Tag Archives: singles

Get In The Game

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From about the age of 27 to 31 I went on zero dates.  I know, hard to believe.  I would have told you that I had no good options and that I was focussed on ministry but really that would have been a load of crap.  Now to be fair I was working really hard in my job and I did live in a smaller community but truthfully, while I would have said that I wanted to be married (believe me I would have emphatically declared my overwhelming desire for that), I just wasn’t doing very much about it.

But then I decided I was going to get into the game as it were.  One way or another I was going to meet people and go on dates.  Now I did a lot wrong and frankly by this point I was pretty messed up in this area of my life and God had to basically teach me how to pursue women again but I was not going to sit around and wait.

I think one of the reasons we have more single Christians is that there is an over spiritualization of the whole thing.

There is this idea that God will send me someone and I won’t have to do anything about it.  This, in my view is ridiculous, ineffective, hurtful, and completely inconsistent with everything else we do in life.

While I do think that God sends people into our life, we have to act.  If I pray for God to get me a job, for example, do I now not have to complete a resume?  Do I not have to go on a job interview?  Does a job just appear?  Of course not!  I ask God to help me find a job, to guide my search, to help me discern between options etc.  But then you know what, I hit the pavement.  I go out and apply.  If I don’t, chances are I will remain jobless.

The same is true for finding a spouse.  I’m not going to get married if I don’t ever go on a date.  The number one way to guarantee singleness is to not pursue marriage.  And pursuing marriage means getting out there.

To some extent it’s a numbers game.  I’m not saying date just anybody but I am saying that dating nobody will result in staying single.

Back in the day most marriages were arranged in one form or another.  But we are not back in the day.  We are here living in this culture.  I mean if you want your parents to pick someone for you go for it but most of us, and especially if you are 25 and older, don’t really see this as a viable option.

Gentlemen, this mostly falls on us.  We are the initiators.  But most of us are not initiating well.  We look at women, but we don’t approach them.  We angle our way into “friendships” but don’t ask people out.  We see a woman across the room that we want to talk to but we let the moment pass (Ladies – it is ok to initiate contact by the way – that is not the same as asking a guy out).

We have all sorts of excuses.  “I’m not sure I like her yet” – well how will you know if you don’t spend time with her.  “I don’t want to lead her on” – it’s one date – and get over yourself already.  We are scared of rejection and we are scared of success.  Some of us flat don’t know how to talk to women and have no confidence in this area.  Some of us are just lazy.

If you want to get married you have to get past all of this.  I’m not suggesting serial dating (I keep promising to get to this group and I will – because I’ve been there too), but I would argue that for most of the guys I know this is not the issue.

Here are some ways to get in the game.

  • Let your friends know you are looking.  Getting set up by people that know you can be good.  Remember it’s just one date
  • Talk to women.  I know this sounds simple but start doing it more – get to know women.  Work on being comfortable around them.  Even those you aren’t interested in.  They might have a friend.
  • Do online dating.  This is part of our culture and it works.  Seriously.  This will help keep you engaged.  Here is a great breakdown of different sites.  I’d suggest one site at a time – trust me (more on this soon).
  • Do ministry – serve
  • Don’t hesitate.  If you want to ask someone out – do it – right then.

Dating is risky.  It can be hard, frustrating and you could even get hurt.  You could also get married.

Don’t Live Life Alone

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When I was in 7th grade my family moved from a suburb to a small town. Making new friends can be tough – especially as I was a pretty awkward middle schooler (hard to believe I know).  But I had two big things going for me.  1. My family was moving with me – we might be in a new house but the same five people were there every day, and 2. I had to sit in class for eight hours a day with all these new people.  In other words I had forced community.

After high school, I went to college.  Again, there was forced community.  I played football so I met 80 people before class even started.  I had a suite full of 8 other people that I was forced to share space with.  Many of these people became my friends.

What’s interesting is that when you are younger, whenever you take the next step, while it might be hard to leave some people, there’s a whole new group of people waiting.  You are almost forced to make friends.

Even as most of us start out in our early 20’s community is relatively easy.  Everyone is in the same boat.  For the first few years out of college, I always had roommates my age, people that were in the same place in life.

But as you get older and remain single, this becomes harder.  Every time you move, you start all over.  This became really apparent to me when I moved to St. Louis. If you are married and you move it can be tough, but you still have each other.  You wake up with the same friend every day.  As a single, you don’t have that.

In our culture, the older you get, the more you are alone.

Some people would say we choose this and there is some truth to that.  But if you think about it some of it is just reality.  We don’t have as many jobs where you work in large group anymore.  People also switch jobs more often and don’t even stay with the same company for 5 years let alone 20.

As a single person it is really easy to become more and more isolated.  Our peers are getting married and our roommates keep getting younger and younger.  Know what I’m saying?  I had a time where I was the only one in the office.  I went to work alone, I did ministry alone, I went to Church alone and I went home alone.  I remember one time my boss was saying we needed to make sure we had times of solitude.  I thought – yeah I’ve got that covered.

This is a dangerous situation for us as singles.

First of all it can lead to more time in our own head or what I call The Pretend.  I’ve written about this previously but it’s not good.  It can lead to us being disengaged and isolated. This, in turn, can make our interaction with others less full even when we are with people. All this is bad, not to mention it can decrease our ability to engage the opposite sex.  In fact as we have less and less engagement with the opposite sex, our ability to pursue a marriage relationship takes a beating. Finally, it also leads to more selfishness.  I can just do what I want, when I want.

We have to fight this.  There are no perfect answers but I want to give just a few practical ones.

  • Fight for community.  You can’t just hope it happens.  They don’t have to be like you or even your age.  Do what it takes, you have to do this.
  • Have a roommate or several.  I know, I know, you’re thirty something and the only option is a 25 year old – I say do it anyway.  It’s better than the alternative.  Take someone in who you mentor.  Buy a house and rent out a room.  Don’t go home alone.
  • Don’t lose your friends because they get married.  Your friends should be your friends no matter what.  I get that it might look different but if you are only going to have single friends you are in trouble.
  • Serve.  Even if it is in a small way this is one of the main places where community happens – around a common mission.
  • Listen to sermons and talk radio now and then – not just music.  Trust me on this – it makes you engage and helps keep you out of the pretend

Finally, as “Churchy” as this sounds, you have to engage God.  Learn to talk with God.  If we could take half the time we spent in our own heads and pray we would be changed forever.

So how do you keep from being isolated?  How do keep from being all alone?

Getting Married For Sex

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One time in college I was meeting with this older gentleman who I looked up to and as we were talking the subject of relationships and marriage came up.  We were talking about a couple of relationships of people we knew as well as one I had just gotten out of.  Now this guy had gotten married really young and had been married for a long time.

The conversation turned toward the decision to get married.  He said, “I always tell people this – don’t get married for sex.”  Now I was young and arrogant so I nodded knowingly but I really had no idea what he meant.  Ha.  He went on to explain it basically saying that desire to have sex was not a good reason to marry.  I think he was wrong.

I would maybe say that sex shouldn’t be the only reason you get married.

But actually, sex is part of the reason.  God created us with a sex drive.  Again this is pre-sin.  Adam and Eve have sex – heck they are commanded to – before the fall.  God did not create our sex drive so that we could sit around and not use it.  And, as is fairly obvious in the whole of scripture (more on this soon) sex is to be enjoyed (key word) in the context of marriage.  In fact one of the functions of sex is to bond the two together in marriage (hence the whole becoming one flesh thing).

One of the reasons that we have more single people than ever in history (49% of adults in the U.S.) is that we have separated sex and marriage.  

Sex is an industry in our country.  It is readily available in one form or another every day. This really screws up single people.  For one thing, almost everyone has had sex before marriage.  If you haven’t that is great but it’s not the norm at this point.  So if you are having or have had sex, it makes marriage less urgent.  If I can have sex, oral sex, and/or meet my own sexual needs through a constant stream of porn and masturbation without marriage – then there is less of a pull to get married.  This is not rocket science.

Even worse, once you have sinned sexually you can allow the guilt and shame of that to drive you.  It can drive you to continue doing it, or only date people that also have, among other things. It can make you feel like you’ve messed it up so you now can’t have it the right way.

On the flip side, and this isn’t talked about much, delaying marriage is one of the big reasons that people end up seeking sexual fulfillment outside of marriage.  Even just 50 years ago in 1960 (not exactly ancient times) 59% of those aged 18-29 were married.  That number is now 20%.  So basically 60 years ago you started thinking about sex in your early teenage years and you waited 4-10 years.  Now you wait 10-20.  That is no joke.  It’s hard to do.

Add to this the fact that a lot of religious people have turned sex itself into the bad guy, which leads to all sorts of problems, not the least of which is married people still feeling bad about sex. This is why it is so important to do more than tell single people to not have sex – it can mess up both singleness and marriage.

Here’s the point.  Sex should be part of the reason you get married.  

This is one of things Paul talks about this in 1st Corinthians 7. He is speaking to a group of people trying to navigate marriage and sex in a completely crazy society (sound familiar?).  He says it straight up – if you are going to have sex – get married. In a way, Paul is saying, part of the way to avoid sexual immorality is to enjoy sex in the context of marriage. Paul says some have the calling to be single, but if you don’t, get married and have some sex.

This is so important.  There are no easy fixes here in our context, but one of the things we have to do is get two things clearly in our heads.  The first is we need a solid biblical view of sex (that it is good, from God, and part of marriage).  The second is that it is indeed a part of the reason we get married – God intended it that way.

I’ve joked with friends before that if it weren’t for sex, would anyone get married?  Look, there is way, way more to marriage obviously.  And, obviously just wanting sex with someone is not a stand alone reason to get married.  However, it is a part of the driving force – and that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

Is There “The One”?

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If you’ve been single long, you’ve had this conversation about why you are single, and someone says these words, “Well I guess you just haven’t met THE ONE yet, but it’ll happen”.  Now if you are younger you might say this yourself, but usually the older you get the less you say it because you realize, 1. it might not happen – after all it hasn’t yet, and 2. there is not just one.

You read that right.  I’m declaring it right now, right here.  There is not THE ONE, at least not in the way we usually talk about.

Now I can hear some married people disagreeing with me (mostly women – no offense just being realistic) but I don’t think there is any biblical, empirical or any other ‘cal evidence that backs this up.

You could maybe, and I mean maybe, make the case before the fall that there was just one.  But even that is shaky.  Marriage is pre-sin, but I think THE ONE is a post sin way of coping.  What about when someone marries someone and then they die, and they remarry – did God have two “the one’s” for them?  This idea that God has chosen just one for us sounds very romantic, or very Oprah, but I don’t think we are promised it any where. Which I think is actually good news and good for us – which might be why God set it up that way.

THE ONE is killing us out there.

For starters, let’s realize what most of us mean when we say this is – the one who is everything I want, the perfect one, (or more religious sounding – the perfect one for me). This is not marriage or realistic.  Getting married is not about finding someone who meets all of my needs or fulfills me. That’s romanticism at it’s best and consumerism at it’s worst.

This stuff can lead us, sometimes for years, to think that if I can just meet THE ONE then everything will be alright.  No it won’t! Because even if you could, THE ONE gets old, or sick, or hurt, or is mean to you, or veers away from God, or breaks your heart, or lets you down.

When it comes to finding fulfillment there is only one THE ONE and that is Jesus.  I know it sounds cheesy but it is essential we keep this in mind.  If we get this wrong everything will be messed up.

If we don’t get ahold of this we will be continuing to make marriage and THE ONE an idol.  

But there are even more side problems, including but not limited to:

  • Getting married, being let down and being able to declare, “Oh I must have gotten this wrong.  There must be a different ONE for me.”
  • Searching for a person that we are 100% attracted to all the time.
  • Thinking I’ve found THE ONE and then messing it all up because of the weight I put on the relationship or living in fear of losing THE ONE – which leads to all sorts of mistakes.
  • Putting huge pressure on every dating relationship because I have to figure out if they are THE ONE. This is a crushing pressure that almost no one can stand under.  And for free – if they can, something is off – everyone messes up – everyone.
  • Waiting for God to bring me THE ONE instead of engaging others and getting to know people.
  • Thinking someone that got away is THE ONE and spending all my time and thoughts figuring out how to make something work that is long over.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying that we should just go marry whoever.  Not at all.  I’m also not saying that God doesn’t bring you someone.  He brings people into our lives all the time (and not just romantically). We need to choose wisely and with the Spirit because even though there is not THE ONE we will hopefully only do this one time.

So here are some practical helps.  Maybe start by fighting the idol of THE ONE.  Jesus is the only person who can fulfill us.  Next, when dating people maybe instead of asking God if this is THE ONE ask questions like, “Do you want me to marry THIS person?”  If I’m not dating, maybe ask God, “send me someone You’d like me to marry” instead of, “Send me THE ONE.”

Finally, don’t ask, “Is this person THE ONE for me?” but instead ask these big questions:

1. Am I good for this person?  Are they good for me?  Are we good together? and if yes, 2. Do I want to covenant to love and care for this person the rest of my life, no matter what?

Once you answer yes to those – you will have THE ONE.

Why Do You Want A Spouse

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One of the simplest stories in the Bible happens in Mark 10.  Jesus is leaving Jericho and there is a large crowd with Him.  I’m sure it was a crazy scene, with people all around wanting his attention.  But from the street, Bartimaeus the blind man cries out to Jesus.  At first the crowd dismisses him but he cries out all the louder.  Jesus stops and says bring him here.  Then He asks him the big question, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus says, “Lord I want to see.”  Jesus heals him, everyone celebrates and Bartimaeus follows Him down the road.

I love this story for a lot of reasons but I think the main reason is Jesus’ question.  I think about how at different times I’ve cried out to Jesus and I wonder what it would be like if He stood in front of me and said, “What do you want me to do for you?”

I’ve thought about this question and I’ve asked a whole lot of other people to think about it. What would my answer be?  Would I take the easy route, and toss out world peace or something like that for the answer – I mean I could say that but I wouldn’t mean it and Jesus would know.

What’s interesting is while we all know this story, if you go back a couple of paragraphs, Jesus asks the same question to James and John – yeah I’d never noticed it either.  Their answer is way more honest than mine would probably be.

What do you want?  It’s such a huge question.  For a long time (like 15 years long time) I think I would have answered, “Jesus I want a wife”.  But I would have been wrong.  I mean I did (and do) want a wife, but that isn’t what I was really seeking.  You see whatever your answer is to that question, you have to ask one more – why do you want that?

In other words “Why do you want a spouse?” That’s a question worth asking.

What we want, really I think, is the answer to our core question which is, “Am I loved?” This is asked all sorts of different ways.  Am I valuable? Am I good enough? Do I matter? Do I have what it takes? Am I beautiful? Do your eyes light up when I come in the room? Am I accepted?

We want to know that we are loved – not just know it in our head, but in our heart.

The first place we get that question answered in our lives is our parents.  But somewhere along the line, we start to seek the answer from the opposite sex, and while this is a bad idea if you are married, it can kill you as a single person, because the answer is always no. Do I have what it takes? Apparently not.  No one’s eyes light up for me.  Am I good enough (insert pretty enough, successful enough, thin enough, any other enough).  I guess not because I’m still here by myself.

Or maybe worse, I can be single and keep needing this question answered again and again by yet another new person.  One person seems to answer it but then it runs dry.  I break up and someone else seems to answer it for a while and then I repeat the cycle.

One of the traps of singleness is the thought that if I finally get the right person (who of course will be perfect and perfectly answer this question – no pressure though), then I will know I’m loved.  This can happen whether I never have a date or I’m constantly dating.

But here’s the good and bad news – Marriage doesn’t answer that question.  

Marriage does answer two big questions -“Will I get married?” and “Who will I spend the rest of my life with?” But it does not answer “Am I loved”, not at the core. Only Jesus can answer it and we have to take the question to Him not a spouse, or anyone else. Married people know this (at least hopefully) but if we can get this as a single person we have a huge leg up.

First, it means I can be a complete person in Christ as a single person – I don’t HAVE to get married.  Second, If we know this truth, we are automatically more attractive.  A loved person is hot!  Seriously!  Finally, if we do indeed get married, we will be able to love the other person way better.  Really, you can only love another person if you first know you are loved.  And if we get married that’s the whole point.

So, it’s you and Jesus in the road.  What do you want?  Why do you want it?

Quit Being Nice

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When I was a younger single guy, one of the things I just could not understand was why women always chose against the nice guy.  I after all was a nice guy.  But no matter what women said about what they wanted, they always chose guys who didn’t fit that category. I’ve touched on this in a couple of places, but today I want to address the nice guy and why it doesn’t work.

First, the premise is wrong.  What we are really assuming (we being the nice guy) is that we are better (somehow less sinful) than someone else.  This throws us into allegiance with the oldest son in the story from Luke 15.  That is not the company we want to be in.

But even if we don’t judge the non-nice guys we are still fooling ourselves.  

The truth is that being nice is just as much an angle as any other approach.  What it comes down to is no one is actually that nice.  In other words if I’m being nice to a woman because I want her to like me, well how is that any different than any other manipulative move?

Let’s take the giving flowers thing for example.  I started a new policy on flowers a few years ago.  I don’t give flowers to someone to get them to like me.  Never.  I don’t do it because we got in a fight, and I want the woman to like me again (classic nice guy move).  I only give flowers to care about the woman, without any other motive.  Do you see what I’m saying?  If I’m being “nice” to seek the woman’s approval, I’m screwed.  Either she will think I’m a wuss and bail, or maybe worse, she will dominate me.

In other words if I’m being nice to get the girl to like me, that’s not all that nice.

To make matters worse, women are typically not attracted to the nice guy.  The reason is because women don’t want a guy who follows them around.  They want someone who can be a man and lead.  They may not even consciously know this, but instinctively they know it.  Get this line right here – “If you can’t stand up to her, you will not be able to stand up for her”.  Seriously think about it.  Women are subconsciously testing this out all the time.  And to top it off, nice guys are boring because they always want to do what the woman wants.  Women don’t want to be bored – they want adventure.  They want a guy who is strong and not afraid of them.  Again if you are afraid of them, you can’t protect them and that is not attractive.

Now that’s not to say women don’t want a “good” guy.  There’s a difference.  It’s critical actually.  Think about Jesus.  No one, and I mean no one who met Jesus thought, “hey Jesus, he’s a pretty nice guy.”  No!  People thought Jesus was a good guy but anyone who hung around Him knew He was not a wuss, and not “nice”.  They’d seen His power, daring, leadership, and adventure.  Like the famous line in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia when the kids ask if the lion Aslan is safe and the beaver replies, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” Jesus was good and He was loved and hated.  He stood up for the right stuff.  He knew who He was.

Here’s the difference when it comes to dating.  Nice guys are worried about what the woman thinks.  Will she like me?  Will she be mad at me?  The good guy worries about what is right – and tries to do it, regardless of the what the woman wants.

Adam was nice in the garden – he should have been good.  He should have stood up to Eve. 

Women instinctively know the difference.

How do you know if you are a nice guy?  Here are some clues.  You are afraid of what women think of you.  You can’t approach a woman you want to talk to.  You are always in the “friend zone”.  You are told by women you want to date, “You’re a great guy but. . . ” You buy gifts for women that you are not in a relationship with.  You don’t understand what makes women attracted to a “bad” guy.

I’ll be writing more about how to kill the nice guy later – it can be done, I’ve done it, twice actually (he came back to life – pesky son of a gun), but the first step is recognizing it. By the way, this is important even if you are called to singleness or for that matter if you are already married.

So fellas, are you a “nice guy”? Ladies, am I wrong here?

Loving Your Married Friends Well

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So I’m 39 and single.  I’ve been very blessed in my life to have several very strong mentors including one who has walked with me for over twenty years and another for over fifteen.  Others who have had huge impact in my life along the way.  One of the things they have all had in common (other than the whole Jesus thing obviously) is that they have all been married.

I think this is a really good thing.  For one, I’ve gotten to see their marriages.  I’ve gotten to see the things that they’ve done well and things they’ve screwed up.  They’ve demystified things about marriage and parenting that otherwise I would have not known.  I’ve seen their families do things differently than mine.  Sometimes better and sometimes worse. They’ve walked with me through all sorts of things, including my singleness and all the cycles that go with it.

I bring this up because I think in our Christian culture we get stuck in this idea that only people just like me can understand.  And while there is some truth to that, mostly it’s a load of crap.

As I wrote about earlier this can happen in the Church from a leadership perspective.  But it also happens because often times we singles view ourselves as less able to minister to our friends and others who are married than we actually are.

What’s interesting is for me it’s been the other way around.

When I started out everyone who was pouring into me was married, but everyone my age was single.  Then when I got into my late 20s and early 30s there was a shift.  Now almost all of my peers were married, but the people I was pouring into were single.  But now at 39 there’s been a new shift.  Now at least half of the people I’m pouring into and discipling are married.  It’s kind of crazy.

You know what, they are still my people.  

I think that we as single people have a unique opportunity to love our married friends well. We can offer some things that sometimes others can’t.  As I’ve mentioned before, we can fight for their marriage.  We can be a great outside voice that asks questions.  Also, just because we aren’t married doesn’t mean we can’t see what is going on and call stuff out. We still know relationship problems when we see them.

We also typically have more flexibility.  And we should use that to serve them.  Now before you freak out, I don’t mean babysitting and I don’t mean that we aren’t busy or that our time is less valuable. But like to admit it or not, there is a difference between the single lifestyle and the married one.

For example one of my best friends is married with three kids.  About once a month, we grab a cigar late at night – after the kids are down.  I just shoot him a text and say, “Cigar – late?” And I get a text back that says essentially, “Um Yes Please!”  Stuff that I get to do all the time (go to a ball game, meet up for a drink, take a late night phone call) can be a treat for someone with young kids.  So why not use it with one of them.

Here’s what I’m getting at, we need to serve our married friends and we need to keep pursuing them.  We need to use our flexibility to our advantage.  If it’s easier to go to their house for dinner we should do it.  On the other hand when is the last time you made dinner for a couple – why is it always the married people who cook the meal?  Know what I’m saying?  If we want to be treated as equal adults, let’s be that.

I know this is not a super deep post but the point is we have a lot to offer married people and we need to offer it.  A lot of times single people feel left out or not part of the “in group” at church etc.  I have definitely felt that at times and sometimes there is truth in it.  I have and will continue to call that out.  But other times it has more to do with us than them and we just need to get over it.  We need to go with the attitude of what we can offer them.

There will always be some married people who write us off.  But we will definitely be written off if we don’t offer.

If you’re single, how have you felt like you could love your married friends well?  How confident are you that you can minister to married people? If you are married, how have single friends been a blessing to you?

To Kiss Or Not To Kiss

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My first kiss from anyone other than a relative came in first grade.  It was right after school and this girl named Lori came up on the playground, grabbed me and kissed me. . . ON THE LIPS.  It was scandalous but it wasn’t sex.

I want to write today about kissing.  I want to say up front that I’m not expecting everyone to agree with what I say here today and that’s ok.  I’ve been on every side of this in my 20 years of singleness.  I’ve messed it up on both sides. So let’s get real.

First a brief Justin kissing history.  In high school, I kissed exactly one person.  Not because I didn’t want to, or because I thought it wrong, but because I didn’t know how to go about it and I was not super popular with the ladies.  When I got to college that all changed and I kissed pretty much every girl I went out with, usually on the first date.  It was fun.  I didn’t fool around with them, and I didn’t have sex with any of them.  I don’t think it scarred anybody.

Then came my 20s and what I call the religious dating revolution of the 90’s.  This was led by I Kissed Dating Good Bye and other such books.  As I shared in an earlier post, I dated (courted, talked with, whatever she called it) a girl who went by a book with a chart.  No kissing allowed.  Now a lot of this made sense to me.  I’d seen a lot of people fall into temptation.  Then and now I get the argument.

I went ten years without kissing anyone.  TEN years.  

Now this started out as a religious “date right” decision.  Then there was a time when there just wasn’t many options and my head was buried in ministry.  But when I looked up after about five years I was in a new city, 31 years old, and had no confidence in this area of my life (not to mention no physical intimacy).  I had new reasons for not kissing.  In the back of my head was still the religious reasons, including “guarding the girl’s heart” (which mostly guarded her heart from liking me – ha) and frankly it had been a long time – could I deliver? I think it hurt me and helped keep me single.

Then I went on a date with a girl who pretty much did what Lori did in first grade – except in a car.  It was still scandalous, and it still wasn’t sex.

Sense then I’ve been on a lot of dates and God has walked me through a lot of stuff.  I’ve maybe kissed a couple of people I shouldn’t have and maybe even missed it when I should have.  But here’s what I’ve come to believe.

I think kissing is ok.

In fact I think if you haven’t kissed by the third or fourth date you are in trouble.  You are quickly approaching the no chemistry zone.  Now the exception might be if you have both talked about it and said you don’t want to – that’s totally fine – your call. But I’m saying I think kissing is fine, in fact I think it’s good.  I don’t think it’s sex or has to lead to it.

I’ve already talked about not having sex outside of marriage and I want to talk more later about having some healthy physical boundaries but when it comes to kissing I say yes please.

But. . . some important parameters.

First off, if you are not interested in the girl, then don’t kiss her.  For the love do I need to type that?  We’ve all had dates we just weren’t into. But here is where the third date thing comes into play.  If by the third date you don’t want to kiss her, then probably it’s time to not date her.  Sometimes we are passive about ending stuff.  More on that soon.

This brings us to point two.  This all assumes that the reason you are dating is to find someone to marry.  I’m not talking here about running around kissing different random people.  That is definitely not ok.  I’m talking about you are trying to find a spouse and you meet someone you like and it is progressing.  I think it is ok, good in fact, to kiss that person.

There are lots of traps that you can fall into, for example kissing all the time and never actually talking.  But there are traps with being so religious that you don’t have any physical contact.

So, what do you think?  When is it ok to kiss?  Is it good, bad, or does it even matter? What does a kiss mean to you?

What A Girl Wants – Attraction

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I once chased a girl 2000 miles.  Yup you read that right.  Here’s the super short version. There was this girl I really liked.  She was a strong Christian and I was totally taken with her.  We communicated some and then she moved 2000 miles away.  She cut off communication and I showed up in her town a month later.  She was of course shocked but she met me and we went to dinner.  She asked why I was there, and I said, “Because I want you to know that you are worth coming 2000 miles for”.  She was moved by that, and I went on to share more.

The next day we went to a great show and then had coffee.  She said she felt the need to respond, which I agreed would be good, Ha.  She said, “No one has ever come 2000 miles for me.  But I’m just not there.”

I’ve told this story in many contexts and I’m always amazed at how many women say, “If someone would do that for me, I would be in.”  You know what I tell them?  I say, “No, actually what you mean is if the guy who you want to come 2000 miles for you did it, you would be in.”

As I’ve talked about before, we as guys have about zero understanding of what is attractive to women.  We latch on to various misinterpretations and then try too hard to fulfill them.  We think if we are nice enough, or cool enough, or strong enough etc that we will be attractive.  We also hear women talk about what they want and we think we understand but we don’t.  This is especially true in Christian circles as I’ll come to in a second.

Gentlemen, time to pay attention.

Women say all sorts of things.  They might say for example that they want a guy who is: a true gentleman, a good communicator, in touch with his feelings, is strong, is passionate, is sensitive etc.  But that is not exactly what they mean.

David DeAngelo gets it right when he says,  “The REALITY is that when a woman says one of these “I want a guy who” statements, she actually has an IDEAL guy in mind, who ALSO happens to be a one of these things”

In other words she wants someone who she is attracted to who also has this or that quality. And guess what – it is no different for Christian women.  When a woman says, “I want a guy who is in love with Jesus” or “who will lead our family”, or “who has passion for the church”, what she means is “I want a guy who I’m attracted to who also has those qualities.”

Let that settle in men. If you don’t get this you will constantly be beating your head against the wall.  You’ll keep trying all the wrong things.  You’ll continue to be frustrated as you watch women choose to marry people who are not as strong in those areas and you’ll wonder what the heck just happened.  You’ll keep getting, “He’s a great guy. . . I just don’t know”

Look, you can be as solid a believer as you can be but if you don’t know how to pursue/interact/attract women then it probably isn’t going to matter.  

Now some guys get this and instead have a commitment problem (as promised more on this later), but there are a whole lot of us who struggle with this.  Typically no one, and certainly not the church, helps out.  The first step is realizing that if I’m in my late 20s or older and single not by choice or calling – chances are I might be misunderstanding attraction.

Just flip it around fellas.  Let’s be honest, when you think about the woman you want to end up with you think about certain qualities but it assumes you are attracted.  This is just reality.  So when you are filling out your online profile and say you want a “proverbs 31 woman” (which by the way if you are putting that in your profile that is a sign you definitely don’t get it) what you really mean is you want a woman who you are physically attracted to who also has those qualities.  You aren’t looking for just any woman who has those qualities.  Guess what, same thing for the ladies, only it doesn’t have as much to do with appearance.

The point is – attraction matters and if you don’t accept that as fact then you are going to miss it.  No one I know has married someone they weren’t attracted to. Being “christian” enough, or really any other “enoughs”, isn’t going to change that.  The good news is that even though you can’t make someone attracted to you, you can work on becoming more attractive.

Do You Want To Get Married? Really?!

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One of my favorite scriptures is the story in John 5 of the man at the pool.  So here’s the story in a nutshell.  There was a pool near the sheep gate in Jerusalem where many disabled people went.  They were there because they believed that when the water was stirred, that the first person in would be healed.  Now there was a man (an invalid) who had been there 38 years.  Then Jesus shows up and learned his story.  Jesus then asks the man, “Do you want to get well?”

Now this seems like a very odd question.  I mean here is a guy who has been sitting by this pool (where people come hoping to get well) for 38 years.  I mean obviously he wants to get well right?  But maybe Jesus is on to something here.  Jesus realizes that maybe this guy has become comfortable. Maybe, even though originally he wanted to walk, now he had lived this particular way for a long, long time.  Walking would change everything in this man’s life.  Everything.  Jesus wants to make sure, “Do you still want that?”

The man’s response is classic.  Here is Jesus with all the ability to help him and he says essentially, “Hey yeah – I need to get into the water – could you help me do that?”  In other words, “Hey Jesus, help me heal my way”  He had become focussed on getting in the water, even to the point of missing out on being healed.  The means had become the end.

This has so many implications there’s not possibly room here to discuss them all.  

We are all wounded and we are all seeking to get well.  Most of all we all have things that we think will heal us, and often we end up asking for those instead of healing in any form Jesus wants.

One of the big traps we as singles can fall into is the idea that if I get married it will heal me (make life ok, fix my sexual problems, solve my loneliness, bring me happiness, fill my heart, etc).  I know for me there have been plenty of times where I feel like if Jesus would have asked me, “Do you want to get well?” I might as well have answered, “Yes, I want to get married.”  But marriage is not the answer to any of those type of questions. The questions that marriage answers are “Who will I marry?” or “Will I get married?” It doesn’t answer the big questions.  Only God can really do that.  And if I’m looking for marriage to do that I will screw up my search for someone to marry and/or I will have a really hard marriage.

However, as you stay single longer, there is another very real question here.  “Do you want to get married?”  You might say, “Jesus, seriously, I’ve been trying to do that for 20 years.  I mean I’ve been on good dates, bad dates, blind dates.  I’ve been on every dating site and been set up by everyone in my life.”  To which I think Jesus would still be smart to ask, “Yeah but do you want to get married?”

It’s a fair question.  After all if you are in your 30s or older, you’ve lived a certain way a long time, and marriage, changes everything.  The question is “Do you still want that?”  or maybe a better way of asking it, “Do you want that change now?”

I think it is extremely important that we ask this question because the answer changes things.

If your answer is no, you need to ask why.  There are some bad reasons.  For example, are you just being selfish or are you just really scared that after living a certain way that you won’t be able to do it.  It is legitimately scary, but that’s not a reason to say no.  But if the answer is no and you feel like Jesus agrees with that answer (it might be good to ask Jesus, “Do you want me to get married?”) then you’re going to need a new approach.  For one, quit dating.

But if the answer is yes, then you might need to change your approach as well.  You are going to need to be prepared for the fact that Jesus might actually give you what you want, in a way that you didn’t think of.  You need to be able to say, “Jesus I do and I will do it however, and with whoever you want me too.”

So, first, do you want to get well?  What is the “pool” you are counting on?  Is it marriage? Second question, “Do you want to get married?” And are you willing to do that any way Jesus wants?