Category Archives: Understanding Attraction

Can You Marry Someone You Don’t “Love”

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I’ve been so blessed over the last couple of years as I’ve shared some of these ideas about singleness to engage a lot of different people.  Young singles, older singles, married people, pastors among others.  During one conversation with some people a woman said, “I don’t want to marry someone I don’t love.  I don’t think you should do that.”

There are so many angles on this idea of being “in love”.  There is the obvious stuff about romantic love vs. sacrificial love.  I get that.  Here’s the funny thing.  Married people (and I mean people who have been married for a while) will almost always tell you it’s not about romantic love.  I can’t count the times someone told me that.  And the thing is, I got it then and I get it now.  But I always chuckled because if pushed, none of them got married to someone that they weren’t “in love” with.  So while that might be true in marriage, and while it can bring perspective to a single person, it’s tough to work through and most haven’t.

Really we have to define “in love” but I’d like to back up a couple of steps.

We need to first own what I talked about a couple of weeks ago.  This idea that while there are things we are looking for in a person (such as a Christian, smart, fun, has a job, driven, likes sports . . . whatever else) those are really qualifiers.  What I mean is that what we want is someone we are attracted to who also has those things.  We need to own up to this because when we don’t, we are just in our own way.

What this woman was saying is I don’t want to marry someone I’m not attracted to. That would be a fair statement. But frankly that doesn’t have much to do with love.

We need to keep two very important things in mind.  Loving someone is not a feeling and attraction is not a choice.

Both attraction and love are real.  Here’s the good news.  When you love someone, I think attraction can grow, and attraction can lead you to love someone.  But when we confuse the two all the time it can keep us single and/or make us bad spouses if we do get married.

Love is a choice.  I can choose to love literally anyone.  This is why it’s a command.  Jesus is not commanding you to feel something. Jesus isn’t saying, “Be attracted to God with all your heart. (Yes I get that we should be and one day will be).  He’s not saying, “be attracted to your enemy.”

Think about this, everyone’s favorite little marriage verses, like, “Husbands love your wife as Christ loves the church”, or “Wives submit to your husbands” have nothing to do with attraction.  Most of the people that Paul was writing to were married through arranged marriages in one form or another.  Not all certainly but the point is that those commands aren’t based on how you feel about it that day.  Love is a choice.

Attraction is not a choice.  Here’s what I mean by that.  As someone I was team teaching with put it a few weeks ago,  Attraction is not an in that moment conscious decision.  Read that again.  Am I saying attraction can’t grow?  No.  Am I saying that you can’t lose attraction?  Of course not.  What I’m saying is that you don’t go out and say, “I’m going to feel attraction for this or that person.”  In that moment you either feel attracted or you don’t.

Now I have a post coming about attraction and how what I’m going to call our attraction meter is completely hi-jacked. But the first step is acknowledging that it matters.  The question is not does attraction matter, but how much should I allow it to matter.

If the question is, can I marry someone I don’t love, then the answer is well sort of.  But if you get married you are commanded to love them so you might want to figure it out.  On the other hand if the question is can you marry someone you aren’t attracted to, the answer is clearly yes.  The hardest part about this for the single person (the part that no married person likes to admit) is that to do so would mean you’d first have to date someone you weren’t attracted to.

Am I saying that you should marry someone you aren’t attracted to?  Not really.  I didn’t. But you could.  What I’m saying is at the very least, own that you are looking for attraction.  I’m saying who you marry is a choice – attracted or not.  Really you could choose to marry a lot of people irregardless of your attraction level – many of whom would have the qualities you say you are looking for.

I’m not saying we should ignore attraction.  In fact I’m saying the opposite.  We need to understand it – what we are attracted to and why, what makes us attractive to the opposite sex and why, and what to do about it all.

How attracted do you need to be to marry someone?  To go on a date?  Which is more important to you – your attraction to someone or the qualities you are looking for?

You’ve Met Who You Say You’re Looking For

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So lately you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting quite as much.  Part of the reason is that I’ve had a couple of different speaking engagements.  And since, like most of you, I have a real day job, my time has been limited and I wanted to speak and share well which takes prep time.  But one of the benefits of this is that whenever I get to share with groups, it makes me think about things in new ways.  It also leads to new questions from people who are smack in the middle of singleness.  So I’m looking forward to sharing some new thoughts, as well as some new angles on old thoughts.

One thing that got brought up at each engagement was the idea of who it is that we are looking for.  This is kind of an interesting question.  I know for me, that sort of changed at different times.  The basic questions are things like, “I don’t want to marry someone I don’t love.”  “I can’t seem to find a ‘real’ Christian.” “Should you marry some one that you can live with or someone that you can’t live without.”  Those are all upcoming blogs but I want to start with something more simple today.

I asked each group to give me a list of things that they were looking for.  Now understand that these were mix gendered groups with diversity of age and experiences so there were a lot of answers.  Here were some:

  • A Christian
  • A leader
  • Someone who is compassionate
  • Someone that likes athletics
  • A gentleman (lady)
  • A guy who knows his bible
  • Someone who loves their family
  • Someone who has a plan
  • Someone who is driven
  • Someone who wants a family
  • Someone who sees finances the way I do
  • Someone who sees politics the way I do
  • A guy with a job
  • Has a balanced life – work/life balance
  • Dependable
  • Respects people
  • Affectionate
  • Interested in me – wants to know me
  • Educated

I could go on, but you get the idea.  We all have some sort of list.  We have things that we want in another person.  Some are a big deal to us and others are kind of negotiable.  But most of us have a list.

But here is the truth about our list.  Most of the things on it are qualifiers not attractors. What I mean is that we can say, “I want someone who is a ‘real’ Christian” but what we mean is “I want someone who I’m attracted to who also is a Christian.”  I know this is true because if it wasn’t then everyone at my church would be married, but as it stands only about half of them are.

Now your list is actually important.  The list is what keeps you from marrying someone just because you are attracted to them.  Or at least it should.

But you can meet someone who has everything on your list but it probably won’t matter if you aren’t attracted to them.  A woman can say I want a Christian man who is serious about his faith, who is a solid guy, who is smart, has a job etc.  The thing is I could introduce you to fifty of those people right now.  As I said to one group, “If that is what you are looking for, look around the room, pick someone and get married.”

That might be ok, but the deal is you’ve got to own it.  Because if you don’t you end up running in a circle and basically sort of start becoming dishonest.  You can say, “Well I just haven’t met anyone who has this of that quality.” – But you have.  All the time actually.

As I’ve said before, at it’s base level, attraction is not a choice.  The good news is that we are attracted at some level to all sorts of people.  But we aren’t attracted to that list.  The list should help us decide what to do with the attraction.

This has huge ramifications both personally and corporately in the church.

We spend a lot of time telling people that they need to be the things on the list, which is fine.  But we spend about zero time talking about how to deal with attraction – both how to be more attractive, and how to handle it when we are attracted.  Continually beating us over the head with what should be on our list (i.e. “don’t settle”) isn’t enough.  Neither is telling people that if they are those things that they will be attractive – because that’s false.

We also end up hurting people.  We say things like, “well you have all these great qualities, someone will want that” or “you’d make a great husband (wife)”.  While a nice compliment it doesn’t help anyone get married.  It also can cause more pain when we interact with the opposite sex.

In one group I was teaching at we asked people why they thought they were still single. One woman said, “It’s tough to meet a Christian.”  I smiled and kind of cringed because really this woman just disrespected every guy in the room.  She didn’t mean to, and she doesn’t have to.  What she should have maybe said is “I haven’t met a man who I’m that attracted to that is a Christian.”

Now this of course raises many questions including can you marry someone you aren’t attracted to?  That’s a post I’ll write soon but we need to begin to get ahold of this idea. We need to own our attraction issues which can be complicated.  We need to understand that just because we would make a great spouse doesn’t get us married.  They are different skill sets – not opposing skill sets, but different.

There are all sorts of people that can get married that would make horrible spouses and vice a versa.

Some things to think about:

What is really on your list?  How much does your list matter vs. attraction?  How honest are you with yourself and others about all of this?  What is your attraction measurement?

Don’t Guard Her Heart

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So you may have seen the video “Shoot Christians Say.”  There’s a lot of funny stuff here that speaks to our evangelical culture.  But the part I want to talk about comes at about the 1:41 mark.

There is the idea that somehow it is the guys job in a relationship, heck even in general, to guard the girl’s (or perhaps every girl’s) heart.  I think this can be a huge trap for the Christian single guy.

There are a lot of big flaws with this idea.

To begin with, that phrase is used in Proverbs 4:23 –

“Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.”

This is not talking about romance in any way.  It’s not even talking about being careful not to love a person too quickly.  It’s saying keep your heart focussed on God and centered the right way.  Because if you don’t, then everything else will get clouded.  (Quick aside – in the bible, heart is not your emotions.  It is your very central being.  The heart speaks, thinks, remembers etc all throughout the bible – it is not separated out as your emotional self.  It is your core self).

Obviously you can set your heart on many things, including a romantic relationship.  But it’s not limited in anyway to that.  And neither is this verse – especially when read in context.

Secondly, it doesn’t say to guard anyone else’s heart.  Do you know why?  Because you can’t.  I can’t keep someone else’s heart focussed on God.

This is one of the major problems with the whole “Kissed Dating Goodbye” and “Choosing God’s Best” type books of the 90’s.  There was this idea that if you didn’t make out or whatever that no one’s “heart” would get hurt.  This is of course sold in the context of women’s sexuality being linked to feelings while guys are “just” physical so you could somehow help the girl not get hurt by not making out with her.  The problem is that I can have my heart set on a person or relationship without even dating them, let alone without making out with them.

I know this because I’ve had times in my life, especially from about age 16-25, where I had my heart set on someone who didn’t even want to date me at all.  Was it their job to guard my heart?

So for starters you can’t guard someone else’s heart for them.  But that is just the beginning of the problem.

This idea is often rooted in the idea that guys are bad and girls are innocent.  I’ve pretty much never heard a message that a girl should guard a guys heart. (Maybe a couple of times).  The idea being as men we are a sex craved animal who will use women.  So we need to “man up” and protect the girl from us.  Yikes!

This affects Christian guys in a lot of subtle ways that aren’t good.  First it can keep them from asking out anybody or certainly from taking things forward if they aren’t sure they want to.

I can remember times where because I wasn’t 100% sure I was into it I backed away in a hurry because I didn’t want to “hurt” that person.  Now if you know for sure that you are not into it then yes, you should back away.  But a lot of relationships have a some time of not being so sure.  If I’m constantly worried about guarding everyone’s heart, I can end up freezing myself.

Secondly, this is one of the ways that we’ve helped Christian guys become less attractive because they end up coming off as “nice” guys.  We end up “declaring our intentions” or “having the talk” at times when we don’t have to.  We end up being so accommodating that we become annoying.  As I’ve said before, no girl wants a guy that can’t stand up to her.  And no girl wants to know your “intentions” before you’ve had a first date.

Essentially while trying to guard everyone’s heart but our own, we end up either overplaying our hand or not playing our hand at all.

Am I saying to crush girls hearts? No! No! No!  I’m not saying toy with people, make out with whoever, whenever, treat people like an expendable product or lead people on just for the heck of it or because you don’t have the courage to end a relationship.  You shouldn’t do any of those things!  But that’s not guarding her heart – that’s just called caring about another person.  That’s a good idea.  That’s right.  Don’t use people.  Seriously.

But don’t pursue a woman with an attitude of protecting her from yourself.  It’s her job to guard her own heart (meaning staying focussed on God and getting her core validation from Him) and it’s your job to do the same with yours.  You can be protective of her physically and emotionally as best you can, but you can’t guard her heart in the biblical sense or guarantee that she or you won’t get hurt.

What has the term guard her heart meant to you?  Has it been a good or bad thing?  Has it held you back and from what?

Jesus Can Help You Attract Women

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For over 20 years I’ve been inviting people to know and follow Jesus.  One of the things I like to do when I have time is to juxtapose two stories from the bible.

The first is the story of the wealthy young ruler who approaches Jesus.  The man kneels before Jesus, offers him some flattery and then asks what he needs to do to have real lasting life.  Jesus first brushes off the flattery and then tells him that he knows the rules of the kingdom.  The man says he”s kept all of those.  So not only was this man well off, but he was apparently a good guy.  But something was still missing.  Jesus then essentially says, “Sell everything you have, and come with me where I’m going.”  The man went away sad because his wealth was the center of his life and he was not leaving it.

The other story is from Luke.  In this story in the middle of the day, after teaching from his boat, Jesus tells Peter to go out into the water and drop his fishing net.  Peter basically tells Jesus that to do so is completely ridiculous.  They had worked all night (the right time to fish) and not caught anything.  But he does it anyway.  He then pulls in the catch of a lifetime.  He has to call others to help.  This was THE catch.  He could have just thanked Jesus and made a killing at the market.  But instead he realizes what is going on and falls to his knees. Jesus says, “Come with me.  From now on you will fish for men”.  Peter leaves THE catch on the beach and goes with him.

It’s the same invitation.  One man says yes and another says no.  One is with Jesus and the other is not. This theme plays out all through scripture.

There’s obviously about a zillion things we could pull from these stories.  But what I want to talk about today is that we as men can actually learn a lot from Jesus about how to approach and attract women.  Seriously.

Jesus was a guy that everyone wanted to be with.  People were drawn to Him period.  He knew His identity.  He was confident, strong, caring, smart, powerful, fun, charismatic, and fully alive.  He was exactly himself always.  He had integrity.  He initiated.  Quite simply Jesus was the most attractive person ever.  Jesus was hot!

Now Jesus knew that celibacy was required to accomplish His mission.  But you can bet women wanted to be with him.  So what can we learn from Him about pursuing women if He didn’t?  A lot actually.

For starters we need to recognize that if we walk with Him we can become all of the things that I listed in two paragraphs above.  If I’m in Christ then I can know where my identity comes from.  I should be becoming more confident, strong, caring, wise, etc.  Of course I’m not Jesus and therefore can’t live that out perfectly, but I should be becoming it.

But more than that we can learn from how Jesus interacted with those he called.

Jesus loved people.  He invited people to join Him, in all sorts of ways. Some joined him for a while and left.  Some walked away.  A few went with Him.  Here are a few take aways in terms of dating.

First, Jesus was inviting people to something.  As a man we need to be inviting the woman to come with us.  They are not the goal.  I’m pursuing a goal and I’m looking for someone to come with me in that.  This is a huge thought.  Women want someone who is going somewhere.  Call it ambition or direction or whatever, it is attractive.  If we don’t know what we are about and where we are going as well as how to communicate it, we run the risk of not being attractive, or of attracting the wrong person.

Second, Jesus asks and invites but He never begs.  This is actually true through the entire Bible.  God does NOT need us.  He wants us.  He loves us.  He pursues us.  But He is not begging us to be with Him.  He invites the rich man to leave it all, but he doesn’t beg him to.  In the same way we shouldn’t beg someone to date us.  Women like being wanted, but they can sense when they are needed.  If we can’t live without them, they don’t want to live with us – at least not for the long term.

Jesus, even though it saddened Him, let people walk away.  When the rich man walks Jesus doesn’t hesitate and say something like, “Hey wait a minute.  You know what, you obviously kind of like me and I want this to work out.  So how about you sell half.  Heck bring the rest with you and we’ll use it.”  He lets him walk.  It is good to pursue a woman.  It is a terrible idea to chase her.  Jesus was not (and is not) a stalker.  He is not waiting for us to make His life complete.  No one should hold that power over us either.

The reason we know Jesus loves us is that even though He doesn’t need us, He wants us. Some people say yes to that and some say no.  The truth is that you can’t love anybody that you have to have.  Love is a choice, not a compulsion.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

The Christian And The Pickup Artist

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In 2007 there was a TV show on VH1 called The Pickup Artist.  In it a guy named Mystery along with his “wingmen” took 8 guys who were not good with women and taught them the “art of pickup”.  Ah reality TV.

What’s funny about the show is that the first thought that my roommate and I had about it was that there were a whole lot of Christian guys who could use his help.  Many of them were no better off than the contestants.  In fact all of these guys got better at approaching and talking to women.  The “Mystery” method worked – at least at some level.

My roommate, along with another single friend had also been going through a program called Double Your Dating put together by a guy named David DeAngelo.  He took the whole concept to a different level.  It went well beyond pickup.

As we talked through all of this a couple of things became very clear.  First, while we certainly couldn’t condone all that these guys did, we had a lot to learn.  Secondly, we realized that there was absolutely zero, and I mean zero, Christian version of this for guys.

I was 34 at the time and trying to piece together how I was still single.  I had met a couple of really quality people but not been able to seal the deal so to speak.  I began to realize that a lot of what I had thought about my whole “singleness” story was wrong.  A lot of what I’d been taught and/or assumed about dating, attraction and theology was not actually true.  And it came crashing down around me.  It was awesome and painful all at the same time.

Now God was moving and looking to restore me.  I also had a great community of people – both brothers like those mentioned above and mentors that walk with me.  I sought some counseling.  But it would be false to say that the secular dating gurus didn’t help me out.  I would have turned to the Christian dating gurus but their weren’t any.

One of our problems in Christianity when it comes to this whole subject is that we over spiritualize it.  We also tend to skip about 100 steps ahead. We teach people who they should marry but not how to meet them. We tell people what not to with their date, but not how to get a date.  We tell men to man up and women to dress up without explaining why that matters.  We can help you break up with the wrong person, but we can’t seem to help you learn how to approach the right one.  We tell men to guard girls’s without telling them how to win them to begin with.

By doing this we essentially emasculate our men and leave our women with a choice between acting on attraction to the secular man or ruling over the Christian man.

It shouldn’t be this way.  Not only should we be helping Christian men and women connect, and as a bonus we’d actually end up reaching out to others.  Men would want to be like us and women would wonder what is different about our guys and want that too. This is a fairly obviously Christian blog.  I mean it’s in the dang title.  Do you know what the number one viewed post is?  It’s “Women Can Smell Desperate“.  And it’s not close. Someone views that post almost every day.

People want to know about attraction.  More than that they want to know how to be attractive.  No one is more attractive than Jesus.  Hello Church.

In the over spiritualized world you wait around and God brings you someone.  In the real world you go out and learn, while walking with God.  In the over spiritualized world you stay as you are and God magically changes your circumstances.  In the real world you engage God and grow in areas where you continually fail.

Am I suggesting that we should we should become Christian Pickup Artists?  No I’m not because as a Christian the “pickup” is not the goal.  But becoming a “Get A Date Artist” might be a good idea.  If you want to get married – which is the goal.

I’m sure a lot of Christians watched the Pick Up Artist.  Some were outraged and disgusted.  Some were taking notes.  Most guys were probably doing both. But two things were undeniable as a Christian.  One, we have a lot of guys in our pews who would fit on that show and two, we aren’t doing anything about it.

Throughout history the Church wins when it leads, it loses when it reacts.  We are in the middle of a cultural shift when it comes to marriage, singleness, and sex.  We are losing. Maybe it’s time to switch strategies.

Have A Game Plan For Dating

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One of the worst places you can be on a date is that moment when the girl says, “what are we doing?” and the guy says, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  I know because I’ve been there and done that.  When you go on a date, especially initially, it’s good to have a plan, or at the very least, have an opinion.

But let’s back up a step.  I think it’s actually helpful to have a plan when meeting women. Now I don’t mean be a robot or be completely controlling.  But I think that as a guy, having a plan, or set of plans is helpful.  Having some options in your mind for things to say when you meet someone is good.

A lot of guys have a hard time approaching women.  I’ve talked about approaching women and developing dating skills in the past.  But the common theme in those previous posts is that having a game plan is good.

When I was online dating after a while I realized is that sense you never knew who would communicate back, it was good to have some sort of system or you’d be sitting there all day.  So I developed a three or four email plan.  Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t send the exact same email to everyone.  But I had the exact same principles.

Comment on what they wrote, ask two fun/light questions.  In the second email ask another series of questions including a set of either/or questions.  In the third email ask a fun question and deeper one.  Fourth email ask to talk live.  (Gentlemen – for free – women like questions – makes you seem interesting and interested at the same time – that’s for free).

When I was talking to my wife early on she would make fun of it.  She’d say stuff like, “is this part of your system?”  She could tell I had one.  The best part was from the very first date, she went about trying to bust the system.  It was awesome.

Am I saying you need a system to approach women?  Yeah sort of.  Especially if you are uncomfortable doing it.  I’m not saying you should plan every moment and interaction out in your head.  I’m not telling you to over think it.  (If you are 30 and single – you’ve already over thought it – lots of times).  I’m saying that as a guy, when you have a bit of a plan that you trust, when you “know what you are doing”, it gives you confidence and you can go from there.  If you have a plan – you don’t have to over think it – you just do it.

Here’s a non dating example.  I’ve spoken in front people my whole life.  Literally hundreds of times in front of many thousands of people.  Now part of it is that I have a gift of speaking and teaching.  But part of it early on was I worked my tail off in preparation.  I studied what I would teach and I practiced.  I would stand in my living room and give the talk over and over.

When I got to the actual talk, I owned it frontwards and backwards.  That enabled me the freedom to handle anything that happened that night without getting flustered or thrown off track.  It enabled me when sharing God’s word to be able to listen to His leading as I talked and flex with what was going on in the room.

I’m not suggesting being rigid.  Think of football. You have a playbook.  You game plan all week.  When you get to the game you call plays based on what is given to you.  Once the play starts you execute as best you can and then you just play ball.  But without plays it all falls apart.  You don’t just show up on game day and hope for the best.  Bad teams either have a bad plan, or they never change based on what is given to them that day. Or both. What I’m saying is the better you game plan, the freer you are to react.

Here’s the kicker.  You know what having a plan really is?  It’s called leadership, and leadership actually works.  With women pursuit is part of it (going to her) but part of it has to be invitation.  But you can’t invite her if you aren’t going anywhere.

By the way this is why if you let the girl become the goal you are screwed.  Women don’t want to be the goal.  They want to join you on the journey.

Having a plan and practicing creates confidence.  It helps you know what works for you and what doesn’t.  I’m not saying that you should make dating a game.  But attraction matters.  Confidence is attractive.  That is fact – like it or not.  And as a guy, having a plan and knowing what we are doing creates confidence.

Here’s what I know doesn’t work.  Doing the same things that don’t work over and over. Being scared when you approach a woman you like because you don’t know what to say. Hoping that even though you never work on getting better at it that God will somehow magically make it happen.

Do you feel confident approaching someone?  Do you know what to do when you do have a date?  What would it mean to work on that?

Approaching Women

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A few years ago I was sitting at a party with some friends when I ran into an attractive woman I knew who goes to our church.  Kind of in jest I asked her if she felt like church was a meat market.  In other words were guys always asking her out.  She looked at me incredulously and said, “No because it’s not like any guy is actually going to do anything about it.”

I wrote about this a while ago, but this deal of guys not actually approaching women is a very real issue in our “Christian” culture.  There’s a plethora of reasons for this.   But some of it is that we are just not trained as men on what is a good way to approach women.  The older you get the more important this becomes.

I’ve talked some about approaching women online.  I want to offer some thoughts about doing it in person.  Now most of this I learned by doing it wrong – a lot.  So don’t think I’m some sort of guru.  Also, keep in mind that I’m not trying to give you a formula.  I actually think you coming up with one at first could be good.  But the problem is if you give a man a hammer, everything becomes a nail – and that will backfire.

First and foremost is having our identity in Christ.  Go back and read last week’s post. This is essential.  If you aren’t working on this, nothing I say here will work.  You’ll just be faking it.  Now that doesn’t mean you have to get it perfectly before you can do this, I don’t mean that at all.  But you need to be working on your insecurities and fears in light of your relationship with Jesus.  If you’re not then this isn’t going to end well – even if you fake your way into marriage.

That said, here are some keys (remember all we are talking about here is the initial approach).

  • When you see someone you want to approach – act quickly.  Don’t be in a hurry but don’t over think it.  Don’t let it build up.  When you make eye contact and she smiles – you have maybe 15 seconds max to act.  Otherwise you send one of three messages – that you aren’t interested, interesting, or you are afraid of her.  All bad.
  • Body language is everything.  Women naturally pick up on this stuff.  Learn to control yours.  If you are slumped over or in a submissive posture or jittery – that sends the message you are afraid (which you might be but that isn’t the point).  Don’t be rigid – but don’t be cowering.
  • Along with that, make eye contact and keep it.  Smile.  Again not in a forced way but smiling means warmth, and comfort.
  • Talk to her like you’ve always known her.  Really almost like she was your sister.  At ease.  And talk slow.  When we get nervous we speed up.  Dead give away.  Be thoughtful and intentional.  Think taking a walk instead of going on a run.  Seriously.
  • Ask questions.  It can be good to have a couple of questions ready.  These should not be deep questions.  They should also not be critical questions.  In other words, what did you think of the sermon followed by a critique of it = bad.  Think fun questions.  Which brings us to:
  • Fun is good – always.  That doesn’t mean “ha ha” fun necessarily.  But girls are attracted to fun. They are stressed out enough emotionally already – they don’t want that from a guy – they want the guy to be the escape – where they can relax.  Fun is your friend.
  • Don’t apologize for talking to her.  Don’t say things like, “I’m just kidding”.  Don’t act like she holds any power over you.

Keep the following thoughts in mind.

  • It’s no big deal.  Keep remembering that
  • There is always someone else.
  • You have no idea who she is or what she’s about.  You want to find out – that is why you are approaching her.  You’re investigating, not asking her to marry you.  You are a high quality person – is she?
  • Attraction (sexual tension & fun) + comfort (safety) = date*.  Think about it.
  • In the beginning less is more.  Don’t ask her out the first time you talk to her.  If you can, you want to be the one to end the conversation. Maybe something like this, “I’m glad I met you (or you met me – if you can pull that off).  I’d like to talk more.  Do you have email (a card, phone number) etc.?”  This whole thing might take three minutes.

If you are not good at this at all, here is what I’d suggest.  I’d practice.  I know that sounds funny but really.  It’s like golf.  You have to go to the driving range before the course.  Don’t ask for everyone’s number.  Just meet them.  Catch how that feels and how you react. See what works for you.  Build sort of a formula for you.  Once you do that, assuming you are working on the identity piece, you won’t need a formula long.  Have fun.

 

* Formula adapted from Mystery’s Attraction + Comfort = Seduction

There Will Always Be Someone Else

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Ever since I was a little kid it seems like there was always ONE girl that I liked.  And this didn’t have to be a girl I knew well, just the one that I wanted.  This lasted all the way through high school, kind of changed in college (I mean target rich environment right?) and then returned for my twenties.

In a lot of ways this is similar to what I talked about a few months ago about there not being THE ONE.  This idea that if I can just get “this girl” to like me or be with me then everything will be right.  This is not good.  That’s called an idol.  The idea that if I can just get this or that, things will be right.  Bad news.

It also crushes any hope of actually dating that person because you end up caring too much which in turn makes you unattractive.  It also keeps you from seeing other potential people around you, because you are so focussed on that one person.  If I could change anything about my high school (and to some degree later) dating experience it would be that I wouldn’t get so focussed on one person, that frankly I usually didn’t even know that well.  Looking back there were other just as attractive people that would have gone out with me.

You shouldn’t get focussed on one person until you are actually dating that person (obviously at this point you should be).  It puts too much pressure on you and them.  It distorts the image of this person and makes them more of a goal or object than a person to get to know.  Even if you “got” this person you’d be in trouble because they’d have all the power, and you can’t love someone who you need constant approval from. It also can make you pass on others that you should not be passing on.

Here’s what we need to get in our head: There Is Always Someone Else.  Always.

Now you would think that I would have figured this out a lot earlier than I did.  I mean in middle school I was obsessed with one person.  Then in early high school there was a different person, and in later high school yet another.  There’s always been another. Hmmm.

Look, I don’t care how hot she is, how much you like her, how perfect you would be together, there will always be someone else.  To have a chance you have to keep this in mind, otherwise every time that you meet someone you like you’ll try too hard, push too much and/or not know when/if to walk away. But if you know there will be someone else, then you can relax and be yourself because if it doesn’t work out, you guessed it, there will be someone else.

I don’t care how old you are either, or how long you’ve waited, or how tired you are of being single – there will be someone else.  If you get this in your head, there really is no fear.  Go get rejected, no big deal, there will be someone else.  Seriously.  I know it sounds kind of cold but it’s actually vital.  Even if you find someone you want to marry.  This is what makes you free to choose to marry that person.  If I know that there would be someone else then I can choose not be with anyone else but instead to be with only this person (sounds kind of like a wedding vow huh?).  Be sure you understand that you’re not choosing this person because they are THE ONE. You are choosing to make this person the ONLY ONE.

Gentlemen, this is why I keep urging you to get in the game, to get out there by any means necessary, to engage with women, to learn how to quit being nice and learn how to be attractive.  The more you know that there will be someone else, the more free you are to pursue anyone you want.  The more you think there is not someone else, the less you will be able to pursue anyone at all.

There’s a flip side here obviously. You can use this knowledge to treat people how you want, or wait for someone “perfect”, or figure why commit all because there’ll be someone else – I get that, and that post is coming asap.  But I think any honest assessment of most single guys I’ve known (including me) would show this is a huge deal.  It is killing us.  It leads to chasing instead of pursuing, not being able to get out there at all, or even marriages that are set up to fail.

If you’ve been single a while (and heck maybe especially if you’ve been married a while), you know this is true intellectually.  You’ve lived it – but do you live out of it?  Most truth is that way.  We know it but we don’t live out of it.  That’s the battle, but it’s one we have to engage.

How To Online Date

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Let’s talk about online dating.  This can can be one great tool to meet people. It can be a good confidence booster and it’s a good way to just get out there.  It’s a way to stay in the game so to speak.  Ladies this is a great way to make yourself available without pursuing. But there are some key things to keep in mind.  Please remember I’m talking mainly to guys (because I am one) but I’ll try to help the ladies some too.

Lets get practical.

First off you have to choose a site.  Now there are all sorts of different ones. Singleroots.com has the best evaluation I’ve ever seen.  I think you can work a couple of sites at a time – but not more than that.  Then every six months or so rotate out of one and into another.

Now you need to make a profile.  I’ll be honest and say this is probably not my strong suit. But here are a few things I know for sure.

  • Use current photos – and more than one
  • Have a photo that shows your face and one that shows the rest of you.
  • Do not under any circumstances use photos with you shirt off – I promise you girls laugh at this – no matter how “ripped” you are.
  • Put things in your profile that are important to you – again no reason to hide this.  If Jesus is important put it out there.
  • Be interesting.  List things that interest you and that you like doing. If you don’t have anything interesting in your life, it’s time to find some – and then come back to online dating later
  • Do not lie about anything.  This is a dead end.  Do not lie!

Next comes the communication phase. Guys, you should always be the initiator on this. You need to understand that when you email an attractive girl that she gets a lot of emails from a lot of guys. DO NOT EVER WINK AT A GIRL – THAT IS TOTAL WUSS – SEND AN EMAIL.  That sounds obvious but it is kind of hard.  You can’t just say, “Hi let’s talk”. You need something different.

Now this is where I kind of invented my own system.  I’m not giving that to you here but here are some keys about the first couple of emails

  • Have fun.  Smile when you type.  Dead serious, women can tell.
  • Say something about her profile – act like you’ve actually read it. But don’t go over the top with compliments.  Be interested but not nice.
  • Ask fun non-threatening questions.  Always, always ask questions.  Give her something to respond to.  Don’t just say “let’s talk”.  Fun easy questions are best – don’t go deep early – go a little deep in a couple of emails.  Never go super deep – save that for offline
  • Remember that this is a person you do not know and might never meet – so for the love don’t write to her like she might be “THE ONE”.  In fact send an initial email to lots of women.

Once you’ve got some communication going here is your goal – within 5 emails you want to take this offline.  This is critical.  You’re not looking for a pen-pal.  Invite her to talk on the phone – ask if she’d be up for it.  Now this whole online thing is much scarier for girls than for us.  I would always state that I would love to call her first, but when I invited her to talk I would leave my number in case she didn’t want to give me her’s online.  If she doesn’t want to talk live after 3-5 emails – walk.  Do it!  Walk away.

On the phone call be fun and interesting.  Don’t talk forever.  Relax.  Smile (seriously trust me here). On that first phone call say you want to meet in person.  Offer to meet for a drink or coffee.  This is not a date – this is a meeting to see if you want to go on a date. (Ladies- when you go meet any kind with stranger – someone should know you are doing it – and guys keep this thought in mind).

Again it is ok (good in fact) to have several of these going on at once.  You want to get from the first email to the actual meeting as fast you can without being pushy.  Online is about meeting potential people.  Don’t make it more than that. There will be another profile.

I’ve met a lot of women for this first meeting.  Most won’t go anywhere.  It can be overwhelming. It can lead to dating fatigue (future post).  But the good news is I’ve met mostly quality people (although I’ve had some wild, hilarious meetings as well – but really that can be part of the fun if you let it),  and, full disclosure – I met the woman I’m going marry online.

So what has been your online experience?  What advice would you offer the people reading this?  I would love your comments on this.

Can Men And Women Be Friends?

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I was leading a breakout session on singleness when a young woman asked if it was possible for men and women to be friends.  My answer was yes . . . . . maybe.

I’ve gone back and forth on this over the years.  When I was in high school I was the recipient of the, “I see you as a friend” line an awful lot.  So when I went to college I was determined to not be friends with girls at all.  This was a serious decision on my part.  Now I did have a lot of dating success in college.  But here’s the funny part. The first girl I went out on a date with in college became one of the best female friends I’ve ever had.  Now we only went on a couple of dates and there is a lot more to that story but it’s still really ironic.

Since college, I have served in different ministry capacities I’ve worked with lots of women. I would consider many of them great friends.  I would also say that I’ve had a positive impact on many women through my ministry, some of whom I would also consider friends.

So my answer to the question, can men and women be friends?  Yes . . . . maybe.  Let me explain.

First of all, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, you shouldn’t be friends with the hope that it will turn into more.  In other words becoming friends as a way to avoid actually asking the girl out or because you know she isn’t attracted to you but you hope she will be later is a terrible idea.  It’s sort of shady actually because you are not really being her friend.

Secondly, I think you can be friends but you can’t be “just friends”.  Here’s what I mean by that.  “Just Friends” is a way of avoiding something.  A lot of times it’s a way for the person who isn’t attracted to someone who is attracted to them to be nice and try to avoid rejecting the person.  In other words if I ask a girl out and she says, let’s just be friends, that is her way of saying no but you’re not a bad guy or anything.  It’s not an invitation to a lifelong friendship.  Seriously, I promise it’s not.  If you ask someone out and they tell you that, you need to walk away.  Right then.  That doesn’t mean don’t be friendly towards them.  It just means don’t be intentional friends.

Now if you were friends and then you became attracted and she says that, then fine, you might be able to stay friends at some level.  But you need to be careful here.  You need to be sure that you have emotionally walked away and aren’t sliding into being her friend so she will like you.

On the other hand if you don’t really know this girl and you met somehow and went out a couple of times and she drops that line on you, do not, I repeat, do not strike up a big friendship with this person.  Again that doesn’t mean if you see her out or something that you are mean to her but don’t “pursue” her by being a friend.  If you are really into her the best thing you can do is say, “I don’t really need more intentional female friends.  I was hoping for more.  If something changes let me know.”  I promise you that this is the way to go.  It’s the only way you will keep her respect.

Finally, you should not be “best friends” with a girl.  You should have men in your life that fill that role.  If most of your close friends are the opposite sex you are in trouble.  You need to begin to deal with that.  There’s not space here to delve into that but you need to.

One way to know if you are really friends is to ask yourself a couple of key questions.  If this person started dating someone would you be excited for them?  Would you want to hang out with them and become friends with their partner.  I’ve had that happen a lot.  In fact a couple of my best guy friends are married to women that I knew before I knew them. If your answer is no, you need to back way, way off the friendship.

Does this person like me as more than a friend even though I don’t see them this way?  I’ve been on both ends of this.  My thought would be that if that is true then you need to back way off.  It’s not loving them to inadvertently stoke that fire.  And that’s exactly what you are doing if you hang out with them all the time.  You are just adding to their hurt and you are keeping them from pursuing other people.  Please don’t pretend you don’t know they like you – you know.

So what are you thoughts?  What has been your honest experience here?