plus, you haven’t been on a date in quite some time, and you’re grateful that you’ve caught someone’s eye.  However, none of this can change the reality that you just can’t get excited about Duke.  You enjoy spending time with him, but you don’t miss him when he’s not around.  You don’t check your phone, hoping he’s left a message or a text for you.  You don’t wait by the computer for an email or Facebook note.  You don’t wonder what he’s thinking about or doing, at least not in more than a detached sort of way.  In short, you don’t feel the thrills that girls are supposed to feel when they’re falling in love with someone.

Unfortunately, there’s no clear-cut answer to the question of how long is long enough.  It’s different for everybody, and it’s true that a lot of women have grown to love the men they eventually marry but weren’t initially attracted to.  I think, though, that there are some principles you can apply to help you figure out if you should cut bait.

First – do you respect him?  If you already want to make fun of something about him or roll your eyes, you probably don’t have enough basis of respect to build a relationship on.

Second – do you admire anything about him?  A woman who loves a man will always admire something about him.  Usually it’s a character trait (kindness, honesty, fairness, determination, etc.) or a talent (music, technology, sports, humor, intelligence, handiness…).  If you can’t think of one thing that makes you say “wow” even at this stage of the game, that’s not a good sign.  Also, if the only thing that makes you say “wow” is his looks, RUN AWAY.  It’s not going to end well.

Third – do you feel comfortable sharing things about yourself with him?  If you don’t feel that you can trust him with more personal details of your life, or you feel that he won’t understand you, it will be very hard for you to build the kind of emotional intimacy that leads to and sustains love.

Fourth – does the idea of ever having sex with him make you want to recoil, or does it make you want to rejoice?  If it’s “recoil,” the likelihood is not high that you will ever completely reverse your feelings on this matter.  If it’s “rejoice,” or at least “I don’t think it would be all bad,” then you probably have sufficient basis of physical attraction, even if your heart’s not beating a mile a minute presently.  The thing is, if you marry this guy, he’s going to want to do it with you all the time.  It’ll be helpful if you think you’ll be enjoying doing it right back to him.

I would say that if you don’t see any of these points emerging after two or three dates, it’s probably time to part ways.  If at least two of these characteristics start kicking in, though, I’d say go on some more dates and see if you don’t get all four points starting to happen.  (Anything less than all four, though, probably means you’re destined to be Just Friends, especially if point 4 is missing.)

Ladies, stop blaming “the world” for men’s taste in women.

Oh, Boundless, you never disappoint me:

Are your standards of beauty hindering your path to marriage? If you have an expectation in your mind of what your future wife or husband should look like, you may be passing up on a lot of prospects who possess true beauty. And true beauty isn’t always visible at first glance.  On this week’s Roundtable, Lisa, Candice and Sarah not only discuss true beauty but also talk about being good stewards of the beauty that God gave you.

During the podcast, Lisa, Candice, and Sarah offer up a bunch of overspiritualized pap as they explain why looks are an issue between the sexes.  First, Candice, who at least has the sense to admit that no one is blind to looks, tells listeners to stop expecting their future spouses to look like their favorite movie stars.  In a beautiful show of misandry, after telling female listeners not to keep looking for a “Christian Brad Pitt,” she tells male listeners who have “held on this long” not to look for “Christian Barbie.”  In other words, women are attracted to real, albeit exceptionally beautiful, men, whereas men are attracted to unrealistic plastic fantasy women, a.k.a. something that doesn’t even exist.  Nice.  Candice talks about how Pierce Brosnan was her physical ideal during her younger years.  Seriously, though?  This isn’t really the problem.  Candice inadvertently proves this in her next statement — that even while Pierce Brosnan was her ideal, in her everyday interactions with men, she was attracted to a much broader variety of looks.  The idea that Christian young people are so inflexible on specific physical attributes such as hair color and height (e.g., “my husband must be 6’2″ and blond”) is ridiculous on its face.  A preference isn’t a standard.  To imply that this is a widespread phenomenon that is impeding marriage is seeing a tree and deeming it the forest.

Sarah chimes in that a good personality and character are what’s most important.  No shocker there — except that everyone already knows that looks alone will not sustain a relationship.  That’s why so many women date bad boys but ultimately settle down with a nice guy, and vice versa.

Lisa then brings up the concept of “points” — that a male friend told her that men assign points to women based on various characteristics.  Women can lose points for bad personalities, etc., but they will never go beyond that initial threshold.  It’s obvious from Candice, Lisa, and Sarah’s tones of voice that this is Bad.  Lisa then points out that for a woman, men can gain points as a woman gets to know them.  This has a much more favorable reception.  Keep beating the feminist drum, Boundless:  women good, men bad!

Sarah then gives female listeners a pep talk:  it’s not you, it’s God’s will. Yes, she actually tells young women that if a man doesn’t think you meet his attractiveness standards a man isn’t interested in you, then it’s not God’s plan for your life.  This way, instead of feeling that you don’t measure up, you can just understand that it’s not God’s will and remind yourself that you are valuable and worthy in God’s eyes and that’s what really matters.  In other words, the man’s disinterest has nothing to do with the woman!  It’s actually God’s intervention in the woman’s life!  Lisa and Candice then reverently praise her for being so “healthy.”

Lisa, Candice, and Sarah go on to discuss stewardship of looks, i.e., things a woman can do to maximize her looks.  Lisa and Candice talk about how terrible they looked in the ’80s — as if ’80s fashion is what prevented them from being considered attractive.  Except, you know, everyone else was dressing just as badly at the time, yet I’m sure some women were thought attractive then.  Oh, who are we kidding:  those were probably just flukes of lighting or angles.  Sarah says that she asks her sister for advice about hair and clothing and remarks that women can do things like shower, “not smell,” and wear perfume.  Not once did any of these women bring up diet and exercise as the first line of offense in women’s attractiveness — even though a perusal of any men’s blog will reveal repeated statements that a healthy figure is crucial to men’s attraction.  But I suppose any man who brings this up will just get shouted down by Christian women who have been taught to believe that men’s non-interest is God’s will and that men need to accept “true beauty” instead.

But that’s not the end:  Lisa compliments herself on having an open mind about men’s looks but then is honest about being inflexible on a few specifics, such as height.  Then Candice says that she “feels bad” for Lisa for having some inflexible standards!  What if a short man who is otherwise great comes along?  Candice reminds her that there are not enough tall men to go around for all the women who desire tall men and that she may have to compromise.  After all, she has seen short men with taller wives.  Lisa then says that if it’s the Lord’s will, she’ll fall in love with some other guy and carry him over the threshold, women’s lib-style.  Lisa and Candice chuckle.  Women’s lib.  As if!

So, what are the takeaway lessons for young women from this podcast?

1. Men desire unrealistic fantasy women that they’ve seen in the media and shun the “true beauty” being offered to them on silver platters by single Christian women.
2. A man’s non-attraction is God’s will and no fault of the woman’s.
3. Fashion, not figure, is the first thing young women can work on to improve their chances with men.

IS IT ANY WONDER GENDER RELATIONS IN THE CHURCH ARE CRIPPLED????

And there is no better example of this brainwashing line of thinking than this comment left on the post:

I have to say, Candice and Lisa, that I appreciated this topic. Last year, a guy that I dated for about 8 months finally told me that he wasn’t overly impressed with me on our first date (this guy did have a point system, like you said!), and he had never been able to get over the negative first impression. (No more points for me!)

Then he told me that I just didn’t measure up to his preconceived standard of beauty. Now, I’m no model, but I’m not overweight, I’m healthy and attractive and dress “up” and wear a nice amount of makeup.

As hurtful as that (last conversation we ever had) was, what really makes me mad is that the world has destroyed this good Christian guy’s sense of true beauty. I know I’ll never compete with the magazine model. And sadly, that’s what the standard is.

Sarah’s comments to the ladies were right on in the podcast, but I hope that Christian guys can learn to embrace and accept true beauty, too, in the women they know.

What do we have going on here?  Well, the simple explanation is that this woman is a 5 and the young man she was dating is a 7, and her ego is deeply wounded that eight months of her Truly Beautiful personality weren’t enough to overcome her looks deficit.  But let’s break it down from her point of view:

1. Man has developed an unrealistic standard of beauty due to exposure to the media.
2. His non-attraction is not her fault.
3. Her fashion sense inexplicably did not overcome his objections to her face and/or figure.

Hmm, where have I seen these ideas before….?  Yes, I’m sure the reason this relationship didn’t work out is that this young woman’s ex-boyfriend had viewed the Victoria’s Secret catalog and if not for visions of Adriana Lima pouting in a push-up bra, he would not have found this young lady’s looks lacking.  I’m sure he didn’t once offer a prayer to God, asking God for guidance for the relationship or for more physical attraction to this girl who had given him such a negative initial impression.  Let’s all offer a prayer for him right now, that he would get over his worldly, entitled view of women and start developing a love for “true beauty.”  Perhaps someday the Lord will change his heart, and he will become attracted to women he’s not attracted to.  In the meantime, we can clutch our pearls and lament over all the young men who could have good Christian wives, if only they hadn’t bought into the World’s Agenda.  (NOTE:  The only instance in which this young woman could be right is if she were the 7 and the young man were the 5.  In that case, the man would do well to reassess his sexual market value and the resulting caliber of woman he could reasonably hope to attract and keep attracted.  I know the idea of sexual market value is offensive to Christians because it implies that we’re not all on an equal playing field in the mating game, but it exists.  Otherwise we would see a lot more good-looking men married to homely women, especially in the Church.)

The thing is, if Christians want to press the idea that God created men and women and sexuality, then they have to accept the whole kit-and-kaboodle.  This means accepting — yes, in the face of both secular and Church culture — God’s design for sexual attraction.  Women are attracted to leadership, purposefulness, strength, and stability.  Men are attracted to physical beauty, loyalty, gentleness, and grace.  To deny any one of these characteristics is to deny God’s design for sexual attraction.  No amount of cultural pressure or indoctrination will change this design any more than introducing a chicken to a lake will make it interested in swimming.  The best way to capitalize on this design is to recognize that we all bring a certain amount of goods to the mating table and to look for someone who brings a similar amount of goods and understands this concept.  Trying to get more than what you bring only leads to instability and insecurity, because the person who brings less will always have to work harder to make up for the deficit.

Put down the Facebook. Rest your thumbs. Use your voice.

I would like to know who the women are who prefer Facebook and texting to talking on the phone or in person as a principal relationship tool, because I seem not to know any such women in real life.  Obviously, anecdotal evidence isn’t proof one way or the other of a trend, but I have never heard any woman rejoice that the object of her affection uses Facebook or texting as the primary means of communication.  It’s much more common for a woman to complain that a man texts her all day long, or that he asks for dates (or, more commonly, “hanging out or sumthin…sometime“) via Facebook.  (Forget MySpace.  That’s so 2005.)  When did the telephone become anathema?

It’s easy to understand why Facebook and texting have risen in popularity for communicating with the opposite sex.  We are a risk-averse culture used to ease and convenience.  Facebook and texting provide both the minimization of risk and effort.  Instead of having to get into the same physical space as another person, we can now communicate with a few clicks of the thumbs and fingers from any distance.  The other person doesn’t have to see us – no more need to submit ourselves to the critical eye of another evaluating our face, body, clothes, smile, hair, eyes, posture, how we hold our arms, where we are looking, and whether we have any sweat stains under our armpits or something stuck in our teeth.  What a relief!  Instead of having to be ready to respond to conversation on the spot, we now have the power of self-editing and thinking up all the witty responses that in real time we only think of well after the fact.  We can be cool in a text!  Texting rocks!  Even better is that we can take or leave the conversation at will.  In person or over the phone, you have to respond to the other person’s mood and emotions promptly and deftly in order to avoid social stigma.  With Facebook and texting, you can just ignore someone if you don’t feel like dealing with him or her.  You can respond instantly or respond never.  How did people not come up with such a genius arrangement sooner?

The problem with such advantages is that eventually, if you want the relationship to progress, you’re going to have to spend real-time time with the other person.  For a generation addicted to Facebook and texting, it’s hard to think of something more foreign, unnatural, or terrifying.  You’re going to have to be in the same physical space as the other person.  You’re going to have to talk to each other face to face.  You won’t be able to walk away.  You won’t be able to self-edit.  You’re going to have to let the other person know you as you really are…you’re going to have to be you.  But isn’t that what we all want, really, in a relationship?  To find someone who loves us for us?  To be able to rest in that person’s presence and replenish ourselves so we can march back out and face the rest of the world?  You just can’t reach that kind of intimacy when you’ve only got 140 or so characters to work with at a time.  Extending this limitation to marriage — who wants to be in a marriage where your thumbs are constantly glued to a keyboard and your eyes are staring down at a screen rather than at each other?  I can see it now:

HUSBAND:  took out da trash

WIFE:  thx!!!!!!

HUSBAND:  u look nice

WIFE:  hahahaha no i dont

HUSBAND:  yes u do

WIFE:  how do u know

HUSBAND:  im lookin at u rite now

WIFE:  rly????????

HUSBAND:  yup u look hott

WIFE:  ok fine

HUSBAND:  im watchin american idol

WIFE:  i know these ppl cant sing

HUSBAND:  hey want 2 do it 2nite?

WIFE:  lol!!!!!!!!

I’m not knocking Facebook and texting as communication tools, per se.  They can be useful (like confirming plans) and can even enhance a relationship (women live for the written word, and a sweet, unexpected text from a loved one can be like receiving a tiny love letter in the mail).  The important thing is to use them judiciously.  They are accents in a room, not the main furnishings.  The main rules still apply – men, be bold and brave; women, be graciously receptive.

And talk to each other.

“Hanging out”: clear as mud.

Two of the most stress-inducing words in the English language, at least as far as male/female relationships and dating go, have got to be “hanging out.”

Say you’re friends with a guy (o most common of scenarios in Christian circles!), and you’re somewhere on the sliding scale of never-in-a-million-years to straight-up head-over-heels in love and dying for him to reciprocate.  Whenever you’re together (always in a group, of course), he’s friendly with you, gives you lots of side hugs, sometimes has one-on-one conversations with you about Important Things, and thanks you for praying for him/his friend/his unsaved relative/his mom’s operation.  Now, one day out of the blue, he calls you up and asks you to “hang out.”  (Sometimes this also takes the form of “maybe get some people together,” with “some people” being optional.)  He sounds casual, but your heart starts to patter.  What does he mean?  What does “hanging out” mean?  Good news!  Nobody knows!

Here is where the folks at Boundless would step in and browbeat encourage young men to be intentional about women and to stop hanging out and start dating instead — all the while encouraging hanging out, usually via group stealth dates, to get to know someone.  (How’s that for irony?)  I generally think that hanging out should be confined to groups.  If a man calls up a woman and asks her to hang out, and it’s just the two of them, then that’s a date.  Even if it’s not intended to be a date, it tends to have the form of a date and be interpreted by others as a date.  And, at least in my experience, there’s often a strange, quasi-date feel permeating the affair.  I know, I know:  you’re different, and your friends are aware of the delineations you’ve made in relationship status.  But generalizations arise from commonality, and chances are that you are not quite the special snowflake you think you are.  Someone, somewhere, is going to be misinterpreting something.

In sum:  Men, be upfront.  Women, be receptive (so long as it’s not of the “I’ll say yes to anyone” variety).

Since pictures are worth a thousand words, and stories are how we learn about ourselves, I thought the following scenes from the show Gilmore Girls would be a good example of what “hanging out” usually leads to.  In Rory’s case, her object of interest is actually interested back, but he doesn’t make it clear before Rory goes through the emotional ringer.

[Background to the scene:  Rory Gilmore was the beautiful, brainy daughter on the old WB show Gilmore Girls.  Throughout high school she had the (g0od?) fortune of having two different boyfriends who liked to fight with each other over her.  However, in college she met her match in Logan, a party boy who also happened to be the heir to a publishing empire.  Early on, Rory didn’t know how to handle either her attraction to Logan or Logan himself due to never having encountered a boy who could either take or leave her looks charms.]

Going out with a man should not be a reward for his asking.

I often see discussed in evangelical circles the idea that a single Christian woman should accept any date offer from a single Christian man.  After all, the logic goes, he took the Enormous Risk of asking you out.  Therefore, since you do not want to discourage risk-taking, you should reward the man for Taking Initiative and should go out with him.  Besides, you might magically become attracted to him!  He is a Child of the King, after all!

Friends, this is idiocy, and worse, it is disingenuous idiocy.  Indiscriminately accepting a date from any Christian man, whether or not you have any inclination toward him whatsoever, is tantamount to giving out your Social Security number to a stranger on the phone just because he asked.  There is nothing wrong with using some discrimination in choosing whom you will be spending some time with.  It is not wrong to look for some basic, bottom-line characteristics that are necessary for a relationship, particularly one which may lead to marriage.  If, say, a man is terrible at managing his money, why should you reward him with a date?  Because Jesus forgave his sins?  Bad money management is not an issue that is going to go away easily just because you are now in his life.  Ditto other universally undesirable characteristics like lying, laziness, and bad dressing unkindness.

The reason I say that it is disingenuous idiocy to vow to say yes to every Christian date proffered is that all women have standards.  I’m confident enough in this to say all.  Some women have higher standards than others, but all women have standards.  Beyond basic attributes like Not A Psycho/Stalker/Rapist/Child Molester/Murderer and Is Alive, a woman is going to demand specific qualities in a man to whom she will be attracted.  It’s impossible that every Christian man who desires a date with her is going to meet that threshold.  A woman who denies this reality, therefore, is a disingenuous idiot.  Why would she put herself through a date with a man when she already knows she’s never going to be attracted to him?  And why would she deceive a man by showing a modicum of interest that doesn’t exist?  Going on a date with a man to whom you are not attracted is NOT showing him kindness.  It’s NOT boosting his ego.  It’s NOT “encouraging him in the Lord as a brother in Christ.”  It’s you leading him on and giving him false hope.

Evangelicals LOVE hard-luck-made-good stories.  Evangelical women turn to piles of goo when they read or hear stories about impossible love that triumphed through alcoholism, pornography, adultery, bankruptcy, homosexuality, obesity, and just about every other terrible something that can happen to people.  That’s why it’s so hard for them to admit that not saying yes to every Christian man who asks is a poor strategy that they don’t really want to follow through with.  It’s romantic (and status-building) to be able to say, “Yes, if Nose-Picker Wall-Eyed Willie asked me out, I’d say yes, because he has such a good heart for the Lord.”  But push come to shove, how many women would enjoy a date with Nose-Picker Wall-Eyed Willie?  How many women would not be cringing through the conversations, trying not to check their watches too often or notice all the instances of nose-picking, and, gee, the smacking sounds Willie makes when chewing his food are really kind of disgusting.  But oh, did he ever offer up a genuine prayer of thanks for your delicious meal at Taco Bell.  Remember that the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

The one caveat I do have about my advice opinion is if a man about whom you are on the fence asks you out.  He doesn’t really set your heart afire, but he doesn’t douse it with ice cold water, either.  He’s not genuinely good-looking, but he’s not not good-looking.  He’s just sort of there.  However, he is not a psycho/stalker/rapist/child molester/murderer, and he’s kind to others, and he’s not a hopeless slob, and he doesn’t seem like the idea of talking to a woman terrifies him to death.  He’s the one you might want to give a chance to.  Even if the date doesn’t lead to another date, you’ll still have spent some time with a decent man, and you never know if he has some other single decent man friends….

How to be the perfect Christian date.

1. Be plain in an attractive way.
2. Stay at least a foot away from the other person at all times.
3. Don’t express too strong of an opinion about anything (a burning desire to become a wife and mother excepted).
4. Be home by 9:45 p.m.
5. Wear a calf-length denim skirt and bedazzled denim jacket.

Am I missing anything?

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.)