Three Reasons Christians Make Dating Weird

We had been dating for a few months when he brought up the question of whether we were "boyfriend and girlfriend."

Does this mean we get to hold hands now? [Photo by Brett Sayer]

This was soon followed by, "So should we call my parents? Book a flight back home so you can meet them?"

I was confused—it felt like something we might do if we were engaged, not just officially exclusive.

We had gone on two dates (different guy, because I really get around) when he tried to shove his tongue down my throat when we hugged goodbye.

I was confused—we had seen each other in person exactly three times. Was there some memo about making out on the third meeting that I hadn't received because of a glitch in the Christian worldwide dating protocol server?

Christians. They make dating weird.

It feels like I'm stating the obvious, but dating while Christian can feel like swimming in a pool full of jello, snapping turtles and dynamite—except that getting out with all your extremities is the least of your problems.

From side hugs to guys who won't date you but will let you wash their socks as they pour out their hopes and dreams, Christian dating is just weird.

Why? Here are three reasons:

1. Traditional gender roles

I have heard so many Christian women say some version of either, "No one asks me out" or "I want to be pursued" (including me). Unfortunately, this can extend to every phase of dating—if no one asks you out, then you don't date.

Ever.

Even expressing interest in a guy is suspect—because isn't he supposed to pursue you, as God meant for male/female relationships to play out, from the Garden of Eden on? Adam didn't have to pursue Eve, and look what happened to them.

In this construct, Christian women have to come up with extremely roundabout and sneaky ways to communicate interest in a guy—signals that the guy is somehow supposed to pick up on.

"Would you like to, um, go to Bible study together on Thursday?"
or
"I would love to get your exegetical take on 1 Corinthians 13."

This is all very confusing and great for angsty, 2AM conversations with friends. Not so great for actual dating.

2. Sex

I don't know if I can really explore here all the ways that sex makes Christian dating weird.

There's this idea floating around that if you hold out for marriage, you will have (amazing) sex. No wonder Christians are marriage-obsessed.

Awesome married sex is predicated on how much I save my body for my future husband or wife. If I hold hands with you and we don't get married, does that mean I'm cheating on my future spouse? What if we kiss? Every act of physical intimacy is potentially cheating.

On the flip side, I've encountered guys who grab me and try to kiss me when I've given no indication of interest. At best, it's awkward. At worst, I feel like my boundaries are invisible or irrelevant. The guy has no interest in my comfort level or what I want.

3. Marriage

The threat of marriage hangs over every, "Will you go to coffee with me?", every tentative flirtation, every first, second, 20th date.

Marriage plus gender stereotypes mean that every girl is gunning for a dress, a cake, and a husband in that order and every guy is too scared to actually ask anyone out.

Because marriage is everything, we ask the wrong questions at the wrong time.

At the beginning of a relationship, instead of asking, "Do I like him?", "Do I enjoy her sense of humor?", "Do we have fun together?"—

We ask, "Could I marry her?", "Do we want the same number of kids?", "I wonder what he thinks about living on a farm in New Zealand and raising llamas?", "Do I like her laugh or will it drive me insane after 45+ years?", "OH MY GOD WHAT IF I HAVE TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE CRINGING EVERY TIME WE WATCH THE OFFICE GET ME OUT OF HERE I CAN'T BREATHE."

Ahem.

It's enough to make any sane, commitment-phobic girl bolt.

How do we make Christian dating less weird? I feel like that is fodder for a different post.

More about dating:

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys Are All Dented Cans - Anger

10 Reasons You Should Think Twice About Dating Someone Who Goes to Your Church

Day by Day: The Quantified Self: Future Me

The premise is simple: Write a letter to your Future Self.

At futureme.org, you can write a letter and send it far, far into the future. What would it be like to get a letter right now from the You of one year ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago?

What would you want to read about your Past Self?

I've found that Future Me can be a powerful tool for both imagining the future and reimagining the past. There's nothing quite like getting an email in your inbox from your Past Self. It's trippy, in the best possible way.

The layout is quite simple:

Dear Future Me, How are you?

You can choose to make your letter public or private. You can also choose to add a picture--perhaps you wish to attach a picture of yourself on the date you write the letter, so that your Future Self has a visual reference.

Tips & tricks for writing to your future self:

1. Be specific

There's nothing quite like getting a vague, angsty email from your Past Self. What is this, Past Self, middle school? Save the vagueness for your facebook status updates and be specific:

What are you doing?
How are you feeling?
Why do you think you feel that way?
What do you want to happen?
What do you think will happen?
What challenges are you currently facing?
How are you coping or not coping with those challenges?

The awesome thing about writing to your Future Self is that you get to connect the dots later. "Oh, right, I had a huge crush on Matt from the beginning" or "I was unhappy with my job but didn't want to admit that to myself."

The dirt is in the details, so try to be specific. You might know exactly what you are talking about, but chances are, Future You will need some supporting data.

Reading letters from your Past Self will help you see how far you've come (or alternatively, how much things stay the same!).

2. Use writing to your Future Self to visualize who you want to be today.

Talk to Future You about your goals, dreams, hopes, and aspirations for the future. If you have no goals, dreams, hopes, and aspirations for the future, brainstorm about these with Future You. Write about who you are, and who you hope to be.

Perhaps you will feel a twinge of what could be. Hope. Write about that. Perhaps it will prove prophetic.

3. Try writing to yourself at 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 years old.

It's hard to think about growing old--but eventually, if we don't die first, it happens to us all. Instead of only sending letters to next year, write to yourself at various ages, especially milestone years. Think about how much your 80 year-old self would appreciate getting letters from you!

I've been working on writing to my 40 year-old self. It's weird to think about being 40. But it helps me to realize that my time is finite. There are things that I want to accomplish, and if I don't start on them now, I may never accomplish them. It's a sobering feeling.

4. Put writing to your Future Self on your calendar to remind you.

Writing to your Future Self once a month seems like a good goal.

5. Write to your Past Self...

But send it to your Future Self.

It sounds convoluted, but I recently wrote a letter from my 80 year-old Self to my Present Self (an exercise from the "Artist's Way") and sent it to my 40 year-old Self.

Write a letter to your 10 year-old Self, but send it to your 50 year-old Self.
Write a letter to your 20 year-old Self, but send it to your 33 year-old Self.
Etc.

Writing to your Past Self tends to open up a well of understanding and self-compassion, because you are able to see yourself from a distance. And sometimes the things that we wish our Past Self knew are things we could benefit from, even now.

So, write a letter. Future You will thank you.

Why is Church Cliquey? Part 2

At the beginning of the year I wrote a post called Why is Church Cliquey?

This is a topic close to my heart. Maybe it's because I've felt like an outsider my whole life, but to me the message of belonging offered by Jesus is too good to be true, too difficult to pass up, and too compelling to ignore. I believe in a God who says,

"You belong to me."

And throughout my life, I've had powerful experiences of love, belonging and acceptance. I've also felt alone, ignored, rejected and depressed.

I've been coming to terms with never feeling fully accepted anywhere or anytime. That being a foreigner runs deep, deep.

So when people responded to "Why is Church Cliquey?" with "No, duh. Church is cliquey because people are cliquey. Deal with it"--

I could feel the anger rising.

For me (and others) there's the strong sense that this is not the way things should be. And this blog post is me saying that this is not the way things should be:

If I'm rejected everywhere else, I should be accepted at church.

If I'm bullied at school, I should be safe in my youth group.

If I feel alienated, lonely, excluded or isolated, I should find radical acceptance in the embrace of my brother, my sister.

If I feel singled out because of my race, gender, culture, nationality, family background or sexual orientation, I should feel like a whole person in the presence of God and his people.

I'm inspired by the insights of one of my friends, whose response I've excerpted below (with permission):

"The problem with church is that one of the major tenets of Christianity is that you are supposed to belong to the group. We're the Body of Christ, therefore we are bound together in some way. It is your 'family.'

"If co-workers reject me, so what, they're the 'world.' If non-Christians reject me, good, it means I am different. If Christians reject me, if I find that I don't belong to that group...where do I go?? I've set my back to the world, picked up my cross to follow Jesus, and am trying to join the others who've done that.

"So when I am in that church lobby with the hundred or so people I know and no one speaks to me or catches my eye or returns my desperate waves as I say goodbye to the air, I care about that rejection in a way that I don't care about when I'm getting coffee in the lunch room and two co-workers are ignoring me, or when the guys at Starbucks aren't saying hello. My faith is on the line. Part of the faith is that I belong. If I don't belong I'm not a real Christian.

"Another tenet of fitting in is wanting to look good. I think that is a big part of the Church--they want to attract people to it, so they showcase the edgy, relevant side of things. They don't want to be 'your mother's church' or even 'your mid-western church.' So the cool kids get center stage--they are the ones in the band, on the stage.

"But most people drawn to Jesus aren't all that together: we're the nerdy ones, the socially awkward ones, the ones that don't fit in with the world and have a hard time adjusting. We're the uncool, and we don't fit in at work, with our families, with the world at large. If we can't fit in at church, we're sunk."

That's the thing about Christianity--it's meant to be radically inclusive.

In Christ there is no Other--neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, popular nor nerdy, cool nor uncool, eastside nor westside, Bruins nor Trojans.

So what can we do if church feels cliquey?

In a city like LA, the most visible Other is the homeless man or woman. [Homeless people often make token appearances in screenplays, short stories, short films, etc. as either wise-beyond-their-social-status, comic relief, or tragic heroes. See also, the Magical Vagrant.] I believe churches (mine included) go out their way to love and care for the most vulnerable population in their midst, which is awesome.

But I think it's possible to look deeper.

First, we can admit that we as Christians seem to value exactly what the world values: good looks, fashion sense, youth, a "promising career," talent, fame, money, good production values, etc.

We can acknowledge that inequality exists in the world. We can acknowledge that racism exists (yes, still). We can acknowledge that sexism exists. We can acknowledge that homophobia exists. We can acknowledge that, yes, sometimes people are discriminated against because of systemic injustice and not because of anything they did wrong.

We can acknowledge that some people struggle with belonging more than others. We can acknowledge that race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. can influence the extent to which a person is accepted (or feels accepted).

We can stop pretending that when a person walks into a church the way that they look has nothing to do with how they are treated.

Sometimes (speaking as an outsider here), I just want acknowledgment of the reality that though we may all be equal in the eyes of God, we are not all equal in the eyes of that hiring manager, that apartment supervisor, that closed group of friends.

Second, we can ask questions:

Should I be uncomfortable if the church I go to is full of people who look exactly like me?

What do I do when I look around my small group and realize we're all educated 20-somethings with very similar entertainment career aspirations and theological viewpoints?

Who is the "Other" in my life? Who do I avoid?

Third, we can listen.

People feel like they don't belong for a variety of reasons. These reasons can be internal, external, personality-related, rooted in past experiences, etc.

Listen to those on the outside or those who feel like they're on the outside. Don't dismiss their thoughts or feelings about being excluded. Don't tell them that how they feel is wrong. That's not listening.

Don't say, "Maybe you should try harder to make friends." Don't chalk it up to, "Well, that's just the way it is." Don't give advice like, "You shouldn't care so much about what other people think. At least God accepts you." That's not listening.

Just listen. Maybe they have valid concerns about how the church is too white, too hipster, too middle-class. Maybe they have something to say about decades of oppression they feel the church has perpetuated or participated in.

Don't get defensive. That's not listening.

To recap:

Acknowledge.
Ask Questions.
Listen.

Remember what it felt like to be rejected and excluded back in fourth grade. We've all been there. We are all the Other. Who hasn't felt lonely, disconnected, alienated or alone? It's a universal human experience.

I think sometimes it makes us uncomfortable to hear people say that they feel like they don't belong. It's just not done. It's as if we're trying desperately to ward off those traumatic memories from middle school, as if "not belonging" were a contagious disease best quarantined as quickly as possible with denial and Jesus bandaids.

But what if it's okay.

If God is not intimidated by the depth of our need to belong, maybe we can acknowledge, ask, and listen. And offer just a small taste of the belonging and acceptance that is already ours.

Because we belong to God.


Next: Why is church cliquey? Part 3

On Sincerity and Being Raised Evangelical

"Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He's gotta pick this one. He's got to. I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see."
-Linus, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"

I've been drawn to sincerity lately. 

"As opposed to what?" you ask.

You may not have noticed, but I'm normally drawn to sarcasm, irony and snark.

It's weird. I've been doing a lot of sincere things recently. Sincerely. 

For example, I've been going to yoga. Have you ever tried doing downward dog insincerely? It's tough. 

I've also been listening to this song a lot. 

In addition, I went to a poetry writing group. The sincerity was as thick and oozing as blue cheese that's been sitting in a 70 degree office for three days. [This is not meant as a criticism of poetry groups or of this poetry group in particular. This poetry group is awesome.]

So, in the spirit of sincerity, I need to get something off my chest: 

My childhood was crazy--freaking insane. 

Can I just admit this? Can I just say it out loud? 

I don't even know who I'm looking for permission from--my parents, God, peers. 

Maybe my childhood was crazy in a generic fundamentalist-evangelical-culture-in-the-90s kind of way, and you grew up experiencing the same kind of crazy, and we can talk about it and laugh about it over an IPA or five. 

Or maybe my childhood was crazy in a very specific, unique way, the way that all families manufacture their own specific brand of nuts. Hard to say.

As a kid, I read everything and I believed almost as much.

I read Rush Limbaugh and absorbed the term "Feminazi." I also read the Book of Genesis and cried bitterly when I came to this passage: 

"To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
-Genesis 3:16

This was not a single tear rolling down my face. This was curled up on the bunk bed I shared with my sister, clutching my Bible, I'm not sure I believe in God anymore tears. 

I was, like most 12 year-olds, very--well, sincere. 

And on some level, I believed that God hated women. I mean, just look at that curse. I'll take thorns and thistles for $1,000, Alex. 

And yet, in many ways I bought wholeheartedly into Christian culture. I out-did the most legalistic advice from Focus on the Family. I out-Phariseed the most stringent Pharisee. I believed deeply in the sincerity of my faith. And now I feel betrayed. 

I've watched my peers raised in evangelical Christian culture go to opposite extremes:

Type Y: Further entrenchment

Type Z: Complete rejection 

But I suppose there are also a substantial number of us in the middle--Christian, but not necessarily conservative. Maybe we support gay marriage or smoke pot every other Friday or don't think twice about dropping the F bomb. 

You know the type. 

Our Christianity is snarkier, more politically correct, more hip, more in touch with the inner cynic. We embrace doubt, irony, ambiguity, paradox, and "everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial."

Even as I reflect on the church of my youth, I find it difficult to relate to the incredibly "relevant" church I currently attend. There are things about it that I just don't get, such as: 

• Why is the focus of evangelism still on getting people to come to church? 
• Is that what this slick, well-produced video is for? 
• Was that guy in the video the same guy I saw in that All-State commercial yesterday?

And through it all, I'm drawn to the sincerity of the gospel. 

I'm still sitting in that pumpkin patch. It's cold. I'm tired. I want to go home and sleep in my warm bed. I don't feel cool or hip or relevant. I feel exhausted and beaten down. I feel ready to give up. 

Maybe then, the Great Pumpkin will come. 

Is it Awkward to Date Someone From Your Church? & Why You Should Hit on Women at Church ... Stay Tuned

There's a lot of angst over dating within the church (as if anyone needed a few dozen Google searches to figure that out). This post is dedicated to the trials, tribulations and titillations of church dating. All questions brought to you by a search engine near you! 

"I really like a boy that goes to my church"

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that churches are veritable hotbeds of unrequited longing. Welcome to the club, my friend.

Okay, so you like this boy. Is he single? What are you waiting for? Sit beside him at church at the next available opportunity. Careful though! You only want to sit by him. Avoid eye contact or any form of "talk." In fact, pretend he doesn't exist while taking copious notes on the sermon. 

This is a widely recognized form of Christian courtship. Anything else and you'll come across as too pushy. And if there's anything a church boy likes less than a chili cook-off before ultimate frisbee, it's a pushy woman.

"The woman in church is attracted to you where will she sit[?]"

Attracted to you = As close as Christianly possible

Not attracted to you = With her friends, several rows down.

You are Ryan Gosling = In your lap

Realize that she is making a conscious choice and that it absolutely relates to you and her level of attraction to you. These things must be read carefully and with attention to nuance, like the Book of Revelation or the entrails of a ground squirrel.

"There are no girls in my church"

That's awful. I would suggest finding a new church, posthaste. Given your church's stance on gender segregation, I would carefully review their mission, vision and core values. Compare these to the teachings of Jesus and make your decision accordingly.

If that's not possible, there's always eHarmony. I hear they have a favorable male/female ratio. [But be wary of their doctrine of the trinity]

"Is it awkward to date someone from your church[?]"

So awkward. However, judging from some of these other queries, the only thing more awkward than dating in church is not dating in church--I imagine single guys and girls completely shutting down in the presence of the desired sex.

The problem--as I see it: some single and seeking church members completely missed "Flirting & Attraction 101." They are unable to accurately gauge the interest or lack of interest displayed by another person. They are likewise unable to constructively and lightheartedly display interest in another person. 

Maybe it's because the stakes (marriage) feel too high. And if them's the stakes, why even play? 

"Why you should hit on women at church" 

Some of you guys/girls need to lay off the hitting on for a bit. Stop playing the field and be the field, so to speak. I mean, good grief, you start chatting up everything with a Bible and a smile. You're making people uncomfortable. You read "desperate." Just stop. Take a break.

Others of you...maybe you've given up altogether and you're just going to church for the "fellowship." Good for you. But if you feel like maybe someday in the future possibly if the timing's right you might I dunno potentially want to date someone who goes to your church--

Ask them out.