unGuide to Dating

Camerin Courtney

Description

Forty percent of the U.S. adult population is single. And the majority of those singles feel pressured to find "the one." But dating as an adult is not easy, especially in a culture that targets people under the age of twenty and seemingly ignores everyone else.Drawing from their own dating experiences and from their work with prominent Christian media outlets, including ChristianSinglesToday.com, Camerin Courtney and Todd Hertz offer their thoughts and bewilderments on adult dating relationships--not just to discuss the declining "state of the date" but to give hope and help to adult singles. With insight on everything from meeting someone after college to the much-talked-about issue of sex, their he said/she said style pairs a little bit of vulnerability with a lot of conversation to help singles navigate the pressures, trends, and temptations of dating as an adult.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441236647
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 2006 by Camerin Courtney and Todd Hertz
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3664-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV® . Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Portions of this book were previously published on www.ChristianSinglesToday.com and in Today’s Christian Woman magazine, ministries of Christianity Today International.
Out of respect for our friends and exes, many names and details have been changed throughout this book.
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
1. State of the Date: A Strange New World
2. The Dating Drought: Why Aren’t Christian Singles Dating?
3. Men in the Church: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
4. Changing Gender Roles: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby?
5. Making the First Move: Still Only a Man’s Job?
6. Dating Non-Christians: The Appeal of the Forbidden Fruit
7. Internet Dating: Using a Mouse to Find a Spouse?
8. Matchmaking: Something Old, Something New, Someone Borrowed, Someone Blue
9. TV Dating: Reality Bites
10. Sexual Temptation: True Love Waits… for What?
11. Body Image: The Good, the Bad, and Those Who Feel Ugly
12. Biological Clock: The Parent Trap
13. Intergender Friendships: Risks, Rewards, and Recreational Kissing Is It Really That Weird?
14. Breaking Up: The Remains of the Date
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
Introduction
Camerin: I was watching an episode of one of those WB teen dramas recently when I got a feeling similar to the one I get when flipping through typical Christian dating books.
In the episode, two of the show’s main characters were considering sleeping with their significant others, a first for both of these sixteen-year-olds. They deliberated; I cringed. They faced obstacles; I rejoiced. One of them gave in; my heart sank. But perhaps what bothered me most was the conversation the female of the two characters had with a close friend. Sprawled in one of their bedrooms, they discussed the pros and cons of the decision to “go all the way.”
“Just don’t wait too long,” the friend advised. “You don’t want to end up like Morgan, who’s now twenty-nine and is so afraid she’ll die a virgin.” I let out a noise signaling my half amusement and half heartbreak. But mostly I sat curled up on my couch, feeling altogether silly to be “still dating” at twice these characters’ age.
As I said earlier, I get a similar feeling when I browse the singles section at my local Christian bookstore. Nearly all of the books in this genre with a dating focus make me feel old and invisible and silly in their teen-centeredness. As with that TV show, the focus is on people half my age. But unlike them, I don’t have classmates and a curfew. I don’t have a youth group. Nor do I have a youth pastor’s and my parents’ watchful eyes keeping me accountable. I don’t have proms and pimples (well…) and peer pressure.
What I do still have are hormones, first dates, crushes, temptations to date non-Christians, a sex-saturated society, a pop culture that preaches the religion of romance, good-night kisses (when I’m lucky!), breakups (when the luck runs out), exes, and dry spells.
But as a thirty-four-year-old dater, I also have a solo apartment, a changing body, marriage on my mind, a biological clock that keeps tick-tick-ticking, family and church pressures to pair off, friends who are getting married and friends who are getting divorced, shifting demographics, and, consequently, an overall changing climate in which to date.
Unfortunately, no one’s addressing these things. Dating advice within the church seems to peter out at around age eighteen. But with 40 percent of the adult population in the U.S. currently single, dating obviously continues past that age. And in a current cultural climate marked by Desperate Housewives , speed dating, and staggering divorce rates (oh my!), simple 1-2-3 formulas just don’t cut it anymore. The dating world has gotten wacky and weird and altogether complex, and singleness discussions and advice need to reflect this reality if we’re to take them at all seriously.
We Christian singles past the age of eighteen crave intelligent, credible voices to speak into this void and this mass confusion. At least, that’s been one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned during my stint as a singles columnist for ChristianSinglesToday.com for the past five years. The best part of this gig, hands down, has been the reader feedback. While I love this peek into the minds and lives of my comrades in singlehood, it’s staggering how many of these singles are surprised that others have similar experiences and feelings. Whenever I share a dating (or lack thereof) frustration, observation, joy, conundrum, or temptation, I receive countless emails from single readers exclaiming, “You too? I’m so glad to know I’m not the only one who has this experience/feels this way/is this neurotic!” I’ve learned that a little bit of vulnerability leads to a lot of conversation. And a lot of conversation leads to better understanding in the face of all the confusion about the strange new world of dating.
This dynamic of conversation leading to better understanding certainly proves true whenever I talk to my co-worker friend Todd. Whenever he pops into my office for some dating advice or sympathy or bragging, or IMs me about his utter bewilderment with the female of the species, or calls me to rant and rave about the latest dating-oriented reality TV show, we have great eye-opening discussions. I’ve explained many a female eccentricity (yes, we know we’re emotional, and no, we can’t have enough shoes), and it’s been so enlightening to get a peek into the male mind. Similar to what I’ve found with my singles columns, great things have come from our willingness to be honest, dig deep, share our unique gender perspectives, avoid pat answers, and live with the messiness that’s just part of the territory on this journey of dating, and singlehood, and life in general.
It was in all those conversations and in all those emails that the idea for this book was born to extend to even more singles the benefit of vulnerability, peer voices, a recognition of daters of all ages, formula-less insights, some clarity and comfort, discussion of new pop-culture trends, and acknowledgment of how tricky it’s gotten to find love in a postmodern age.
TODD: I’m sick of trying to wear the right shoes. You see, it’s one of those things we single guys are told: women pay attention to shoes. With fancy shoes , I think, I might find the right girl . The problem I’ve found with this theory is that the people telling us to wear the right shoes to impress women… are women. Guys, or at least this guy, have no clue what the “right shoes” are.
And I’m betting that since those fancy shoes are meant to impress the gender that wears open toes and eight-inch heels, these shoes probably aren’t very practical for playing touch football or feeding cattle. (Of course, I don’t feed cattle. But if I suddenly had to, I wouldn’t want to be stuck doing it in those fancy shoes.)
For a while, I began thinking that my lack of the right shoes, the right pants, or the right kitchen abilities was why I wasn’t finding “the one.” I was in my midtwenties and alone. Something must be wrong , I thought. So I started reading up on what I was supposed to do to find a mate. Be seen being nice to babies. Bake stuff. Buy candles and wine. Open doors and smell nice. But no matter what I did, I got no closer to marriage.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with self-improvement taking care of yourself, being a gentleman, and becoming a more well-rounded individual. I definitely want to keep learning who I am and making myself the best person I can be regardless of whether there’s a spouse in my future. The problem is the reason I was making some of these changes.
All too often we read books or hear advice that say there are formulas for finding happiness, methods to attracting a spouse. Dating books promise “steps to finding the perfect mate.” Friends and family, while not asked, imply we must be doing something wrong if we’re still single. And too easily we think it must be because we aren’t attractive enough.
But none of this is true. Despite what many Christian dating books suggest, there’s no formula for love. There’s no one thing we can do better and poof! we’re married. Besides, this journey isn’t just about us we’re also trying to follow God’s will. And nope, there are no hard-and-fast rules on how God will work. But I know this: we cannot predict how he will work, and we shouldn’t try to limit his ways by saying they follow rules or steps. Some people meet their spouse in high school. Some meet on the Internet, or by speed dating, or even while feeding cattle. We cannot predict the methods God will use.
True, there are things in our lives all of us can work on. Maybe we can better “circulate” ourselves by getting out there and trying to meet more people. Maybe we can choose to look for ways to make our lives more fulfilling or improve ourselves. And of course, we can work to better our relationship with Christ and grow to bett