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).


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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).


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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.


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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.”


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.”

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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.


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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.


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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.


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Friday Night Date Place - Boyz II Men (Girlz II Women)

Alright, I’ll say this plainly rather than dance around this: I get that a lot of folks haven’t had to grow up, but, come on, grow the hell up. How sad is it that a lot of the guys I encounter are still drifting through life, even well into their thirties? Whether it’s living in their mom’s basement, never finishing school, not holding down a job (or working in a dead end job), spinning their wheels with no plan of how to move from where they are to, well, the land of being a grown up.

They may complain about the state of their affairs, but you can’t just keep doing the same things over and over and expect change to magically happen. I’m not talking about the folks who have had circumstances pop up that have caused them to go back home. Or single parents who are struggling. I’m talking about the able-bodied folks who are drifting through life, dreaming of one day being a responsible husband and father, but not taking any actual steps to get there.

This leaves their significant others in an untenable situation. On the one hand, they may love these guys and accept them the way they are, but they will have to draw the line of how much frustration they will put up with while these guys are spinning their wheels. Women shouldn’t have to be their significant other’s mother and on the flip side, he shouldn’t want to date his mother.

The problem some women seem to have is in identifying which guys are men and which ones are boys. They can both be fun, but you can usually only truly count on the men. I recently wrote about what it means to be a man, but a friend of mine came up with 20 signs of the differences between boys and men:

1. Boys will drop a pick up line on you and grin at their own cleverness. A man can flirt without showing off.

2. Boys like fart jokes and everything about them. Men like the jokes too, but they don't feel the need to act them out for you.

3. Boys hold onto fantasy women ideas and hold torches without ever being able to ask the person out. A man knows that everyone is flawed and will ask her out anyway.

4. Boys take rejection as a personal attack. A man realizes that he isn't going to be attractive to everyone and that she may just not be in a place to be dating.

5. Boys try to take what isn't their's to have. A man works to have what he values.

6. Boys yell, argue, and fight. A man is calm and walks away from trouble when he can.

7. Boys hit. Men hold.

8. Boys say hurtful things to denegrate and diminish others. A man builds others up and is quick to compliment.

9. Boys bitch and moan about problems. A man prays and asks for help when he needs it.

10. Boys hold their pride or rep in the highest regard. A man knows that having a good name is worth more than gold.

11. Boys take the easy road out of any trouble. A man faces the consequences of his actions and does the right thing.

12. Boys cheat. A man knows that a good woman is the greatest of blessings from God in this life and puts her before himself.

13. Boys run from trouble. A man handles his responsibilities.

14. Boys look for you to take care of them. A man looks for you to take care of each other.

15. Boys can't maintain eye contact. A man can look into your eyes and let you know how attractive you are without a word.

16. Boys look for hot chicks. A man knows that every woman is beautiful in her own way.

17. Boys have to top your story with a better one of their own. A man asks you questions and lets you be the center of attention.

18. Boys are all about “me”. Men are all about “you”.

19. Boys go to the game, or play X-Box when their kids come over for the weekend. A man helps with homework and plays Candyland.

20. Boys boast. Men deliver.

As much as women have become so “independent”, too many men have become ... actually, they haven’t become anything. Hey, some men are doing the best they can, not for someone else, but for themselves. That’s one thing, and folks have to weigh whether or not they can accept that. Some men aren’t doing close to their best and are just trying to get by. And they should go bye-bye.

Stand up and be the kind of man a person would want to spend the rest of their life with. Pull your life together.

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Ladies you aren’t off the hook: My message board mod came up with her own list of girls vs. women:

1. Girls ask how they look every five minutes. Women are confident enough to know they look good and smart enough to know if it truly matters.

2. Girls are needy and clingy. Women are independent and have interests outside of you.

3. Girls freak out if you don’t return a phone call. Women are rational and realize that things happen and life is unpredictable. And if you’re truly just not returning her calls, she knows you’re not worth her time.

4. Girls dress provocatively to gain attention. Women can be sexy no matter what they’re wearing.

5. Girls need to have every guy like them, even if they don’t like him. Women know that they aren’t everyone’s type.

6. Girls get their friends to find out if you like them. Women just ask.

7. If you piss them off, girls blog about it and tell all their friends. Women decide whether it’s really worth being pissed over and if it is, they talk to you about it.

8. Girls look to blame everyone but themselves for their shortcomings. Women own up to their mistakes and work to fix them.

9. Girls gossip and speak badly of other girls behind their backs in order to make themselves look good. Women don’t feel threatened by other women and can even sincerely agree when you compliment another woman.

10. Girls are catty and throw each other under a bus to get a guy. Women stand back a minute and know that if you choose the dumb bimbo over her, you aren’t as smart as you look.

11. Girls expect you to read their minds. Women are upfront and honest.

12. Girls take rejection as an insult and plot to make you jealous. Again, women realize that they aren’t everyone’s type and that it’s not a personal attack.

13. Girls bring up your past mistakes in arguments, even the ones you’ve apologized for. Women deal with the problem at hand and know to let things go.

14. Girls create drama and demand that they are the center of attention. Women realize that life has enough drama of it's own and they cherish the "boring" moments.

15. Girls are in constant need of rescuing. Women can discern when it's time for them to be the hero.

16. Girls get drunk and use it as an excuse to act like a ho. Women know that a true man will love her for herself, not because she's easy.

17. Girls avoid confrontation and have no backbone or opinions of their own. Women have their own views and convictions and hold strongly to them, even in the midst of adversity.

18. Girls justify it when a boy treats them like sh*t. Women let them know exactly what "no" means.

19. Girls won't accept help from others, refuse to listen to their friends and family, and stubbornly take the path they know is doomed. A woman surrounds herself with wise people whom she can trust and she heeds their advice.

20. Girls compare you to other men. A woman appreciates each man for his unique qualities and characteristics.


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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 - Accept Who They Are

(Or get out!)

I know that we often talk about being real, about being authentic, about how we want people to be genuine, yet we aren’t always ready to accept people as they are. I’m not talking about the gamesmanship of dating: as far as I’m concerned, that’s about (or should be about) breaking your potential significant other to the real you in degrees. We are who we are. Dating shouldn’t be a time of hiding who we are (though we don’t need to give the full monty right off the bat - there’s no such thing as instant intimacy. Allow folks to ease into the joy of you. It’s similar to the principle of why babies are so cute: you get charmed by their cuteness so that by the time the terrible twos come, your stuck in love with them.)

We are who we are. So you need to consider a couple things at this point: you probably aren’t going to change that person; and you’re going to have to learn what you can accept and accommodate.

One of the "drawbacks" of waiting so long to get married is that there is extra time for a person to become entrenched in who they are. They become more used to doing things a certain (read: their) way and used to not having to answer to anyone else or make room for anyone else in their lives. Habits are cementing themselves. My wife and I were just discussing whether or not we’d get married again should something happen to one of us. I said that I could theoretically get married again, I just don’t want the headache of breaking in someone new (what we’ll call the lament of high maintenance folks). [it should be noted that my wife probably wouldn’t get married again because of the likelihood of her being in jail from having killed me.]

All this to say that you are dating the person you are dating. You aren’t dating their potential, or who they could be. You are dating who they are. Too often people fall in love with an ideal and divorce the reality. Neither can we go into the relationship blithely hoping that our good influence will rub off on them. Again, ask my wife: it’s much more likely for the evil to drag you down (or as my sister said, when I tried to run the “her goodness” will rub off on me scenario, “Tell her ‘welcome to the dark side’ for me.”).

You need to be honest about who it is you’re dating. If you are going out with a rude, obnoxious, crass lout, you will be married to a rude, obnoxious, crass lout. They may seem to change during the course of the two of you dating, but don’t be surprised when at some point during your marriage they revert and you roll over to find a ... rude, obnoxious, crass lout. If the person is unambitious or bad with money, these should be warning flags. Petty behavior you see today will rear its head later in the relationship. That temper you see when they are stuck in traffic will be the same temper you will see when you get into an argument.

Here’s the thing: we may be piles of clay, but our Significant Others aren’t our shapers. They may change for a while (usually just long enough to get you), but generally speaking “changes” for the sake of the relationship don’t stick. Don’t get me wrong, people can grow (up) and change. Personal development has to be internal, them wanting to change themselves for themselves. Change shouldn’t stem from coercion, I mean, nagging, I mean, wanting to please you. True growth occurs over time and you are dating the person they are in the mean time.

So you need to examine yourself if you can live with who they are or at least work around their “faults”. You need to figure out if you can accept them for who and how they are, without lying to yourself about them growing and changing. You need to know how much you can put up with or get out, because, long term, it’s unfair to you as well as them.

Once that’s settled, then you can start training them, because the floor is no place for dirty underwear to be.


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Friday Night Date Place - Smother Much?

Relationships have certain milestones. The first date. The first kiss. Meeting the folks. Markers that indicates an ever deepening of the relationship. I get that folks get all these romantic notions about relationships, and try to live out all the ideas they’ve had stored up in their heads about how relationships should work.

Now, can I ask you something? When should one person back the heck off?

There were times when I was known to power date in my day. I was in one relationship where we’d do 6-8 hour dates five times a week. Actually, five times in one week. Here’s a shock, we got burned out on each other. You know what? It’s easy to smother a person. We become eager to be around them, want to spend time with them, rarely do we stop to think about how much is too much. A lot of times it’s for seemingly good reasons, but there can still be shadows of pressure when:

-they may want to constantly take care of you
-they may want to see you all the time
-they may want to call you all the time
-they may not be able to get enough of you
-they may want to talk about marriage a couple times a week

Look, I doubt I am unusual in this, but I need me some me time. You probably need some you time. At the very least, go away so that I can miss you and better appreciate the time we have together. No one should have to get to the point where they loathe hearing the phone ring for fear that it might be you.

People move at different relational speeds and they aren’t always on the same page, which is one reason why channels of communication are so important and need to be always open. You need to mention when you’re feeling smothered. If they don’t know, they don’t have the opportunity to do anything about it.

There might be some hurt and some awkwardness, but it’s always best to maintain clear lines of communications. Admit how you feel. Above all, just talk. Don’t feel guilty that you and your significant other aren’t at the same emotional place. There will be times you are more into the relationship and there will be times your S.O. will be more into things. You aren’t in a race. Dating should be enjoyed. It is the process of getting to know each other. It shouldn’t be rushed. Give it room to breathe.


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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.