A Word to You Quality Men, Part 2
Continuing on from yesterday’s post . . .
My Second Biggest Piece of Advice to Quality Men (or Quality Men Wannabes): Say It, Don’t Play It
I went through a phase in my life about a year ago when I was addicted to Dennis Rainey. Stop laughing! I wasn’t addicted to him in the sense that I had a crush on him; I mean that I was addicted to him in the sense that rarely a day went by when I didn’t listen to his radio broadcast or peruse the articles on his website.
For the unenlightened among us, Dennis Rainey is a marriage and family counselor who, along with his wife Barbara, operates a ministry called Family Life that works to strengthen traditional family values. He’s sort of a slightly dorkier, lesser known version of James Dobson. Anyway, while reading the Family Life’s online articles one day, I came across one that really threw me for a loop. It's no longer on their website for me to link to, so I’ll try to recreate it here as best I can.
In the article, Dennis recounts his earliest days of dating Barbara. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something like, “I had dated Barbara 52 days out of the 55 I had known her, and I figured it was time to move our relationship up a notch. I chose to communicate that to her by holding her hand. But when I casually reached out and slipped my fingers through hers, she pulled her hand away.”
The rest of the conversation went a little something like this:
Barbara: (A little shocked) What are you doing, Dennis?
Dennis: (Thinking he’s stating the obvious) Um, trying to hold your hand?
Barbara: Why?
Dennis: (Getting really embarrassed by now) Because I want us to move this relationship up a notch. I want us to to admit that we are attracted to each other. I want people to know we’re together, that I really like you.
Then Barbara told Dennis something I’ve never forgotten:
Barbara: Dennis, if you want us to move our friendship to the next level, you owe it to me to express that verbally. You do not have the right to become physical without letting me know exactly where this relationship stands.
My reaction back then was to crack up laughing derisively. Come on! Everybody knows that when a couple begins holding hands, it means they like each other and have a relationship. It’s one of the unspoken rules of relationships! A couple should know this without even having to say a word! How unromantic and cheesy is it to make a guy dictate to you his exact intentions before you’ll let him do something like holding your hand. I mean, when a couple is holding hands, it’s obvious to them and everybody else exactly what their relationship means and where it stands!
Or is it? Barbara’s point wouldn’t hit home to me until several months after Dimples and I met, dated, quit dating and decided to be just friends instead (for reasons too long and complicated to mention in this blog). However, just because we were now “just friends” didn’t mean that initial attraction had faded. One night on a long drive home from his aunt's house last Christmas, I gave in to the romance of the moment and held his hand. Later, when I tried to pull the “just friends” shtick again, Dimples became furious with me. “People who are just friends,” he informed me, “don’t hold hands like that!”
His point stopped me in my tracks. I remembered what Barb had told Dennis and began to wonder if maybe she had been right. Now -- of course -- I’m convinced she is. I had been wrong in assuming that physical expressions in a relationship always mean the same thing to each person. Therefore, physical expressions alone should not be the first and/or only determinant of where a relationship stands, nor should it ever be solely relied upon to define the relationship.
I realize this concept is probably as new to some of you guys as it was to me (although I bet it’s not new to your grandfathers); therefore, it may be going over just as well with you as it did with me last year. So, to garner some support on this issue, I’m going to appeal to the girls:
Girls, think about it. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to find out exactly where you stand with him and find out his exact level of commitment to you before you become physically (and therefore, almost always emotionally) involved with him? Wouldn’t it be great to outline your desires and expectations to each other at each stage in the relationship before you make a physical investment in him? Wouldn’t that save you from crying into your pillow later when you finally realize that holding hands or kissing didn’t mean to him what it did to you? More than it being a nice or refreshing change, don’t you deserve that, being the quality women that you are? I think you do, and if I were giving you the advice here instead of the guys, I’d advise you to demand this from him if he doesn’t offer it willingly.
(Of course, I should offer a disclaimer of sorts here. I know there’s a diversity of convictions and opinions on this subject, but I personally think that holding hands and an occasional kiss is the only form of acceptable pre-marital involvement, and I mean no more than that when I refer to physical involvement. Maybe one day I’ll do a blog entry discussing why I draw the line there.)
Someone could argue that a manipulative guy could lie about his intentions in order to get what he wants from a girl. I certainly agree that could happen. However, I know at least one guy like that, and from what I can tell, he does not want a girl ever mistakenly thinking he intends to commit to her because he hates dealing with the emotional backlash that almost always ensues. Pre-Dimples, he and I used to hang out a lot, and he made it clear that although he likes girls, he rarely if ever becomes attached to them. I used to think that made him a cad; now I respect his honesty.
I’m really grateful to Barbara Rainey for being such a smart lady and very dedicated to propagating her wisdom to my peers and the younger generations. I’m also very thankful for the impact she had on the way I now handle my relationships; it’s saved me -- and the guys I've dated since -- a lot of embarrassment and messy, emotional heartache. After all, when you boil it all down, it's just about being honest and upfront from the very beginning.
Dennis's article didn’t detail what happened after those first weeks of dating Barbara, but in my vivid imagination, I think it probably went something like this:
Dennis: (Having learned his lesson) Um, Barb, now that we’re engaged to be married in less than four months, do you think that, uh, I could kiss you now?
Barbara: (Yanking his tie to pull him to her): Oh, Dennis, you handsome hunk of man! I thought you’d never ask! You better kiss me real quick before I just die of frustration!
And the rest, of course, is history.
Questions, comments, concerns? E-mail me! I reserve the right to quote you unless you ask otherwise.
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