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This
is the second in a series about the season of singleness. To follow are topics
on purity, spiritual growth and finding a mate.
Single:
A Self-Portrait -- The
Dating Game
By Cara Baker
July 24, 2000
Anybody
who's been single for more than a year has doubtlessly been the target of a
set-up. Last year a married friend of my best friend and I set us up with two
guys in town helping her husband with business for the week.
A
blind date.
Sure,
the mention of blind date has disaster written all over it, but Sandy and I were
up to the challenge, it having been a while for either of us to date. Plus, it
was a great excuse to go shoe shopping.
A
pair of wedge-heeled sandals and a phone call later, we were to meet our dates
the next night at Green Hills Grille. The next 24 hours we obsessed over what to
wear, how to do our hair and what to order when we got there. Sandy obsesses way
more than me with her hair, so naturally when the hour approached, we were
running late.
As
we pull into the parking lot, the phone rings. There was no answer; the call was
evidently lost. We nervously make last-minute adjustments to our hair and ask
each other if we have anything in our noses. I tell her I'm about to throw up
I'm so nervous. Suddenly I hear a voice coming from the cell phone in my lap.
"Hello?!
Hello?!"
Oh
no... the cell phone was on the entire time we're talking about boogers and
vomit. The date hadn't begun and I was already tragically embarrassed.
We
walk in and meet our party who was noticeably frustrated from the wait. Sandy
and I are nothing short of giggly; the guys were nothing short of
non-conversational. Soon Sandy quit talking altogether. I think she began
Tibetan meditation to escape the awkwardness. I was left fighting a losing
battle to carry-on the conversation. My only consolation was that we wouldn't
have to pay for this disastrous evening. Two half-eaten chicken salads and fruit
teas later, Sandy and I were left with our own bills to pay and a terrible blind
date experience.
Blind
date or no, we all have dating horror stories. My experience has been for every
good date, there are five bad ones. Why do we put ourselves through such
torture?
Dating like the world
Dating
has become a necessary evil in our society. What has the potential to be
healthy, innocent and fun often turns sour when our ideas about dating are
misinformed. Sadly, misinformation occurs when we take our cues from American
society.
It's
strange how Apostolics set themselves apart in theology, dress, speech, and a
host of other standards, but allow dating habits to be patterned after the
secular culture. "[Christian youth] have grown up with no solid, positive,
biblical instruction about marriage from either their parents or the church, and
they are now succumbing to bombardment by these negative ideas toward marriage
and the family," author Jay E. Adams writes in Marriage,
Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible.
Singles
pattern dating habits and ideas about marriage after society because the church
avoids the subject like the bubonic plague. "At one time the church thought
(wrongly) that it could depend on society in general to support and instruct its
young people about marriage," Adams writes. "Educators, politicians,
popular leaders, and just about everyone else (including the police departments)
took to an outward, avowed stand for marriage and against divorce... Thus, an
entire generation (or two) grew up knowing that it was in favor of marriage, but
not knowing why. We were biblically illiterate about family, marriage, divorce
and remarriage."
But
when our society's moral values crumbled over the past decades, so did our views
of commitment. Marriage and commitment continues to lose its value daily, as
often as two drunks tie the knot in Vegas chapels with Elvis impersonator
officiators. Divorce remains as commonplace as seeing a McDonald's every three
blocks. Dating becomes less about finding a mate as it is to fulfill personal
lusts.
Conference Dating Syndrome
Every
year, young girls with new dresses and guys with their best suits pack into
vans, travel hours to attend camp meetings, youth retreats and national
conferences. Their goal is often less about fellowshipping and growing closer to
the Lord and more about finding dates.
Those
who didn't line up their dates for conference in advance have the first night to
scope out the selection and move in for the kill. If dissatisfied with the first
night's choice, many will move on to a different partner the next night, or each
night for that matter. Often the end of the week is the end of the dating
relationship and friendships lie in ruins. And the guys and girls left without
dates at the end of the week feel rejected and undesirable.
Last
night, I went out to eat with teens around 14-16 from a church I'm visiting out
of town. Their conversation was full of who's-dating-who and who-dumped-who.
These young people have many broken friendships at an early age because of
immaturity in dating relationships. These young people aren't ready for
marriage, so they "recreationally" date, as Elisabeth Elliot calls it
in Quest for Love.
We've
all dated each other. My friends have dated guys I've dated and the guys they've
dated I've dated. There seems to be so few of us to date if you only date in the
church. So we pass each other around until a couple of us decide to get married.
It would be interesting to poll bridesmaids and groomsmen at many of our
Apostolic weddings to see how many have at one time dated the bride or groom.
So
what's wrong with dating as long as it's in the church? Nothing's wrong with it
as long as it's done in a healthy way. Dating becomes unhealthy when time and
energy spent on relationships takes our focus off of God and His purpose for our
season of singleness. "One of the saddest tendencies of dating is to
distract young adults from developing their God-given abilities and
skills," Joshua Harris writes in I
Kissed Dating Goodbye. "Instead of enjoying the unique qualities of
singleness, dating causes people to focus on what they don't have."
When
suffering from conference dating syndrome, couples allow their relationship to
progress too quickly in one week. And becoming accustomed to moving so quickly,
couples behave the same way in regular dating relationships outside of
conferences by becoming too physical too soon. "If a guy and girl skip the
friendship stage of their relationship, lust often becomes the common interest
that brings the couple together," Harris says. "If many people in
dating relationships really examined the focus of their relationships, they'd
probably discover that all they have in common is lust."
Check
your motives in a dating relationship. Your goal should be getting to know the
character, personality and marriage potential of a dating partner, not to see if
they're a good kisser. "If men and women would face honestly their real
motives, many a pitfall would be avoided," Elliot says in Quest for Love
If
you're like me, you're not about to happily kiss dating goodbye just because of
its dangers. But we must be aware of dating's dangers and avoid them. When our
priorities are in order and motives are pure, we can enjoy dating's positive
affects. Harris writes, "God asks us to put our romantic ambitions in the
'all these things' pile that we must leave behind so we can 'seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness' (Matthew 6:33)."
Next:
Purity's Arrow
ninetyandnine.com
ã
2000, Cara Baker
--------
Cara
Baker
graduated Cum Laude from Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., this May. A
native of Nashville, she is currently working on freelance projects and taking
every opportunity to travel this summer before settling down to a real job.
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