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When I come into contact with people who’s writing or speaking I admire, I try to play it cool, but it never works.
Like yesterday, I was at Pepperdine University and had the privilege of spending the entire day with a relationship researcher and author who has impacted me greatly. Before noon, I had already said the following:
1) “I read your book a year and a half ago and then I Facebooked your daughter.”
2) “We are your stalkers for the day…we will be waiting for you.”
The second one definitely made all parties uncomfortable.
Lack of comfort continued as I embraced the foot-in-mouth syndrome.
I went with my friend Katie to observe Pepperdine’s Relationship IQ week. It’s really incredible that a University like Pepperdine is realizing the importance of teaching relationship skills. So often we go to college, get our business degree, have hopes to change the world, yet don’t know how to go out on a date or romantically talk to the opposite sex outside of a text message or Facebook wall post.
“Your profile pic is hot. Want to skype? TTYL, Cyberguy9000.”
One of the lectures I attended was for Pepperdine’s new Dating Initiative. I thought that sounded odd. “3 Simple Rules” were given out on wallet-sized note cards for students safekeeping and reference.
Kind of like how some schools give out condoms, but different.
I was however, pleasantly surprised how it was explained. A young professor, donned in tweed jacket regalia, got up in front of the students. Over the course of the evening he diplomatically said, “We are not telling you to follow these rules. We are simply listening to the complaints that many of you have been vocal about. These may be helpful guidelines, which we hope over time will change the social and emotional intelligence of this campus. We aren’t going to police you…we can’t change a culture, the culture has to change itself.”
The complaints had basically been:
1) People (mostly guys) don’t really ask people out on dates.
2) If there is a quasi-date of some sort, one of the parties (mostly girls) freak out and put too much pressure on the projected outcome.
The result:
1) Unrealistic expectations.
2) Too much pressure.
3) No action taken or random hook-ups.
As I thought about this, it seemed no different than my friends and I who are in our mid-twenties and thirties. The level of fear, pressure, lack of action and foolish impulses is pretty much the same cycle as eighteen year olds.
A guy I dated was so avoidant of break-ups that he said he was never going to “date” but just hoped that he would wake up one day and know he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
I told him, no thank you…
So we dated.
Then broke up.
It wasn’t fun.
On one side I see his point, but on the other side it’s dysfunctional to be so fearful of something that we abandon a structure all together, with no healthy alternative.
Label or no label, when something ends, it hurts. The degree of how much it hurts, probably depends on how I choose to participate.
What Pepperdine is striving to do is create realistic participation. They want to take the pressure off of everyone so people freely date in a manner that allows face to face communication and learning about each other without the exchange of rings or STD’s.
The phrase that I learned which was simple, but felt like the heavens parting with a flashing neon sign stated:
“Every relationship is going to fail except one.”
Pressure was released. Not because I am a poster child for Failures.com, but because it’s the realization that I can’t make every relationship work*…and that is ok. So let’s relax, pick up the phone, and date. If they smell like cabbage and pick their scabs, you don’t necessarily have to go out with them again, but at least we are getting the ball rolling, and eventually we just might score.
(sorry, that analogy was just too “easy.”)
(oops, there I go again.)
What does healthy dating look like to you?
Do you have “rules” you follow for yourself?
Who shaped your ideas about dating?
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Love and Respect (Now) is a division of Love and Respect. Please be considerate.
I married Jonathan because he was the one guy who actually asked me out on a real date, in a real car, and took me to a real restaurant freshman year. Other guys asked me to "coffee" whenever "i had time" but none of them actually asked me out on a date. I'm not saying that's the only reason I married him, but, it certainly put him ahead of all the other clowns who couldn't get up the nerve to put themselves out there.
I have no good rules about dating but I love your post Joy. It's really insightful and engaging. Keep posting great stuff like this.
Annie…that's not asking too much at all. You give people a chance so that eventually you will know, dating isn't lowering one's standards. Marrying Scabby McCabbage would be. Just make sure you aren't assuming someone you haven't gone out on a date with is Mr. McCabbage before you give him a chance. Also….wear really short skirts. (-:
Cause thats what Lesley did and she snagged Jonathan.
Lesley–thank you so much for your encouragement about writing and sharing your own story. YOU are the talented writer so feel free to give me critical feedback. My englishe not so perty all done time. But you can email that to me privately. (-:
Can any "christian" or conservative young person today not be emotionally and mentally ill-affected by the romantic-relational pills our doctors prescribe? I kissed dating good-bye, boy meets girl, that one guy's book, the counter-part female book (captivating?) raising them chaste, I mean, your will-just-wake-up-and-want-to-marry-you man isn't that far off if he got anything from these must-reads. Our heads and hearts are utterly confused – not that cyber chatter helps much – from about jr high through…does it end? But the deterioration of our (our- u know who i am talking about) dating culture is shocking. Is it because our perfection-driven culture is that afraid of failing? Getting turned down? Ending sad? But is it failing? I don't know if this is truly a general 'real-world' issue…which makes me wary of such medicine. Advil is great for a quick fix with a head ache…but reading "I kissed dating good bye" is like taking a full dose of iodine for your love-life.
Luckily – And really, I mean LUCKILY- I love dating too much to have let those serums poison my love life. And, it blows me away that there are (young, beautiful, fun, cool, singlesters) that don't enjoy this on a regular date-night basis (I prefer Tuesday -helps get through monday- nights and Fridays, of course.)
Rules: have no expectations (needs are different,) present yourself as YOU, smell nice (dont cook cabbage a lot) enjoy making a friend and building stronger relationships that could be wrong in the moment, but will continue to direct a wiser you onto the right path.
I want to create a "Daters Anonymous – Those Who Have Been Hurt By Lame Non-Daters" Where/when will the blog meet? 😉
You are right Janel. We are confused. Those books all stemmed out of a desire to help and probably out of reaction to something bad, but many swung the pendulum the other way and had some negative effects. This will never stop…each generation will continue to have to figure out how to either be critical or be introspective, adapt and change.
I hope that is what we can do by bringing awareness to all of the messages that have been sent by our culture, both Christian and non.
It's hard to make dogmatic statements that dating SHOULD be done this way, or these three steps to anything…however…
I hope this blog creates discussion, answers questions, and starts moving us in a healthier direction. I feel just as lost as everyone else sometimes, but all we can do is try right?
In the meantime, I will start bathing more regularly and stop the cabbage intake.
love the conversation you have going ladies…lesley i have to agree. i married the guy who for our first "date" (he didn't think it was a date, but i beg to differ) decided we should go to santa monica – from santa barbara! who spends over two hours in the car driving on a first date? we did…and we talked a lot, and the silences weren't awkward.
i however, think this lack of dating that occurs today (let's be honest – it is mostly random hook-ups or "hanging out") is the result of boys not stepping up to be men. yes, girls/women have a part to play in this (namely femi-nazi's who want to control the universe) but i really think if men started behaving like the men God has called them to be, we would see a lot less confusion and a lot more marriages.
Marisa, Thanks for sharing. Yes, that was a date in every sense of the word. (-:
Sometimes, as one gender it's easier to observe and note what the opposite sex is doing wrong, thus leading us to conclude they are more of the problem.
If you were a guy, (and let's pray you've laid off the steroids) what would be the reasons you would NOT want to ask a girl out in today's society?
(-: Keep the discussion coming. I love it.
My husband and I had a bit of the story you guys think is silly and unattainable. I was an intern at a church, one of the intern rules was no dating and beyond the rule I had no interest in dating.
My now husband started attending the church in March 08 and we met the first time he attended a young adults service. He liked me instantly and started going to a small group I co-led at UNLV. We hung out for a few months at the small group, and he fell in love with who I was even though we had never been on a date or hung out one on one.
4 months of small group later and a few weeks after the internship was over he asked me to the movies and me being the sweet, overly cautious person I am, decided it was a good idea to invite a few more people. He was fine with that and we had a good time, we kept hanging out with friends and a few weeks later, in August he told me he liked me and would like to get to know me better.
We went on our first date, started getting to know each other, and at the beginning of October he told me he didn’t want to just date someone, he believed I was the woman God wanted him to marry. God has been speaking to me too, so I was more than in agreement. We flew down to Colombia (where my whole family lives) to meet my parents, I went to Palm Springs to meet his family. We agreed we wanted to get married in January, He asked my parents in February, he officially proposed in March and we got married in June.
He is 30 and had dated one girl before me (but had been single for over 6 years), a relationship he now regrets before he feels he wasted his time giving his heart to a woman who wasn’t his wife. I didn’t grow up a Christian, and had dated one boy before him, and after having my heart horribly broken and becoming a Christian I told God I didn’t want to give my husband pieces of my heart but a heart that was intact and in one piece. I too regret having wasted my time and energy in a man that was not my husband.
Both of us were single for a long time, and both of us believed God was going to take care of our spouses as much as he had taken care of every other area…and voila, here we are, married after we didn’t really date each other and excited for what God has in store.
Now I do agree with you ladies when you say men have to be men and stop being passive. A man is supposed to pursue a woman, and it’s true men in today’s society are getting used to having everything (including their next girl) handed to them. I believe that if men truly buckled up, became passionate about Jesus and searched desperately for His will for their lives, we’d hear more often than not that dating many people is not necessary, for men would ask only one woman, the one God prompted them to ask and later marry.
I feel like Jesus didn’t come to save many churches, He had one, and only one church in mind. He never hesitated, he never thought of flirting with anybody but the bride His father had sent Him to redeem, so in that order of ideas I am all for not dating.
Jo,
Thanks for sharing your incredible story! Very encouraging to hear.
It’s a very good reminder for me to be clear on my definitions of dating. I don’t know how I communicated that what you did would be “silly and unattainable,” but in my book what you guys did was great.
You did what I would define as a “healthy” route of dating. What I see many people doing is an “unhealthy” route and that was the point of this blog.
Blessings to you and your husband!
The only thing better than this post is the photo that popped up when I went to schedule a shared link at Facebook. Scientists smelling armpits?!?! AWESOME! Sharing both post and photo with the Future Marriage University (FMU) community at https://www.facebook.com/FMUniversity.
Annie thinks...
i remember in college, people telling me they were taking a "break" from dating or they decided to "give up" dating, and i just felt like "well la dee dah, isn't that nice that you have that freedom to make that choice!" i always wanted to get asked out on dates, TO date, but never really have.
i feel like my approach to dating is both narrow and open. i'm open to being asked out and saying yes (afterall, i like dinner. i like talking. it's a dating win!), but, on the other hand, i know what i want and i think i'll know the ellusive "it" when i see it, and i'm not willing to make out with scabby mc-cabbage just to test my "no-thanks" hypothesis. i don't think there is one person and only one person who i can be with, but i do think there WILL be one person that i will eventually be with (baring tragedy and/or salacious scandal post-marriage), so i'm admittedly picky about finding that one person. in conclusion, i want to go out on dates. and i want the person i go out on dates with to be my potential mate. is that really asking so much? 🙂
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