Sometimes We Have to Enter the Cave

“The one great advantage you have as a new church pastor is that you are forced to start small. Nothing is imposed on you. Determine that you will know every person, their names and whatever of their lives they are willing to let you in on. Be in their homes. Invite them into your home in small groups for an evening or lunch. The killing frost in too much new church development is forming programs that will attract people or serve their perceived ‘needs,’ getting them ‘involved.’ The overriding need they have is worship and that is the one thing that is lowest on their ‘needs’ list. Insist on it: keep it simple – learn to know every last one of them relationally. And call them to worship – and not entertainment worship, but a community at worship. Americans these days are not used to being treated that way, personally and apart from promotional come-ons. Religious entrepreneurism has infected church planting all over the country. When it is successful numerically (and if you are a good salesman and smile a lot it probably will be) you will end up with a non-church.”

I recently ran across this quote from Eugene Peterson on J.R. Briggs’ web site. The context is new church plants/communities (and I think being willing to enter one another's "caves" is what being a true church community is about), but it got me to thinking. I recently told a friend that "I know you like to withdraw into your cave. I'm just saying make room for me to keep you company." Not that I have any special insight, I just know what I’m like when I’m in a “cavey” mood. Most people want to be pursued. We want to be cared for enough, matter enough, for someone to come after us. And sometimes we need space. On our end, we need to do a good job of communicating what we want. On the end of those we are in community with, we need to go after folks.

We often talk about relationships and being in community, but have little understanding of what that means and entails. Too many “guys” act like, well, guys . We’re prone to “give people space” when problems arise and then act stunned when situations are misread or misunderstood. We rarely take the time to evaluate if our approach is a healthy way to deal with situations. (Right now would again NOT be the time for someone to try to convince me women shouldn’t be leaders or wouldn’t make better shepherds). Maybe, in shepherding people, giving people space leaves gaps in relationships, or may leave people feeling isolated or alone.

This isn’t solely a “guy” thing: most people are relationally lazy. It’s easy to hang out with someone but it takes work to get to know someone. It’s easy to enjoy someone’s company during good times and harder to walk through the mess of their lives. I know many pastors get used to people coming to them when they have problems, so they get into a posture of not having to seek people out. Just like I know it’s easy for some leadership teams to go “well, so and so has kept in touch, so my base is covered.” No, it doesn’t: neglecting relationships doesn’t cover for you. Giving people space gives them room to hide. Most times, the hiding isn’t even some deep, dark sin but rather just people being afraid and broken and thus secretive, slow to trust. Requiring shepherds to walk with them for a while before they become willing to share and open up.

It comes down to the basic tools of “doing” relationships. A part of dealing with people as grown ups, mature men and women, means that we have to take risks. That part of being willing to “lay down my life for my brother” means that they might yell at us, they might be mad at us, but we take those chances so that we can hear from them in relationship. That's why it's so important to walk alongside folks and pour oneself into their lives. That, in over communication, we will fail on the side of love by letting the caver tell us when they need space.

Friday Night Date Place – Stronger Together

“We are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect.” –Sissela Bok

People don’t do friendships well. We don’t lend ourselves well to making friends (or have no idea of what making/being a friend is) and thus call people who should be acquaintances “friends” or BFFs, though they are as disposable as an unfriending on MySpace.

Part of the problem is out inability to handle intimacy well. When we ask ourselves why do we insist on continuing to date after so many heart wrenching, near life-destroying, pain-inducing, love experiences (and then remain hopeful that the next dating experience will be different)? our answer boils down to one word: intimacy.

We know that intimacy can be abused, but some people start off with a fear of intimacy. The idea of becoming close to another human being causes us to (mentally or emotionally, if not physically) flinch. T o run away. To not give people a chance. To let someone in, to care about them and let them care about you can only lead to two things: 1) the laying down of roots as you invest in a relationship and 2) the possibility of future loss, because at best all relationships are til death do we part.

This lack of intimacy can sometimes be the result of self-fulfilling prophecy. Because of your experiences in the past, you’ve become reluctant to meet/let new people in. Not entirely unreasonably, your instinct tells you that they will be like the rest: they will get to know the real you, not like you, judge you, or otherwise abandon you and rather than wait for them to do so, you push and push and push new people until they finally have had enough and move on; then you pat yourself on your back for being right in not trusting them. In effect, you reject them before they can reject you and thus intimacy never occurs.

Some people can go through life as lone rangers, rootless in their life and relationships. However, I basically think that this points to the lie, or at least to the end, of American-styled individualism. That whole “I am an island”, “I don’t need anyone”, “you can only depend on yourself” ethos that eventually runs its course. Just like systematic theology can’t answer some ultimate/basic questions about faith, and when we come to the end of its usefulness and move on; in life, experience often teaches us that there are limits to what our own bootstraps can carry us through.

Yes, in the end, people will fail you. Despite our best intentions, sometimes even for the noblest of reasons, folks will let you down. That’s no reason to never let them in. Life is full of regrets. You, too, will fail others, but I’m sure that failure doesn’t define you, nor your relationships, and you’d like the chance to be forgiven and try again.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Memo to the Nice Guys

Thinking back to my single and lonely days, I distinctly (painfully!) remember how often I was trapped in the friend zone. You know what I’m talking about: wanting to date, not quite knowing how to get with a person you’re interested in, end up sidling alongside them, becoming their friend and then confidante, even best friend, but they never quite see you as anything other than a dear friend.

I was always that guy. The best friend guy. Always had a bevy of girls around because they needed to bounce their ideas off of someone (and this was before the gay best friend thing became fashionable). But I was the safe guy, the one they could talk to, the one whose shoulder was always there for them to cry on. On one level, it was nice to have the attention and to be able to hang out with so many women. I learned how to be comfortable around this strange species of humanity, how to listen to them, what things they were concerned about. On another level, it was rather emasculating. Think about it: you weren’t seen as a “guy” as much as this sexless/genderless friend. Gender neutral.

You were a nice guy (or gal pal).

You were the one who watched the object of your affection go off and date, get into relationship after relationship, making bad choice after bad choice, waiting for them to FINALLY learn their lesson and appreciate what was beside them all along. How did that work out for you?

Like a fine piece of writing, I was never appreciated in my time. This may have been a function of where I was in life. High school/college-age. Ready to settle down (then … I out grew that a few years later once I recognized the pluses of singleness). I hadn’t come into my own. The girls/women I was interested in weren’t interested in settling down or lifelong commitments. They wanted to date and have fun. They weren’t looking for husband material.

So, memo to the nice guys: your time will come. Eventually your peer group/dating pool will come to appreciate you for what you are. You just need to be prepared when you are. Don’t be living in your mother’s basement or shacked up with an ex-girlfriend. Don't let your lifetime of "woe is me" attitude define who you are. Don't become self-defeated by your perceived ineffectiveness at dating (or unattractiveness to the other sex). Have a job and be prepared to be, if not a provider, then at least an equal partner in the relationship. Nice guys (or gals) don’t have to finish last, only be in a place where they can be appreciated for who they are when the time is right.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place - Long Distance Relationships

Long distance relationship present their own brand of issues. I've been in a few (and they were exceptionally short-lived, even by my standards). However, I've had a few friends who have met online, though living in different countries, and have not only made a go of things, but even got married. To my mind, a long distance relationship amounts to one thing: missing that person (aka long distance sucks). So, to provide the voice of eloquence, I turned to a friend of mine to give me his perspective.

A guest blog by "redwinegums"

Long Distance Relationships.

They suck.

Plain and simple. Essentially they do. There's the additional stress and strain of distance in addition to the normal downs in a relationship with very few of the ups. The hazards are plentiful and range from insignificant to major. They can work but there a few things that I feel make the difference. I'm not one to talk really. I've had two long distance interests. Neither worked out if works out means leading to a happy marriage. One ended well. One took a while to do so. The experience in my circle is of long distance relationships. In fact my expectation is for a long distance relationship. I'm not even sure I'd know what to do if I got a girlfriend who lived like in the same city as me. I'd be clueless as a result of shock for the first week or so. She'd find a way to snap me out of it I'm sure.

I don't think long distance relationships are doomed to failure. In fact if you look back on the amount of conventional relationships that fail it's not any big competition. A person might have half a dozen relationships in their life that don't work out. This doesn't mean that conventional relationships are cursed. With any type of relationship it takes work for it to come together. With long distance relationships it just takes a lot more work.

Anyway here are a few thoughts that represent my current views on the whole area. It's just my opinion. Not a set of rules upon which your relationship must abide by in order to succeed. I'm no expert but when talking about life I'm not sure being an expert means all that much anyway.

The necessity of real time together before the break

I'm sorry to say that I don't think starting the long distance thing from scratch seems to work. Not in my experience. The long distance relationships that have worked are those where the people involved spent a period of 6 - 12 months actually living their lives physically in the same location. The distance element happened but was never a permanent feature of the relationship. It was always a hurdle to be overcome; merely a phase that both had to endure. It's very hard for a relationship to work when both people are on two very separate long travelled roads winding further away from each other

Know where life is leading

I think you need to be answer a few questions in an honest and truthful manner. Are we in similar stages in life? Can I move? Can they move? Will either of us actually move when it comes down to it? How does this affect those around me? Does leaving my support circle and starting a new life scare me? It should. If it doesn't you're fooling yourself. This ties into the previous point about distance being a phase and not a permanent state of affairs. If he's planning to live with pygmies in Africa and you are going to become an investment banker in London it's unlikely to work out.

Everything other than real contact is only almost

We're spoiled in this part of the early 21st century. With Skype, email, IM clients and text messaging there are so many ways to keep in touch with loved ones. It's great but it's not real. It's a mini date in a way every time. It's an artificial situation that can seem natural because it happens so often, but it's that regularity that can be so addictive. It can also become soul shattering because when you flick off that computer screen there hasn't even been a simple little embrace to say goodbye. There's just been the same old feeling of I wish you were here and now I have to face my life without you in it again.

You get their version of their life. Not the real version

"How was your day?"

Such an easy question but so difficult to answer. In fact most people never do. They gloss over it. The fine, fine, fine refrain a mother gets when she asks her children about their day is one that is heard in stereo in every town and city. Even if the other tells you they've had a bad day you don't see how it affects them. She might comfort eat or be bitchy to her house mates in a way she isn't to you. He might completely over react when a small little thing goes wrong on the computer and bang the table and start cursing. You don't see it unless they tell you. You don't seem them being mean to that barista or that waiter. Distance isn't normal even though it can feel like it when you're in the midst of it. What happens is you get used to living a life without someone it. It can be a tough change to handle when what you've wished for all this time actually happens.

Personal Caveat

I'm not sure how much of my experience is of use to anyone. I approach a romantic relationship in the conventional sense with marriage as a very realistic consideration. There's been no sex and thus far not much kissing either in my life. I've never been on a date. Probably why I'm irrationally so good at crafting one for public consumption. In a very real way I've never properly had a girlfriend. The last interest was a total of four days physically in the same location in a total of five months. And two of those days were the days when we first met without anything in the picture. It's easier if you have money and the ability to travel. With me it's never been a case of hopping on a plane and visiting. In actual fact it's normally been a minimum of two planes to even get to the other. It's something to be acutely aware of. How far away does he or she live?

My brother is currently in a long distance relationship with an altogether wonderful woman. She is studying in the USA and he is studying here. Right now she is doing an internship in Australia. When he leaves Australia, having worked the entire summer to pay for traveling 20,000 miles to see her for a mere 15 days, it will bring the amount of time they have physically spent in the same location to a total of two months in two years.

In summary, they suck. More than you know. You might think you're ready and able to handle it but you're not. You don't know how bad it will be until you are lying down wishing he was there and realizing that in a very real sense you are still alone. I've had two. Neither worked. Been honest I'm not sure I could handle another long distance relationship. Knowing someone would cuddle or kiss me but can't due to distance is soul destroying in a situation like that.

I've traveled the world for love before and would do so again. Sometimes you don't care about the odds you just know you have to take that chance. But you can't be sure until you see the other and decide whether the risk is worth taking


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Believing the Lie

After my "dating teh crazy" blog (which mind you, wasn't meant to be the most serious of posts), I was troubled by a recurring theme among some of the comments. It was as if they were battling against some sort of image forged in high school or something which they have carried with them well into adulthood. An image of themselves that tells them that they aren't worthy of "doing any better."

We are the fruit of a lifetime of listening to voices. Such formative listening too often results in us listening to lies, many of which we tell ourselves or allow ourselves to believe. We’re told we’re crap by enough people that we start to wonder and doubt; then we become quick to leap onto any bad appraisal of ourselves and end up in a self-defeating loop. That’s why it is so important to choose carefully the voices you choose to speak into your life.

This false idea of ourselves begins in small ways. You may have well-intentioned parents or teachers who trade on their love, attention, and/or favor to get you be behave a certain way. You may have grown up among peers/friends who constantly judge one another on who’s the funniest, has the most stuff, the prettiest, the most athletic. The take home lesson absorbed through all of this: you only have worth if you behave a certain way. What you are amounts to what you have, what you do, and what others think of you.

Too many of us have had life beat us down and feed our insecurities like a bulimic at a buffet to the point where we don’t think much of ourselves. We believe the lies these “lessons” have reinforced. We live in a closed off place, afraid to let others into your life because you secretly believe they might find out that we are what we believe ourselves to be: ugly, unloveable, unappealing, and unworthy of attention. suddenly we not only can’t see why someone else would like us or see anything of worth in us, but also think we better take whatever comes our way and be grateful (even if it means dating teh crazy).

You deserve better. Stop believing those lies. Self-destructive and self-hatred are not cute. There’s no need for you to keep putting yourself in “relationships” or situations not worthy of you. You deserve better. You have the right to be picky. You have to put to death this lie you’ve created of yourself. You deserve better.

Show me who’s been filling your head with those lies. Don’t make me have to cut somebody.

You deserve better. You are loved and worthy to be loved.

Next week I’ll talk about what it means or might look like to accept the truth about ourselves.

Because you deserve better.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place - A Question ...

I know I usually spend these Friday Night Date Place blogs opining about one thing or another, but this week I need a favor. I'm thinking about the whole idea of a postmodern relationship. So I turn to you to ask: what might a postmodern relationship look like?


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Proper Expectations

We’ve all ended up in relationships that didn’t quite break our way. From friendships to work colleagues to significant others to spouses, some of the relationships we’re in don’t match up to our expectations of them. However, since our focus is dating, we’ll key in on that and allow for the trickle down theory to take into account other kinds of relationships.

For example, stemming from our friends without benefits discussion from last week, we might have a guy who is frustrated by women who have either wanted to date him (or who have previously dated him and have moved on) who end up just dumping him as a friend. Or a woman who feels the sting of not getting enough attention from the men in her life whose friendship she wants to deepen.

Relationships are a delicate dance of expectations (read: romantic ideas) clashing with the reality of another person intruding into your life. That also points to the crux of the matter: having realistic expectations of the relationship. Not lowered, not raised, but simply realistic. (Don’t get me wrong: I unapologetically expect a lot from people, especially those closest to me, myself included, and the relationships that I’m in. Sure I’m often let down, but that’s part of the deal I sign up for.) There are at least two things I try to keep in mind as I approach the people I’m in relationship with:

-Accept who they are. We can’t be with people based on our expectations/daydreams of who they ought to be. People are just so darn … people-ish. They tend to not cooperate with our ideas of who we think they ought to be and how they ought to act. They are who they are. Their faults are their own and a part of what makes them who they are.

-Forbear one another. One thing that HeWhoWouldBeHeadPastor said recently was that we need "to give someone room to be, and to become". This applies even to (especially to) high maintenance folks.

It’s not wrong to have expectations from folks. Granted, having no expectations is a safe way of going through life: no expectations means you’re never let down. Another person is not the solution to the problems you face in life (no, not even loneliness as counter-intuitive as that may sound). A friend of mine passed along this observation:

“More specifically, we expect our love relationships to be exciting, romantic, erotic, passionate, cute, conflict-free, and perpetually novel. And like the consumers we are, we often break our commitment when we don't think we have enough of these, and move on to a new relationship to find them again. Our materialist/consumerist mindset treats relationships as a department store for our personal satisfaction and pleasure. This defeats long term commitment, which must include compromise and hard work. Why do any hard work when you can just pick up a new one, or even get an upgrade?”

When I look at my marriage vows, I realized that I committed to the idea of our relationship as much as I committed to the person herself. During some of our bad patches, our commitment to the relationship was one of the things that kept us together. It was something worth preserving (even as we figured out how to live with each other). Granted, dating is a long way from marriage in terms of one’s commitment to it, but there is something to be gleaned from this. Deeper levels of true love and intimacy can only be mined over time. Once the “romance” has cooled, or rather the white hot feelings of “being in love” have.

We can’t force a relationship into our idea of what we want it to be. We have to take it on its own terms. Only from there can we judge whether it is a relationship worth pursuing or keeping in our lives. Because relationships take work, time, and commitment, but not all of them are worth that kind of effort. Some are best to simply let go.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Friends Without Benefits

I had a friend who always got in trouble in one of the singles groups I used to be in. Whether he actually did anything wrong was a matter of debate, that debate usually splitting down the great sex divide. You see, he was nice. When he talked to women, he was attentive and actively listened. He walked ladies to their car. He checked on them if they were down or sick. He hung out with them regularly and paid for lunch when he did. To guys like me, we thought we numbered among a dying breed: the fabled gentleman. To the ladies in the group, he sent mixed signals of interest.

One of the peculiarities of that beast we call the singles group is how the dating tension is an ever-present specter. It hovers over each activity, conversation, and interaction, bubbling with attendant drama for the group. All because it’s tough having male/female friendships without sending "mixed" signals.

Because singles groups exist to kill time before people drop out of them, one of the casualties becomes the prospect of real friendship across the sexes. Everything become fraught with “is he interested in me” or “is she too into me” type questions in the back of people’s minds.

We’ve come so far in our social interactions, and by far I mean men have sunk so low, that gentlemanly actions, which were once routine, now signal interest. Apparently, if you do the gentleman thing with a lot of your female friends, despite your intent, it stirs up their passions. Why ELSE would you be so attentive? There's nothing worse than a nice guy dangling themselves in front of a woman. So it was explained to me/us.

As I’ve managed to get my brain around this notion, despite what we said or how clear we’ve been about our intent (“I’m just looking to be a friend. I just want to get to know you better as a person”), we gave the illusion of interest. By giving the illusion of increasing intimacy (arm holding, lots of one-on-one time, even what we would consider simple politeness), we sent the signal that we were interested. In other words, it’s the couch dilemma (and will result in the dreaded “Defining The Relationship” talk).

Don’t get me wrong, if you find yourself (even in a platonic) cuddling scenario or if part of your act is being a perennial flirt, you do confuse the issue and send a mixed signal. It’s a fine tightwalk to walk. I tended to err on the side of love. I would risk helping, protecting, and nurturing because I try to be genuinely loving. If that sends a mixed signal, then, well I'm sorry society has conditioned us to believe that's a mixed signal. In the end, I'm guilty of being nice. That being said, there is trust and friendship and relationship, none are to be treaded upon lightly. We want relationships, all types of friendships, so we need to be ever-mindful of the signals we send and the feelings that may get hurt.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Episode 31: Give me a slice of Mr. Broaddus

I was on another JustLifeTv podcast. The topic was my idea given a conversation that my wife and I had a week or so ago (which then was echoed by Team Broaddus).

Episode Synopsis
Almost everyone I know is busy. Busy with work, family obligations, hobbies, etc. Busy-ness has become a virtue in our culture. So today, we’re going to talk about what contributes to our busy-ness and what we are doing to keep our heads above water.

You can check out the podcast directly here. The whole idea of learning to rest is a tough one for me, though it might be time for me to revisit my blog Take Your Ass Home.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Episode 14: Keyboard Courage (And Friend Pimpage)

For all those still butthurt over my “I hate Twitter” rant, I offer an olive branch of sorts. The folks at JustLife.tv had me back on their show to rant about the impact of technology on relationships.

Episode 14: Keyboard Courage (Part 1)

Episode Synopsis
Maurice was back for a two part podcast on friendship and technology. If you’re reading this, you’re using some of the technology we talk about in this podcast. We considered the role of technology in creating community and/or false community. It was a lively discussion that turned into two podcasts.

Episode 15: Keyboard Courage (Part 2)

Episode Synopsis
We continued rolling the tape (even though we’re using a digital recorder) as we continued discussing the role of technology and relationships. Maurice shared about his experience with “fans” who cross the line in their pursuit of moving a “virtual” friendship into a “real” friendship.

In the “I’m so happy for you/I hate you” of my friends department, two quick announcements: Kelli Dunlap is pleased to announce that her first novel has been picked up by Larry Roberts of Bloodletting Press and will be published under the new imprint of Morning Star in 2009. She shoots, she scores. And I’m sure she’ll still be “happy dancing” at Mo*Con and we’ll get nothing useful out of her on any panels. Probably ditto with Lucy Snyder: Del Rey has purchased her first novel Spellbent and two of its sequels. Their tentative plan is to release Spellbent in early-to-mid 2009 and the other books in the trilogy will of course come later.

Do you know what happens when your friends start selling their first novels? It makes you want to pick up the pen and start working your butt off so that you can keep up.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – On Again/Off Again

Gather close Interwebs, I have a secret to tell you: Broadduses suck at relationships. I know, I know, but it’s true. I’ll use myself as an example ad not toss my siblings under a bus. My wife and I dated over a two year period before we got married. That is to say, the length of time we dated covered a two year span. The problem was that over that that time, the longest we dated for any stretch before our engagement was two weeks. (In fact, as not to stress ourselves, our engagement was only about six weeks long.)

All relationships have to find their own course, but had my wife come to be for counseling and laid out the specifics of her/our relationship, I’d have told her to run. Actually, many of her friends advised her to do exactly that (but, well, sometimes there’s just no talking any sense into her and every April 1st I’m sure she thinks “I should’ve run.”)

Why would I have said run?

Obviously something in the dynamic of the relationship abhorred stability. There was an element of fear at play that needed to be rooted out. Maybe an inability to commit that caused the trigger-happy party in the relationship to either break up, drive her away, or otherwise sabotage the relationship. Unless it was addressed, and people are loathe to deal with their own issues, it would haunt the relationship.

Continuity is important in a relationship. You learn about each other and a lot of information can slip through the cracks when you’re always breaking up when things get tough or inconvenient.

On the flip side, there are some positives.

The relationship breaks can give time to process and come to terms with a few things. To get at the root cause of that fear requires introspection, intense reflection, and time. Applying the brakes slows things down, allowing the scared party to get their head around the concept of a partnership, a relationship, and commitment.

The on gain/off again nature of a relationship comes with its own stressors:

-trust. It’s hard to establish stability when the trust is rocked every few weeks. It’s hard to rest comfortably in the relationship when you fear it will all go to crap at any minute. It drains the fun out of being in a relationship and increases the sense of drama. Imagine your attitude at the prospect of crossing a bridge prone to collapsing.

-break ups. Even at their best, break ups aren’t easy to navigate and “survive”. The things that first attracted you to that person are still present, and it’s easy to fall back into that routine and established comfort levels. You have to remember that the things that drove you apart are also there. To continue to jump back in is the equivalent of ripping the Band Aid from a wound that hasn’t been allowed to heal.

-resolutions. In marriage, you don’t have the luxury of solving your problems by breaking up. (Well, you do, but it costs you half your stuff. I may have fear of commitment issues, but I love my comic book and DVD collection, too). Regardless, running away is not real conducive to the health of a relationship. The process of facing your fears together and resolving conflicts together builds trust, dependence, communication, and coping skills, all of which will come in handy later.

I look back and marvel that the two of us ever got together. Was the on again/off again a necessary part of our journey. Probably (he rationalizes knowing that despite 8 years of marriage, my wife still acts likes she’s suffering from post traumatic stress any time someone brings up our dating history). I wasn’t even close to being in a place to settle down, but when the right person comes along, and won’t wait around forever for you to get your act together, the paradigm shift in thinking and behavior can be an abrupt and ugly process.

If the on again/off again can be seen as one, or both, of you working your way toward, or through, something, and the person is worth the pain of the process (and let me tell you, I am PURE JOY!!!), then go with God. Do what you need to do. Otherwise … run!!!


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Episode 11: Wired for Relationships

I've been interviewed for the JustLife.Tv podcast. It's a project that's in the beginning stages, but I've been privy to the grand plan and I can't wait to see take off.

Here is the Episode Synopsis:

In this episode we talk about friendship and the impact it has in a marriage context. Maurice Broaddus brought a unique spin to the conversation. We talked about the tug and pull in friendship, what we want in a friendship, and how we develop a friendship over time.

Click to go to Episode 11: Wired for Relationships

And they may be having me back to rant about "Friendship and Technology." Be looking for that sometime in June.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Perfection: Give up the Dream

I’ve written before about how we should accept people as they are and quit dating folks with the idea of remaking them into the image of what we think we want. Today I’d like to write about an idea tangential (if not flipside) to that: the quest of perfection.

We all want to be accepted for who we are, find that person who accepts us, and allows us to be real. Authentic. The fact of the matter is that sometimes who you are is an idiot. Seriously. Just this side of brain damaged. So socially inept, it’s a wonder you can function in civilized society. I’m not throwing stones: I’ve embraced the reality that I’m not perfect (I’ve even gone so far as to embrace the fact that my imperfection can only further my wife’s holiness as she learns to love me anyway).

To recap, we have the need to accept people balanced against the need to face the reality that you aren’t perfect so there are some things you have to change or areas you need to grow in. The other tension in this equation, and the actual topic I wanted to write about, are those who endlessly chase perfect acceptance.

"The best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with." - Juno

Even discounting the blinders that come with falling for someone, I encounter all sort of folks for whom my natural reaction is “I can accept you as you are. I just wish you weren’t so … ‘you’ some of the time.” There are folks who want the former without the latter. Somehow they have it twisted in their head that a good relationship means in order for their relationship to work, they need to be accepted just as they are, with no expectations for change. Or growth.

They define acceptance as a full embrace of who you are and what you do when reality says that I may begrudgingly put up with you and wish parts of you would change. There is a big difference between accepted and being put up with, and sometime that difference is the measure of reality. I wonder if part of their misconception lies in the belief that if they aren’t perfectly accepted, they are merely being put up with. Tolerated.

Now, what I call putting up with, since I know the torments I regularly put my wife through, I see as part of the reality of the accommodation of relationships. Unless you manage to find Mr./Ms. Perfect you will continue to be frustrated unless you realize that perfect acceptance, perfection period, doesn’t exist. If you are like a child who only wants constant affirmation (“Everything you do is wonderful”) or else you think something is wrong in the relationship, or if you think the blinders that come when two people first start dating (“Everything you do is wonderful”) are meant to last the entire length of your relationship, then you have some issues you need to work out.

Probably starting with accepting yourself. You have quirks. Because the unreality of romance and faultlessness eventually wears off and people will recognize your act and who you are. The real and authentic you. “You have some aspects to you I flat out don’t like. I love you anyway.” That is the kind of acceptance we should want. A quest for anything else will leave you in constant quest, moving from relationship to ultimately dissatisfying relationship. You may have to face the fact that you have areas that you need to work on (and, in fact, you running from relationship to relationship is simply you avoiding dealing with your issues).


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Crap or Get Off the Pot

Relationships are about timing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we hear about God’s timing, but that’s not what I specifically mean. I mean sometimes the timing of things, the timing of two lives coming together, isn’t always in sync.

Have you ever been in a treading water or yo-yo-ing relationship? By treading water, I mean you have reached this comfortable spot, things don’t seem to be going either forwards (towards marriage) or backwards (toward a break up), but you have lost relationship momentum and find yourself in a steady-state position. It’s not a bad place, things are going along fine, yet, you can’t help but feel some sort of dissatisfaction. Like you aren’t where you want to be in the relationship or that you could seriously see your relationship in this same place a year from now. Two years from now. For the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, you have the yo-yo-ing relationship. You get together, things for fine for a time, then the relationship seems to come to a head. One of you may want more while the other isn’t ready to commit. You may want to get married but you can’t quite seem to take that final step. So the two of you break up, ready to go your separate directions and start anew with someone else. Time goes by, then you start to drift back together. It may start slowly: you still hang out with the same friends and thus bump into each other a lot; you attempt to just be friends and find yourselves calling each other and hanging out again; next thing you know, you’re talking about giving things another shot and the process starts all over again.

There comes a point where you have to decide the ultimate future of the relationship. Much like some people feel a biological clock (and that may factor into the decision) others feel a “lifetime commitment” clock. Think of it as a lemon law: once you’ve decided that this is the person you could spend the rest of your life with, how much time, energy, and emotion are you willing to invest in the relationship before you decide that things aren’t heading down the aisle?

This lag time will vary per couple; relationships have to go at their own pace. It is a time of discovery, of learning about your partner. So part of the decision making process may boil down to where you are in life. Financial reality may play a part in the decision, being in school, career decisions, family obligations. These are realities.

Indecision, not wanting to settle down just yet (if ever), “I don’t know”, “it doesn’t feel right yet”—you’re lying to yourself if you don’t believe these aren’t decisions every bit as real as a break up. And you know what? You should listen to those decisions. If one partner doesn’t know, don’t pressure them into a “yes”. You shouldn’t have to sell you or the relationship to them.

No one ought to force you into making a decision you aren’t ready to, but there comes a point where you are going to have to make a decision. Otherwise you really are holding up two people’s lives. Timing is a delicate thing (more delicate than the title of this blog).


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Shopping to Shop

Smokey Robinson sang about “my momma told me, ‘you better shop around’” (my dad listened to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, I’m not dating myself by any stretch). I am more of a pragmatist at heart than a romantic, so a certain about of shopping, haggling, and trading makes sense to me. Also feeding into this is the fact that I’m a guy, so mid-life crises (still not dating myself) also makes sense to me.

I can see this blog quickly getting away from me (it’s the potential pitfall of writing about singles’ issues while your wife not only reads over your shoulder, but keeps flashing back to the series of break ups the two of you had while dating), so let me try this another way. On a certain level, I understand (not saying I condone, approve, or otherwise give assent to) the idea of people trading up: to go prettier, smarter, funnier, wealthier in their next relationship – a terminal case of the grass-is-always-greener-itis. (Unless you are escaping a bad situation, then just run!)

It’s not much of an intuitive leap since too often we treat relationships like disposable commodities. However, what I can’t get my mind around is the idea of shopping to be shopping, or rather, trading simply for the sake of trading. A lateral move rather than a move up in anyway. I suppose in guy parlance, it could be seen as getting a little “strange” on the side; taking us back to the idea of folks getting tired of the same old home-cooking (which would really suck for me since I do all of the cooking in our house. I mean that in the literal sense).

The irony of all of this—between the stereotype of the mid-life crisis/trading the wife for the young secretary and/or the idea of getting some “strange”—is that the reason this topic has come up is because in my circle of friends, it has been the guys dumped. So obviously, this is an equal opportunity condition.

Selfishness and narcissism can rot relationships from the inside. The idea of entitlement, things being about “my needs” and “me first”, is antithetical to how relationships ought to work. Not having needs met; wanting to feel young, pretty, relevant, pursued again; simply wanting a change of scenery, these are symptoms of a poor idea of how relationships work (and while dating, maybe it’s best that they leave. However, these are things that ought to be worked through in a marriage situation).

We suffer from a relational disconnect. There is an emotional desensitization that comes with spending too much time with one person, especially when locked in the same routine. Relationships can only survive by continual reconnection. We combat the disconnect by being present in the relationship, investing time, self, and energy into it, prioritizing the person we wish to spend our life with.

I have a couple of friends who I see constantly. We worry about relational fatigue because we don’t want to get sick of each other. I worry about it less (now) because, for one thing, relationships change. If you take a look at your current circle of friends, there’s a good chance that a year from now, maybe two, the complexion of your circle of friends will be different. People whom you shared intimate secrets with one day drift (or storm) out of your life. People fight. Misunderstandings occur. Trust is betrayed. People move, switch social circles, life, circumstances, what have you - you wake up one day and realize that some folks aren’t as close to you or aren’t as much a part of your world as they used to be. There is a natural ebb and flow to relationships.

For another thing, we have a dynamic I pray will be sustained despite the aforementioned observation about relationships. It’s like we’re in a constant competition to see who can love each other more. The math is simple: Continual acts of love = continual reconnection. Not letting the relationship grow stale or old, valuing the time you spend together, not taking the relationship for granted. Distance may make the heart grow fonder, but only until the heart no longer cares.

Browse if you need to, that’s what dating is all about. Serially wrapping yourself in a relationship simply for the sake of doing so (for the sake of not wanting to be alone, or needing a new face to keep you company), is the height of selfishness. And you may want to seriously look in the mirror and examine yourself about that.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Friday Night Date Place – Church Screws Up?

“A major source of hostility to sex is religion.” –A.C. Grayling

YBOR CITY, Fla. - A southwest Florida church issued a challenge for its married members this past Sunday: Hanky-panky every day. Relevant Church head pastor Paul Wirth says the 50 percent divorce rate was the catalyst for The 30-Day Sex Challenge.

"And that's no different for people who attend church," Wirth said. "Sometimes life gets in the way. Our jobs get in the way." Oh, and the flip side of the challenge? No rolling in the sheets for the unwed.

A mandate for sex from the pulpit? These people are genius! I like sex (memo to my wife who I know reads this). I am pro-sex. I have no discomfort in talking about it (I talk about it in Friday Night Date Place fairly often). As parents, we try to navigate those seemingly treacherous waters early with our boys, 5 and 6, so the conversations go easier later (the 5 year old recently revealed having a thing for Summer Glau, the female Terminator so we might as well start having these conversations).

Except, the mandate for being pro-sex isn’t the relevant idea from a too cool pastor. It is an idea true to the story of the Bible. Church/religion has screwed up a lot of ideas about how we think about and deal with sex. We act as if the book Song of Songs isn’t in the Bible. We make our kids leave the sanctuary if we mention it. Why? They need to hear about it as much as anyone else. Where best can they learn what it means and how best to love one another?

(And I’m not talking about showing videos with a voiceover saying “here’s how pastor likes it.”)

Take “Christian love songs” for a example. Within the confines of the Christian ghetto, there is a need for Christian pop music, but much of it is bereft of the idea of how romantic love should work or how it should look. Christians singing love songs face hostility from within and without the Christian market, because they are expected to only talk about God, as if all areas of our lives aren’t under God’s dominion. As artists, we should be truthful (and true to our art) about the entire spectrum of the human condition. The whole of lives: being in love, being depressed, the beauty and passion of sex. It’s like there are some aspects of life we aren’t supposed to talk about from our pulpits or in our art.

In the ideal we were meant to be sensual, seeking pleasure in one another, being passionate. Tales of how we love each other should be something to write and sing about as part of enjoying creation includes each other’s bodies. Unfortunately, every relationship is touched by sin and pain. We’re a broken people doing our best to muddle through broken relationships as best we can.

We need a better, a bigger, view of romance and sex, both within the church and without. There is beauty to be found and had; the power and heat of attraction; the meaning of sex and the need to be known; the sensuality of being appreciated and of building up one another and putting the other’s needs ahead of your own. Conversations had without shame, all building on a sacred trust and commitment. Sex is the divine connection, we need to know more about it and not abuse it.

Dating is the process of two stories coming together in light of a greater Story. There is a public as well as private dimension to the process. I commend this church for having this dialogue on sex. Things ought to be discussed in community. Friends can see the disparity between the ideal (how folks in love see each other) and the real (how their friends truly are). Love gains confidence when affirmed by others, especially those who know them. In community, we need to model how to love one another and how to nurture relationship. In private, we need to pace ourselves and the relationship. If nothing else, remember the wisdom of Song of Songs 2:7: “Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Hey You Girl

I was walking through the neighborhood the other day and I overheard a boy call out to a girl, each all of 6, “hey you, girl.” The girl in question stopped what she was doing and quickly attended to the boys’s query du jour. Oddly enough, it occurred to me that the level of dialogue between the sexes doesn’t improve much with age. Normally I’d ask “Men, how are we talking to women?” though this time my question is “Women, why do you answer?”

We’ve allowed some parts of our culture to drag us all down, especially in a celebration of the deprecation of women. It’s easy to blame hip hop, it’s everyone’s favorite boogie man. It’s a loud, brash, often obnoxious target, and if only all of society’s ills could be vanquished if the worst parts of it were to cease. However, too often, however, it’s every bit the mirror we don’t want to stare into. Maybe it’s time to move beyond hip hop to the elements of our culture that inspire and fuel it.

We’ve become numb to much of the racism, homophobia, and sexism in our language and call it entertainment. Our entertainment may degrade, demean, and debase, but as long as it’s to a good beat, we don’t say much.

We are sold images. Now we’re sold and packaged as images for mass consumption fueled by (low) expectations of us. Our men little more than drug-dealing thugs and our women treated as if they all dance on a pole or are all out to get into men’s wallets.

My point is that women are at least complicit in the objectification. Ladies, all I’m asking is that you consider a few questions: How much should you tolerate? What do you support? What does accepting poor behavior and conversation say about you (or how you see yourselves)?

Maybe it speaks to a lack of respect for ourselves. All of us, damaging ourselves starting with the way we speak to one another. Women, it’s hard to say “respect me for my mind” when you have your minds out on display and flopping all over the place accessed by anyone who shows even the slightest attention. Demand respect, get respect, attract what you put out. Respect starts early and needs to be taught, reinforced, and most importantly, needs to be modeled.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place – Hooking Up for the Holidays

It’s that time of year. We’re in the throes of the holiday season. Starting around Thanksgiving running through Christmas and then New Year’s Day, we are in the grip of a collective mania. The stress of being and dealing with family. There’s the self-inflicted (and sometimes inflicted by well-intentioned family) pressure of being alone during these times. This time of year can do funny things to people and their thoughts. No one wants to be alone and we especially don’t want to be alone this time of year. There’s a reason why suicides increase around this time.

It may also cause some folks to re-think some of their ex-s. Sometimes it can seem (read: be rationalized) as a rekindling of old feelings. Sometimes “the time apart” has allowed you to re-evaluate their relationship and increase a desire to reconnect with them. Folks can be seen in entirely new lights when compared to the prospect of being alone.

I only have two questions when people ask me about getting back with ex-s, particularly this time of year:

-this person is an ex for a reason. Have those reasons or that person changed? (The sad thing is when the break up occurred only a week or two ago and the person is trying to convince themselves that all the faults their ex had are no longer there or they’ve made a radical turn around or “learned so much” in those two weeks).

-how fair is it to them? You’re talking about stirring up old feelings, possibly opening up old wounds that may or may not have healed, for the possibility of getting together to ride out the holidays together. Now, I’m a “cards on the table” sort of guy, however, even if both of you go into this with your eyes wide open, how fair is it to rekindle a person’s affections only to drop them after the holidays?

I don’t know. Hopefully you’re both grown ups, but I can ‘t help but think that it’s better to ride out the holidays in the company of friends and family as your “connectivity crutch” rather than entangle someone else’s emotions in the mix. If you’re sincere about re-connecting with that ex, wait til after the holidays. With the cloud of pressure and expectation lifted, you can see more clearly. It’s a genuine light of day for you to see if your feelings are what you think they are.

Plus, if you connect with them now, you’re practically obligated to have to buy them a gift. If you’re truly thinking, wait til February 15th to re-connect.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place – When Love is Not Enough

Unfortunately, I’ve had ringside seats as a relationship close to our family’s is coming apart due to financial pressures. It’s the same old story: both having big dreams, no one finishing school, treading water in a string of crappy jobs, never getting ahead, constantly feeling pressure of barely making it from one paycheck to the next, and no one wanting to adjust their lifestyle downward. Though this could be the beginning of part two of the role money issues play in relationships, this is also one example of love not being enough, cause love don’t pay the bills.

To put this in a bit of context, I try to lead as drama-free a life as possible and tend to surround myself with drama-free folks (and by “drama-free” I mean the self-created variety. Life has enough drama without me or my significant other stirring up needless drama, stressing the relationship to the breaking point).

I’ve been in relationships where I have to do a certain kind of relationship algebra, calculating the deal-breaking point with a different set of variables. In this case, it focused on when one partner is dragging the other into the spiral of their madness. Wondering when they bring enough negativity and drama to the relationship that it threatens to consume anything positive about them; poisoning the relationship with their bitterness and hate. When they are so negative, so frustrating, offering excuse after excuse for wanting to wallow in their own self-created misery that is seems that their love language vocabulary being reduced to “I, I, I. Me, me, me.”

One of the things I’ve come to realize is that how a significant other reacts during hard or bad times reveals a lot about their character. It’s easy to rationalize their bad behavior, ill-temper, or general negative intensity when it’s focused outside of your relationship, but you have to be careful because eventually it’s turned on you. There’s usually plenty of evidence supporting the fact that they seem to have a case of short relationship attention span: how many family members they’ve pissed off, how many communities they’ve quit, how many relationship bridges they’ve burned. If nothing else, their lack of people skills may prevent you from establishing roots and deepening relationships.

When you find yourself the babysitter in the relationship, the designated adult, there’s a problem. Relationships ought to be a coming together of equal partners. It’s the only way the business of relationships (from managing the finances to communicating in order to reconcile) can be done. What you don’t want is to let things deteriorate to the point where you’re grabbing a screwdriver ready to drive it into your partner to put an end to the madness. I’m not saying I’ve seen that happen in a relationship before, but sometimes these ringside seats are kinda rough.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place – Moving in Together

A.K.A. the practice divorce

When I first moved out on my own, I moved in with my two best friends: Jon (who has guest blogged on occasion) and Michele (who inspired my “random ‘I love you’ days”). We considered ourselves the “reverse Three’s Company” (now there’s a reference that dates us). We had basically grown up together, Michele and I in the same church, so moving in together was little more than like moving in with my brother and sister. Now, the church we attended was quite conservative and we were eventually called into pastor’s office. Apparently some folks had some issues with two people of the opposite sex living together. His argument boiled down to: fears of temptation, the appearance of wrong-doing, and the fact that “weaker” brothers had problems with it. What he couldn’t point to was a verse saying that two people of the opposite sex moving together was a sin.

However, we were two friends moving in together, platonically. I’m skipping over the whole premarital sex thing, since that is going to be the crux of many folks argument about couples moving in together. That is a whole separate issue that I’ve obviously covered before.* For me, it’s more of a common sense issue.

I never got the move-in together mentality. A woman asking me to move in with her has always sounded to my ear like “you must not want me commit to you and you’re willing to get as close as possible to feeling like a marriage without actually being one in order to hopefully change my mind later.” What are the goals of it? Playing house without commitment? For life convenience as you merge expenses? I remember once reading about

a little-noted peril of cohabitation: the potentially negative financial consequences of breaking up. When unmarried couples who have been living together part company, women are substantially worse off economically than men, according to a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family. Men's household income drops by 10%, while women lose 33%. The percentage of women living in poverty increases from 20% to 30%, while men's poverty level remains relatively unchanged at about 20% ... "A lot of us go into a (live-in) relationship with a positive outlook. We think, 'Oh, nothing bad will happen.' The girl typically thinks, 'This is going to be great, we're (eventually) going to get married.'"

Some people consider moving in together a practice marriage. However, I have a friend who says: “separate finances, separate stuff, and they can move out and take their stuff with them? Nope, it’s more like a practice marriage, it’s a practice divorce.” It’s like a play marriage with a built in getaway box (okay, I’ve been watching Women’s Murder Club and one of the ladies was thinking about moving in with her boyfriend but she kept a getaway box at her friend’s house. It was filled with clothes and essentials in case she had to make an emergency exit from the arrangement).

There’s no such thing as a practice marriage. Little prepares you for the real deal and by many accounts, the divorce stats are higher for couples who move in together before getting married. So should you move in together? Premarital sex issues aside, there are a lot of questions you will want to answer for yourself about why you want to do it and where you want the relationship to head.

[Cue the line of comments telling me how wrong I am.]


*We’ve covered some of that ground before: chastity as discipline, “the talk,” the church and sex, biblical loopholes part I and part II, drawing a line, “you burning” part I and part II, abusing intimacy, and even a guest blog of further musings on the topic.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place – Communication

Relationships boil down to trust and communication. (Okay, if you’re like me, you may suck at one, so you have to be stellar at the other). Communication is the glue AND plaster of a relationship: it holds it together and smooths over holes.

Effective communication is how you learn about one another, how you set a vision for the relationship, how you resolve disagreements, how you get along in the present (talking is the stuff you do between making out), and how you plan for the future (raising kids, handle money, etc.). In other words, communication is a skill set you have to learn or you will have rough times ahead.

The idea of communication is a broad one, and I’m sure I’ll be taking several swipes at this, so I’m going to focus on one idea. At the risk of you making me turn in my guy card, I once read a book called the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Essentially, it put forth the idea that people communicate in five different ways and that people have to learn how they and their significant others speak and hear their “love language”. The five languages are (from his site):

1. Words of Affirmation - Mark Twain once said “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Verbal appreciation speaks powerfully to persons whose primary Love Language is “Words of Affirmation.” Another way to communicate through “Words of Affirmation” is to offer encouragement.

2. Quality Time - Quality time is more than mere proximity. It’s about focusing all your energy on your mate. Quality conversation is very important in a healthy relationship. It involves sharing experiences, thoughts, feelings and desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context.

3. Receiving Gifts - Some mates respond well to visual symbols of love. If you speak this love language, you are more likely to treasure any gift as an expression of love and devotion. People who speak this love language often feel that a lack of gifts represents a lack of love from their mate. Luckily, this love language is one of the easiest to learn.

4. Acts of Service - Sometimes simple chores around the house can be an undeniable expression of love. Even simple things like laundry and taking out the trash require some form of planning, time, effort, and energy. Just as Jesus demonstrated when he washed the feet of his disciples, doing humble chores can be a very powerful expression of love and devotion to your mate. It is important to do these acts of service out of love and not obligation.

5. Physical Touch - Many mates feel the most loved when they receive physical contact from their partner. For a mate who speaks this love language loudly, physical touch can make or break the relationship. Sexual intercourse makes many mates feel secure and loved in a marriage. However, it is only one dialect of physical touch.

As it happens, I am primarily an acts of service and secondarily a physical touch person, while my wife is primarily a quality time and secondarily … a quality time person. So obviously there was a time when we had to figure out how best to communicate even something as simple as how we felt about one another. This is just one aspect of communication. I’m positive I’ll be re-visiting this topic.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place – The Right to be Picky

I’ve mentioned before that I have a lot of female friends. One of the reasons for that is because I have legitimately cultivated friendships with people of the opposite sex. True friendships, not “people I haven’t slept with … yet”. During the course of the friendships, sometimes we may have had to have a variation of the DTR talk. As their friend, I have had one simple “rule”: find a person who will love you as much and treat you as well as I do.

Sure, I get the occasional complaint that I set too high a standard. Actually, that’s a shame, because if a friend loves you and treats you better than your Significant Other, then you really ought to examine what you look for in an S.O. and/or why you settle in your relationships. I shouldn’t have to hear things like “I’m pickier than I have any right to be.” Any right to be? Wrong. You have the right to be picky.

We’ve constructed a false self, where we are defined by what we do, by what we have, and by what people think about us. It’s like we are all trapped by these false ideas of ourselves. These false selves, these false ways that we see ourselves, start developing when we’re young: how our families shape us, how we let our friends define us. We derive our self-worth from what we do; we’re of value because of how we behave or what we have.Too often, we’ve bought into several lies about ourselves. “I’m not pretty enough.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m not funny enough.” “I’m not worth loving.”

Truth is, we are eikons of God, created in God’s image, created to relate to God, to relate to others; created with inherent worth and dignity. In other words, you deserve to be loved. You deserve to be respected and esteemed. You deserve to be picky.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place - Getting Serious

In dating there are several milestones in the course of the relationship getting more serious: the first date, first time you hold their hand, the first kiss, meeting the parents, and, in Broaddus relationships, the first break up. The question becomes how do we progress from the first date to the first break up (or whatever it is normal couples do)? Or more on point, what are some things you ought to be examining as the relationship deepens?

-Trust. Do they keep their promises because the simple math is that a promise breaker = heart breaker. Are each of you people of integrity and honesty?

-Friendship. How good of friends are you? You have other friends and can judge those relationships. How does this one stack up to those?

-Conversation. Can you be open and share with one another? Communication is key and, counterintuitive as it may seem, so is learning to fight. When I hear "we're perfect, we never fight" then I’m pretty sure the relationship isn't serious. Disagreeing is fine, you have to learn how to resolve disagreements.

-Be yourself. Do they let you be yourself and love you for it? If you can't relax, you can't breathe. On the flip side, they're not getting to know you, but some version of you that (apparently) doesn’t want to risk rocking the relationship boat.

-What do your friends and family think? This is a quick spot check of your relationship. Do you include your friends and family (and kids, if applicable) or have you cut them off? Can you maintain friendships apart from each other?

-Possessive. Do you feel smothered, bothered by their jealousy? This is a potential red flag for future abuse. Just something to keep an eye out for.

Obviously this list isn’t exhaustive, but a few things to examine in the course of the relationship. I find it curious that I didn’t have anything to say about your feelings.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place - Check Your Man

LANSING, Mich. — A state forensics scientist who said she tested DNA in her husband's underwear to find out whether he was cheating could be disciplined if investigators determine she violated the use of state equipment.

Things shouldn’t have to get to this point. I mean, seriously, if the day you find yourself rifling through your man’s dirty drawers to find out where he’s been and who he’s been doing it with, you may have to ask yourself “how did I get here?” Maybe you should start asking yourself a few questions while dating:

Are you living in your mother’s basement or otherwise sponging off folks to make your way through life?
-He ain’t supporting you or a family any time soon. I don’t care what he says. At best, wait til he decides to grow up.

Is he is cutting you off or alienating you from your friends?
-Listen to your friends. You don’t have time to this much controlling behavior, especially this early on.

If he refuses to treat you in a way you deserve to be treated?
-You don't need him. Seriously, you are better off on your own. You are to be appreciated not abused.

Does he have issues telling the truth or making promises he can’t keep?
-Quit asking him. One of you needs to find the door.

If he tells you he’s just not that into you?
-Believe him. That might qualify as a deal breaker.

If you find out he has yet another chick on the side?
-Yet another? You know what, we haven’t had the infidelity talk yet. I’m going to have to think through this one (and, uh, find away to not come off as a screaming hypocrite, mind you)

By the way, if during the course of the break up, you feel the overwhelming need to humiliate him on MySpace (I keep getting all these friend requests from women who want to get even with their boyfriends by posting naked pictures of themselves) or something …

… change your password. Your e-mail password too. They have those “mark as unread” buttons for a reason. I’m just saying. Don’t let it get to the "rummaging through piles of his soiled undies" stage of things. That’s no place to be.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place - Meeting the Folks

I missed out on the tradition of a dowry. The closest thing to a dowry I got was the assumption of my wife’s debt (I can’t begin to convey to you how much my wife will hate that joke). Ritual and tradition are important parts of relationships. It’s one reason why we celebrate anniversaries. They help ground us in remembrance of a greater story. One of the rites of passage for a relationship is the dreaded meeting of the folks.

In this case, the story that this rite of passage dives us into is that of your significant other’s life. Their story began with their parents and to a great degree, the person they will become is foreshadowed in them. Meeting the parents can be a dreaded rite of passage in many relationships, especially if the child is either close to their parents, seeks their approval/values their opinion, or simply wants everyone to like each other.

[Granted, interracial relationships can sometimes have specific bumps to navigate. My wife is lucky that I even thought about bringing another white woman home to meet my mom. The last one I brought home actually thought the line “I think my family used to own your family” was a good conversation breaker. I’m surprised that my one-day-going-to-be-my-wife didn’t walk out on the spot with people flipping off each other, food being thrown (everything from chicken wings to rolls to ice), people eating from each other’s plate and yelling so loud it couldn’t possibly just be casual conversation.

When I had to meet her family, it was like navigating a Bosnian minefield. She had me over for Easter dinner. Upon my arrival and introduction as “a friend,” her sister went “mmm” and walked out. Her mother, trying to bond with me, spent the afternoon telling me about how I came from “a spiritual people.” The entire time, my one-day-going-to-be-my-wife stared over at me with eyes pleading “please be good. For me.”]

Forgive the generalization, but parents want to know that their children, daughters especially, will be taken care of, provided for, or otherwise will just be happy. The meeting is simply a chance for everyone to know what they are getting into. Though many parents might smile at your antics to be polite, or otherwise try to engage you, you can believe that at their first opportunity, they will start whispering in their daughters ear about whether she knows what she’s getting into.

It’s important to meet the family and observe the dynamic in action. This is the laboratory that your special someone was created in. The dynamic you are involved with because when you date someone, you date their families too. Treat them seriously, because they are a rite of passage for the budding seriousness of your relationship. Like first dates, first impressions count (though, with time, they can be overcome).

Next time, because I made someone a promise, we are “meeting the kids.”

***

If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place - To Date or Not to Date

I had a pair of Sunday School teachers, the unofficial leaders of the Singles Group in a church I used to attend, who were always encouraging us to date and get married. Two things fueled this, I suspect: 1) we had declared ourselves “Bachelors til the Rapture” (thus having a bit too much of a “thou dost protest too much” feel about us - especially since all of us are now married); and 2) they just wanted us to be happy. They liked us, saw all the good things about us, and were concerned that we might prematurely be cutting ourselves off from potential fulfillment. They didn’t want us to miss out.

Be they family, friends, co-workers, or folks at church, singles often have to suffer through the slings and arrows of well-intentioned though insensitive, intrusive commentary that was rarely asked for. To be fair, most of it does spring from concern (mixed with people’s general busy-body nature). It’s a shame that the stance of not dating has to be defended. It’s bad enough that the choice to remain single so often has to be defended from those who put family on an altar. However, I’ve come to realize that fundamentalists come in all stripes and there are those people who can only be described as “dating fundies.”

One of my first blogs in the Friday Night Date Place attempted to answer the question “why date?” I’m mean, really, why bother? Why get involved in the game, the silliness, the drama? Why put yourself through the emotional roller coaster over and over again? Why invest or risk so much of your self-esteem, self-image, and personal happiness on the possibility of going out with someone? Why do we end up defining ourselves, our well being, and our worth through the eyes of another?

The short answer then boiled down to us being wired for intimacy. However, just because we are wired for intimacy doesn’t mean that we have to date. For some people, the choice to start dating depends on the answer to a different question: are you ready to get married?

Each person has to answer these questions for themselves. Not everyone is always in a place to date. Sometimes it’s emotionally, not wanting to put themselves through the risk and vulnerability that dating so often requires. Sometimes it’s their place in life. With school, work, ministires/volunteering, and other things going on (especially if they have plenty of friends to sustain their need for intimacy), dating isn’t that much of a priority. Regardless, the key is that they have to answer these questions for themselves. They shouldn’t have to be held to some societal standard that says “you have to date”. It wasn’t that long ago that we did things via arranged marriages and let me tell you, I barely trust my parents to pick out my socks much less a life mate.

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.” I Corinthians 7:8

Ah, the singles defense verse. Do you know what I often hear to that verse? “It’s rare that this verse applies to anyone.” Let’s be real: we don’t believe this verse. Many of us don’t think ANYONE is called to be single (or if we do, we believe in these “called” single people like we do any other mythical creature. You know, they may be out there but no one has ever seen one.). If people aren’t dating or show no interest in dating, we don’t think “maybe God has called them to singleness.” We don’t think “maybe they aren’t in a place to be dating now.” What do we think?

There must be something wrong with them.

Well-intentioned concern still can lead to awkward intrusions. However, the risk of having people in your life is the risk of the occasional awkward intrusion. But we really ought to consider what messages we are sending to people with the questions we ask and the “concern” that we show. It’s bad enough that our culture has turned us into “dating fundies”. Even worse that the church has sanctified this to the point that singleness is a condition one needs to be saved from.

It is possible to be a fulfilled single, joining in the mission of Christ, without dating or, *gasp*, being married.

And I don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place - Deal Breaker

I’ve had to watch many a relationship implode - usually mine, though if nothing else, I’ve read folks go all “emo” on their blogs after their break ups. With rare exception, the break ups didn’t happen without warning. There were storm warning sirens that probably went off that probably went unheeded. However, I want to look at the flip side of things, from the perspective of the potential breaker, for a minute to consider when should a person decide that things aren’t working out.

If you think a relationship is heading towards marriage, you have to start taking long haul considerations into account - analyzing the relationship in terms of spending the rest of your life with them. Deciding to break up isn’t easy, it’s like you have to consider the lemon rule, that point when you’ve invested enough into a car and you’d be better off buying a new one. At what point have you wasted enough time pouring yourself into the relationship? At what point have you cried enough tears over them? At what point do you realize you’d be better off (risking being) alone?

I think back on my sister’s previous relationship before she got married. I wasn’t all that impressed with him, I kept waiting for him to step to folks like a grown up, but I tried to like him. She had to make up her own mind about how much of his nonsense she was ready to put up with. For the rest of her life. She had to figure out what she couldn’t live with and a few things factored into the equation was how he dealt with:

1) Jobs. The main thing married couples fight about is money. Someone has to work and pay for everything and you can’t afford to be tied to a mooch who wants to smoke weed and play video games. Nor to someone who can’t keep a job for a week or a month or two, then quit (especially if everything is “everyone else’s fault”. Come on, you always have to answer to someone and more often than not, that someone will be a jerk. You don’t always have the luxury of popping off to them when you don’t get your way).

The only analogy I can think of is about hitching your wagon to an erratic truck. If that truck has no problems driving off a cliff to indulge whatever tantrum it wants to have, then you may want to take that into consideration. Stability is important to relationships, even moreso if you are thinking about adding kids to the equations.

2) Homebody. By “homebody” I mean living in their in mom’s basement. By homebody I mean making a home on their couch. In fact, it points to the greater problem of being directionless and unambitious. You can’t make someone find themselves, their way in life, or figure out what they want to do with their lives. Basically, you can’t make them grow up - and you shouldn’t have to. These are things a person needs to do for themselves.

3) Kids. Do they have kids that they (already) don’t take care of?

4) Drama. Some people are victims of their own bad decision making, (tacitly or not) preferring the emotional roller coaster, the constant ups and downs, of life. And they want you along for the ride. A couple years ago, I went to King’s Island. That’s when I realized “you know what? I’m a grown ass man. I don’t need the thrill of being tossed around, dropped, and twirled upside down for my excitement.” (And then I spent the day at Spongebob 3-D, but I digress).

“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:1-3

After making all due consideration, you have been gifted with common sense. You can’t stay with someone out of pity or wanting to spare their feelings. You can’t stay because your parents or their parents or your friends really like them (or the two of you as a couple). At some point, you have to take care of you - your sanity, the stability you want for you and your family.

The thing is, everyone draws lines for themselves. I can’t impose standards of what I would put up with on anyone else. My relationship with my wife has its own rhythm and considerations, and I can’t assume it would be the normative for anyone else. So draw your own lines in the sand, so that you know when you’ve reached the limits of how much of them you can accept. Better to know what's a deal breaker, before you get to that marriage step. Once you figure out your standards and what you deserve, you need to believe it.

You don’t have to settle, especially from fear of being alone.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

Friday Night Date Place - Promises, Promises

I've been doing this Friday Night Date Place column for a while now. I honestly thought that I had run out of steam and said pretty much everything I had to say on the topic of dating. Sure, it seems like I am especially hard on men. That’s because I am one (write the devil you know), I’ve screwed up a lot, I’ve watched us screw up a lot, plus, most of my friends are women, so I hear about the “sins” of others. A lot. Let me give you an example.

The other night, while minding my own business, trying to catch up on this week’s American Idol, a war council meeting broke out. Men, you know what I mean: when all the women in the room form a circle and decide to “discuss” (that’s what you call it once the Amens and shouting stop) the latest grievances committed against them by their significant others. I know my place during these impromptu meetings: on the far couch, silent, and taking notes on my lap top.

The sin of the week? Making promises you can’t keep.

Men, we’re so easily caricaturized as “lying, cheating dogs”. I know too many of us have given women reason to think this so freely of us, like we’d just as soon cheat and lie as breathe. But this speaks to a sub-category of this behavior, the lack of follow through. When you

-promise to help out on rent or bills (then spend the money on something else)
-promise to take her out for Valentine’s Day dinner (and instead bring home magic beans)
-promise to do something (then back out at the last minute - for no good reason)

This cuts both ways, not being solely a “guy thing”. Folks want people they can depend on. Like many things, a lot of this behavior starts off meaning well - promising what they hope to be able to do. Good intentions are great, but they end up making promises based on what they want or intend to do when they should be making promises based on what they can carry through on.

Each broken promise leads to having to reassure that much harder that THIS time will be different. Why? Because they will no longer believe you. You will be seen/proved as undependable - not a support, not someone they can count on. Worse case: you may become someone they’d be better off without.

Trust is vital to any relationship and I could write a whole book on this topic. Folks have to be able to take you at your word. Broken promises lead to losing faith. And a dark night of the soul for a relationship is every bit as tough to work through as a crisis of faith. We are striving to be people of integrity. Reliable, responsible, mature people whose character ought to speak for itself. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. It’ll only lead to a significant other that you can’t keep.


***
If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.