Earlier this week, I posted the first part of a follow-up conversation with my friend Brad about his podcast on internet dating. Here is the rest of our interview, which sort of accidentally ended up centering around three dating hurdles that Christian singles face, and some thoughts on overcoming them:
Happy: I’m not sure from my notes if this is an exact quote or not, but you said, “we’re social beings – if you really love people for who they are, and give them dignity by that, everything would be so much different.” And I think that’s spot on. We are social beings, and sometimes as singles in the church, there can be an isolation that happens – not even always intentionally – because the church in America is very family-oriented. How do you think the church could give more dignity to singles?
Brad: The biggest hurdle for singles in the church is that church culture idealizes marriage as the end-all, be-all in life, but it’s not. It’s completely OK to be single and likewise for the married folks. Paul wasn’t married and he did more things for the advancement of the Gospel than most of us will ever dream about. But this is just telling of church culture playing along with human instinct: we love to categorize people and put them in neat little boxes so that we know how to interact with them.
It’s just like online dating – there are tons of “categories” you can choose from to select a mate. Race, height, weight, beliefs, education, income, hair color, lifestyle habits, location, etc. Singles are nothing more than a category to the church, the same way married/families are to single people, right?
I think the best thing we can do is drop all the categories and realize that we’re all brothers and sisters of Jesus. There no longer are these “things” that should separate us from each other, but I think the church is really good at “separating” things or itself from the world around it…definitely a rant for another time! 🙂
Happy: In your podcast, you said something as an aside about being a workaholic. Do you think that’s typical for older singles, and is it healthy? How do you balance your work/personal life?
Brad: I love this question. The workaholic thing is far more prevalent in older singles. I can speak from my own experience as a 39-year old guy. I almost always work more than 40 hours a week. I am in a high-performing division of my company, so it’s kind of an unspoken thing. I’ve often wondered if I would modify that habit if the right girl came along. Sadly, she hasn’t, so I haven’t had to test that situation yet. LOL!
In terms of work/life balance, I try to not do a whole lot in the evenings, as it can make it harder to get up early the next morning, so I try to book most of my social life on the weekends, with only a couple of select evenings. To help with midweek meet-ups, I usually just grab coffee with folks so that it doesn’t go much longer than a few hours.
In short, I would definitely make time for a significant other if I had one. 🙂
photo courtesy of ©Depositphotos.com / bst2012
Happy: One of my favorite quotes from your podcast was in the midst of a mini-rant about the societal expectation that men should approach women to ask them out, and not the other way around. “Why can’t there just be for once a two-way street of communication?!”
Yes, why not? In any truly healthy relationship, including marriage, both people should have a say about the way things are going. If we ultimately want to end up in a healthy marriage, our dating habits now need to be healthy, too. It seems to me that establishing healthy communication patterns as well as practicing authenticity and appropriate vulnerability now in all our relationships (friendships, dating, etc.) will only lay the ground work for a healthy marriage (as well as resulting in a lot of happy and healthy friendships along the way).
What would your advice be to men who wish the women they like would be more confident about speaking up? And how would you advise women who wish they could but aren’t sure they should?
Brad: I would say that this is one of the most annoying issues in the dating world for me, and before I answer that, I’d like to share what I think is the best answer about who should initiate. This is from Joy Eggerichs of Love & Respect Now, as she and her father were interviewed by Relevant magazine… (Joy is also my biggest crush and I want to marry her…WHAT?! I’d be happy with just a date; anywho, I’m on a tangent.) Here’s what Joy said:
“I think it really depends on the person. Sometimes in this whole “men are to be the pursuer” mentality we have, we sometimes abdicate giving off anything that says we’re available or open. We have this mentality that we can just sit at home and knit, then somehow our prince charming is just going to show up at our door.
Then ultimately, are you fostering the type of relationship you want in marriage? If you’re a woman who is the pursuer, the planner and then somehow think that after your wedding day, your husband is going to start planning dates, it’s just not going to happen. Ultimately, you’re free to do whatever you want, but how you date is pretty much going to be how the relationship ends up.”
But, my advice to men would be this: In order to have a relationship with anyone that puts communication first, which is super important, you need to just lay that out there. You also need to be mature, as I think both parties do. We get hyper-sensitive about everything and never give the other person enough room to express themselves because they might hurt us.
Well, guess what? In any kind of relationship, both parties have the option to accept, or reject the other person. So, early on, just be open, be honest, and let the other person know that you’re a safe person to be really honest with. Culturally, I feel like we keep becoming more and more immature because the internet allows us to be passive-aggressive, it causes us to be super-emotional, and we just don’t know how to act normal around one another.
Happy: True story. And as we discussed earlier this week, we can all take steps towards reclaiming the art of communication, by speaking truth with openness, honesty, and appropriate vulnerability, which is part of my goal in hosting this series on singleness and the church here at Simple Felicity! Thanks so much for being a part of these conversations, Brad!
© 2015 Brad Gross
A data analyst by trade with a Humanities degree (not sure how that works? no one else does either!), Brad Gross writes for chasethesunrise.com where he blogs about all things life. Whether it’s music, movies, Jesus, culture, technology; whatever you’re looking for, he’s probably blogged about it. He also writes for and co-hosts the Outsiders Podcast with his lifelong friend, Scott Matkovich. They write & talk about all things church-culture, and have a lot of fun doing it.
Brad would never want to live in a world without music, and has 12 nieces and nephews whom he loves very, very much. His mission in life is to to increase the quality of life for those around him through hugs, humor, and compassion. He believes that Jesus has given us all of His power and if we’re willing to step out into the world around us and RELEASE that power and speak His truth over others, people will experience real breakthrough and the love of The Father.
