Anyone who attended the "what women want" men's breakfast ought to have worked out that aside from giving the 220 malcontents who dragged themselves out of bed on a Saturday morning a few hints on how to pull Christian girls, that the girls communicated a problem too.
No Christian boys are trying to pull them!
All the girls were brilliant but I think Emma Brown was very insightful on this aspect in particular. Dating within the HTB community really is dating in a Goldfish Bowl.
For those of you who weren't there let me summarise two key points:
- If a boy asks an HTB girl out and she says no - he still has to see her every single week at the 7pm.
- If a girl dates a boy once and it doesn't work out, he has to worry if every girl now thinks he is a boring loser.
Of course it helps if you aren't a boring loser, and thankfully the girls did give some useful hints on that score.
However, it IS a problem, and its a problem faced by the boys, although the girls are suffering the side effects.
It is faced by the boys because, whether you are a Christian girl who believes that the Godly man who is intended for you will be confident, able to be a leader in a relationship, and certainly have enough gumption to ask you out, or, even if you just believe in Greg Behrendt, you still think it is the boy's job to do the asking.
And risk the humiliation.
I think this idea of the humiliation (and I really do KNOW that males worry about this) brings me to the fact that in their fast this year the girls have worked out that spiritual warfare is part of this. I know that spiritual warfare is something that raises eyebrows as a concept even among committed Christians, but let's face it, Satan has no interest in new relationships among Christians, new Christian marriages, new Christian families. He has a vested interest in keeping Christian boys and girls apart.
So what can we do to fight this battle? To foster an outbreak of affection emotion and commitment in our Church?
Well, for a start, unless you went to a convent or public school, we have all had experience of dating in a goldfish bowl before. When you are a teenager you date in the goldfish bowl of school. I suppose our raging hormones conquered our fear. I certainly remember that all the worst excesses of gossip and humiliation were present, but, there were some mechanisms that we at HTB can learn from school dating.
Here is how I remember it working:
- Girl A fancies boy X. She can't ask him out, so she discusses her feelings with best mate, girl B.
- Girl B finds herself sitting with boy X's best mate, boy Y.
- She says "if X were to fancy A, and if he were to ask her out, i am sure she would say yes"
Boy Y rushes in a hormone crazed frenzy to his mate X and says:
"A fancies you!"
The thing is, it IS fair enough that you don't want to be the girl asking the boy out, but it is also fair enough that the boy doesn't want to be humiliated inside a tight knit community.
So we can learn lessons from the 6th form common room, really we can.
What does it mean for girls?
it means having networks, it means being willing to share some things with people you trust, and it means girls working for each other.
It means that there can be no gossip too.
If first dates don't work out, both boys and girls have a commitment to say "we just didn't click" and not to go into detailed diatribes about nose-picking and awful taste in music.
As I am engaged to the most beautiful girl at HTB I don't have this problem. But I for one am happy to oil any wheels that need oiling. Because I think the married community at HTB has a role to play.
One of the worst things about being of a certain age and single is so many of your friends are couples. And there is nothing worse than being invited to a dinner party and finding yourself the only single there. Actually there is something worse - turning up and finding a single member of the opposite sex there in a transparent attempt to fix you up.
As couples we can help. But not by inviting one boy and one girl to a couples event. But by inviting 3-4 boys and 3-4 girls to an event which has NO couples.
As a fairly social person, I have no problem having drinks parties for singles from Church.
I feel blessed that God found me, and that he has given me the most gorgeous Christian princess to love and adore and to marry. And I think that as a Church we have a duty to work for that blessing for others, for their happiness and for the glory of God who tells us it is our rightful state.
Which brings me briefly to another issue that emerged at the men's breakfast.
"Just because we are dating doesn't mean I view you as my life partner"
Well maybe not in the bad old secular world. But in the Christian world?
I think this idea raises its head much, much sooner in the Christian world and for obvious reasons.
Here they are:
- We are designed to want sex
- God designed us to want sex
- Not just to enjoy it with our spouse, but to want it.
- God also tells us to wait till we are married.
So, you date, and you click. You don't leap into bed. You won't leap into bed. But, if you really click, you know you WANT to leap into bed. At which point, you HAVE to ask yourself whether this girl/boy is a potential marriage partner. Don't you?
Of course asking yourself and asking them are two different things. I am going to leave that debate for another time.
I hope this blog spreads around Christian Communities and that people post comments that move the cause along, because, Christian boys and girls dating and marrying is to the glory of God.
