Good 'Ole Dating

Original Post: 2012

I’ve dated a lot before (if my mother reads this, this will be super awkward because I don’t think she knows this lol). I never really sat down and had a formal talk with any adult about dating because 1) I wasn’t allowed to date as a teen (I’m actually not sure when dating for me was allowed. My mom never explicitly said “you’re allowed to date”. One day she just asked me if I was dating anyone and I assumed I was allowed to date) and 2) that’s just an awkward conversation. My idea of dating was based solely on the TV shows (especially soap operas) that I watched (dangerous!). I never had an intention when dating. My impression was just to see where things would go but never actually have this conversation with men. It would have been weird for me to have a conversation at 14 with a 15 year old boy “where do you see this going?” lol. But as I grew older I did the same thing. Never had a conversation with the guy, never laid down any ground rules and so they would never go the way I wanted them to go. When I first gave my life to Christ I removed myself off the dating scene (well actually I was off the scene 11 months prior to that due to the crash ending of my last “situation” thing I had going. It affected me so much that I just couldn’t be in that scene anymore until I healed (I’ll talk more about this in a later blog). However, this time I extended by “off the scene” status because I saw this guy at my church that I was thought was very cute, had a crush on him for a quick minute and realized that as a new Christian woman who was a baby to the faith, I wasn’t the woman of God who he needed me to be… and he was a man of God, serious about his walk. I wanted my first year in Christ to just be Him and I with no other distractions where He could teach me about who He is, the faith, how to date and love the way that He intended me to.

As I grew in Christ and met more people in the church. I began to learn more about what Christian dating should be like through God’s Word, True Love Waits classes and books on dating. The things that I took out of these lessons and apply to my life may seem very old school (as many of my friends have told me), but they make sense to me because I know Christ, and He continually reveals to me exactly WHY He says we should and should not do that. At the end of the day, it’s to protect my heart which I have not been too great at protecting on my own as I was not following the guidelines

Given that, I don’t want to date a man that is not a Christian. “Why not?” is the question that I always get after saying this and my response usually is “Why?” My dating (from here on out) is intentional. You date (initially) to get to know one another, if you’re compatible and feelings arise you eventually move on to exclusive dating/courting to see what the potential is if you two were a married couple, and if this is the person that you can see yourself spending the rest of your life with then you get engaged and get married. The Bible says that we should not be unequally yoked. Christian & non Christian= unequally yoked. If your not submitting to God, then you’re submitting to something else (which is an idol). If a guy is going to be the HEAD of our household and LEAD our family you NEED to be submitted to God. I’m not comfortable with anything else. My family will be led by and serve God…all of us. Thus, in my head, dating an unsaved man just doesn’t make any sense. 

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m thinking we’ll get married after the first date but that’s what I am progressing towards eventually. I don’t want to take the “risk” of a guy being unsaved, dating him, being courted, falling deeply in love or becoming emotionally attached and not being able to marry him because he’s not saved. Do you know how heart wrenching that is?! No thanks, I’ll save myself the heartache. Now I have heard stories about the man changing for the better, giving his life to the Lord while dating a Christian young woman so everything turned out alright. Kudos to whoever that has happened to but I also don’t want to take that risk. That doesn’t happen in all situations and ladies..as much as you think you can..YOU CAN’T CHANGE A MAN! Only God can.

Now if a guy happened to know me, wasn’t a Christian but gave his life to the Lord that would be a different story (and awesome!). I don’t think I would immediately date him though as I need to be sure that he is a Christian because he loves God and wants a relationship and not a Christian because he wants to date me. 1) If things don’t work out and we break up I wouldn’t want him to go back into the world. I would want his faith to still be in God and continue to live a lifestyle 2) I am human and I might fall or fail. I don’t want his trust to be in me and if I fail he walks away form Christ. I want his trust to be in Christ. Thus, I would have to wait patiently as his relationship grows with Christ and I see the fruit of the Spirit changing him from the inside out. THEN I would be open to dating him. Besides, during all this time we’ll be getting to know each other (in a platonic way) anyway and a relationship HAS to be based on friendship first. #HELLO

I’ve been told before that not wanting to date a guy who is not Christian is me being judgmental. I disagree. It’s a preference…MY preference. Some people don’t want to date smokers, or people with tattoos, or weird piercings. That’s their preference. I think because this has to do with faith/religion people jump up to assume that it’s judging…but it isn’t.

If a guy doesn’t really see himself getting married or wanting to commit, that’s absolutely fine! We can be friends. No need to date. Note that we will be friends with some distance (meaning we won’t hang out or talk all the time) if one of us has feelings or a crush on the other. No need to have any unhealthy emotional attachments/ties to each other. Why am I dating you if “you’re not sure if you want a relationship or to get married down the line” #boybye. There’s a chance the guy might turn around but there’s a chance that he might NOT. No thanks.

There has to be boundaries for me, especially to make sure that dating you is not going to cause me to sin by lusting after him or sleeping with him before marriage. So:

1) I will not see or speak to you after certain hours of the night.  This is because freaky conversations/language tends to come out after certain hours of the night. Yall know what I’m talking about, lol. I know myself so I’m not even going to open that gate for that to happen so after certain hours, we will not be talking or seeing each other.

2) There will be no premarital sex….it’s in the Bible so that’s pretty much self explanatory lol. Nada! During sex, there is something released in your body that attaches you to the person that you are sleeping with…for life. If we’re not married and aren’t spending the rest of our lives together, I don’t need to be attached to you forever. Now some have said that sex before marriage is about trying the other person out before the marriage to see if you are sexually compatible. What if the wedding night is awful and you can’t do anything about it because you are already married? My thoughts? Sex is as much of an emotional act as it is a physical act if not more. Most of the times when we’re having pre marital sex it’s about being physical because we’re lusting after one another…let’s be real. Sex on the wedding night will combine these two in the covenant that God INTENDED for it to be. God knows the desire of your heart and after waiting all that time that wedding night is going to be explosive!

3)A part of me desires not to be kissed until my wedding day. I like the idea. People usually say “what century do you think you’re in?”. I know, I know, but yes I’m serious. Kissing is meant to be and IS foreplay to sex. If we’re not having pre marital sex why would I want to stir up that feeling in my body, tease myself AND the guy (I heard blue balls isn’t a pleasant experience) just to not do anything. I also don’t want to risk going too far in the heat of the moment. To be completely honest, another part of me still does want to be able to show my boo some affection in that way. So…honestly…I’m still thinking about this aspect.

4) We will not live together when things get serious. This ties in with the above comments. I don’t need to see your sexy body in the shower that will tempt me to want to kiss you and eventually sleep with you.

I’ve also started to write down what I want in a husband (I would recommend that you do this also. Heather Lindsey has some awesome questions to ask yourself and person you are dating on her blog www.heatherllindsey.blogspot.com titled “Before you say I Do”). I have 3 categories “don’t want”, “want-negotiable”, and “want- non negotiable”. For example qualities that I would like for my husband to have but I could live without if he didn’t would go in my negotiable list and things like being a Christian would go in my non negotiable list because that’s something that I will not compromise on. I of course take these things to God and He’ll check me on certain things if I’m being unreasonable lol. This makes it clear to me what I want and don’t want which is something that was never clear to me before. It makes it easier for me make a decision on whether or not I will go on a date or continue to date someone and makes everything intentional. If I had done this in college…oh the heartache I would have spared myself.

So that’s how I’m steering my dating life. If others aren’t doing the same thing I don’t stare my nose down at them. An individual will be an individual and each person is allowed to have their preference. Am I worried that my “old fashion thoughts” are not realistic for today? To be honest…sometimes. But I try not to worry because God doesn’t give us a spirit of worrying or fear. He knows the desire of my heart and so I trust that He has made a man out there who is in agreement with the way that I would like to be treated and will adhere to it. A man like that definitely deserves my heart FOREVER and my hand in marriage ;)

xoxo

Tasha