I gave dating the finger

[intjonathan]

So I was going to write this huge essay called "I gave dating the finger" about how I saw gender relations and how I figured on finding a mate etc etc. Totally seperate from specific incident, of course, but something I felt compelled to write simply so I could be sure I was approaching things clearly. That and it seemed like a good way to stir up argument, which is always fun.
Anyway if I was going to bastardize Josh Harris' title, I might as well know my way around his book. Having never read it, I glanced at the summary, swiped his introductions, and began defining my terms of philosophical deductive argument. Everything was going peachy until I glanced at his conclusions. Hmmmmm. Now believe me when I say that I arrived at my ideas totally independent of Mr. Harris' work. Not that I ever thought of what I was going to write as revolutionary, but I figured at least it would be different from a large and published work. His focus looks a lot more "relationship with God" than mine ever was. Mine was founded on two principles: All exclusive relationships end in one of two ways: breakup or marriage, and breakup = bad. Consequently, do not enter an exclusive relationship unless you want it to end in marriage. Granted that's a gross simplification but it's a very different process than Mr. Harris used. I knew that much, so I thought maybe our conclusions were different? Not at all. I had mate relations split into four parts: friends -> close friends -> courting -> marriage. Mr. Harris used exactly the same things! D'oh!
I'm not sure what all this means, I guess I'll have to read the book now, but most likely I'll just be nodding along, going "duh, Josh." This is all so weird I'm still trying to process it while I write. I had all this planned out, you know, all my tricky turns of evidence and phrase. For naught, I suppose. That's not to say it doesn't have value for it's audience, and I might still write it because it's fun, but it's going to owe a heavy debt to one book and lose a lot of it's initial value because of it. What a shame.

To stir up the controversy my essay couldn't, I want to talk about this in light of my failed attempt to come up with something different - I'd love to hear from you. If you think Josh Harris is a crazy sumbitch and dating rul3z, I'd still love to hear from you. I think this is a worthwhile discussion to have now that many of us and our friends are approaching marriage age and watching friends do crazy adult things like raise kids. How differently do you see dating now that you're older? Are there principles you once believed that you now reject and vice versa? How carefully do you consider the outcome of a relationship before you enter one? Has that changed as you've grown up? What the hell is my problem anyway and why can't I find a nice girl and get to smooching? Does any of this matter if you're in vbhrepresent or are Josh "Cavemen had it Right" Adams?
Leave a comment or else.

Comments

These are my nonsense 5 a.m. thoughts.

[bagheadman.livejournal.com]

I read, “I kissed dating good-bye” when I was 15… my mom made me because boys were calling me. Then a couple years ago I read, “boy meets girl” but this time it was by my own choice. (I actually read it when I was dating the most immature guy in the world who absolutely could not keep a job… even though I was heart broken when it ended, never during our short relationship cold I imagine being with him the rest of my life. He made me cry all the time.)

I have realized that it’s dumb to date or do anything until you’re ready for marriage. It’s all stupidity before that. Pointless. There is more than one… Less than 5… boys that I wish I could say I hadn’t dated. It’s not that pieces of my heart are scattered abroad and my husband will only have the small chunk that’s left over – on the contrary, this sounds goofy, but I have told Nathan that I never thought my heart would be whole again (I seriously didn't... I had been so used in my last relationship.), but now it is.
However, I do wish though that I could say I didn’t date an 18-year-old when I was 16, who 2 years later ran away with a 14 year old. Engh. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

I knew I was going to end up with Nathan after we started staying up half the night talking. I remember distinctively telling Tiffany I knew who I was going to end up marrying after we started talking until 3 and 4 AM and I saw how well he got along with my family. We just... "clicked".

I don’t really agree with courtship, and I certainly don’t think that Joshua Harris’s book is gospel, but I kinda had to go with it for a year due to the fact that it was a long distance relationship. It was totally worth it though – we’re best friends now. I tell him everything and we know each other better than we would have if we didn’t depend on phone conversations and letters alone for almost a year.

I used to always think 2 things – 1. I want to marry my best friend and 2. The right person to marry is the one who you can work better for God together than you would alone. Now I believe those 2 things plus I think that you should wait until marriage could be an option, and, seeing how God has worked in my relationship, you have to let God work things out. So many things have happened that I know that God planned for me to meet Nathan. I just wish I had waited 4 more years to date. :-)

It’s good stuff to read though… at least it makes you think.

Anyways. That’s all. Going to bed now. G'night.

Re: These are my nonsense 5 a.m. thoughts.

[niralisse.livejournal.com]

aiee! more specifics. I shall try not to step on your toes, but you're swing dancing barefoot and I'm still wearing boots.

I have realized that it’s dumb to date or do anything until you’re ready for marriage. It’s all stupidity before that. Pointless.

Brilliant, and something that I realized - but didn't articulate - at a pretty young age. In fact that sums up most of what Harris is trying to get across, just in a sideways manner.

I'm terribly curious how you think your relationship with Nathan would have played out if he had lived in, say, Bothell. How would you have approached the situation? LDRs force your hand in many ways, what would you have done if it had been local?
Secondly, now that you feel so confident that Nathan's the flux capacitor for your DeLorean, what do you plan to do? Are you jumping straight to courtship or doing the dating thing? Because now every detail of what you think will be tested. Were I you, and I'm not, I would make a point of discussing this with him soon after he returns.

But this is not "Help me, Harlan!". You're a fine example of someone who found dating not to work and wishes they had chosen another thing. You found your own way, which I was unable to do. I commend you for that. But be careful going forward.

Next time be sure to make a specific ‘vague comments only’ request and I will do my best to comp

[bagheadman.livejournal.com]

:-)

Whether or not he was local really wasn’t an issue because we when we started our relationship (August 16!) we realized that God meant for him to come to Washington and for us to meet.
I just looked at the benefits of the fact that by him living on the east coast, and how we would build an incredible relationship where we could really communicate.
I look at how things have worked and I know that God planned this.

-He wasn’t planning on coming to Washington for the internship, but he ended up coming because there was a chance that his friend who is in the army might have been able to come as far as Seattle from where he was stationed in Korea & he just might get to see him. Unfortunately it didn’t happen.

-He ended up coming to Church at Kirkland where I attend (and there are quite a few locations for the church of Christ in this local area)

-He had a lot of girls hitting on him this summer, and I had decided that I wasn’t going to be another one of those stupid girls & I would wait for him to make the fist move. So while he had girls threatening him to do what she said or she would kiss him… I just hung out in the background. We became friends and started talking all the time to ridiculously late hours (minus me hitting on him), and guess who it was he liked more... :-)
We even got a slight idea of what a LDR with 3-hour time difference would be like when I was on the east coast for a month. I was helping my aunt and uncle move and we started calling each other all the time and talking until late late late east coast time.

-I have never been so honest with a guy I liked. I would always change minor things to be more accommodating to him. Nathan really knows me for who I am. (And for some strange reason he still likes me.)

-Out of many, many, many people who interviewed for his job, they were only going to take on 15 people… he ended up being one of the hired few.

-Due to 9/11 they ended up only taking one person on. Not fifteen. 15-14=Nathanx1.

It is absolutely amazing to see how God has worked in our lives.
I know we’re going to end up married because I know that he is the man that God has prepared for me. Everything we’ve been through was to prepare us for each other.
Even though I really really wish I hadn’t dated those frogs, I know that if I hadn’t been in my previous relationship I know I wouldn’t appreciate Nathan nearly as much as I do.

We’ve been talking about marriage for a little while now, so at his point we’re building our relationship together, a.k.a. in the same state… dating with the purpose to be married some day.
(He has proposed to me so many times I told him I wouldn’t believe him when he really asked.)

We’ve discussed these things…all of this isn’t something I have concluded on my own.

This is just how it has worked for me and I think it’s neat. Different people do different things and get different results that are equally as neat. It’s just such a neat example of how God has worked in my life. :-)

Headin’ off to bed now. Night night.