E-Indeed: The Blog

I came across an excellent post today over at Top of the Mountains, regarding a book I read several years ago which really changed my perspective on dating. Josh Harris, now a preacher at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, wrote a book in the late 90’s called “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” which was basically his manifesto on why he was choosing to not “date” until after he was married. It had some great thoughts in it, and for a long time I was pretty hooked on several of his concepts, particularly his decision that he was not going to kiss anyone until the day he got married. I thought that this made a lot of sense, and still do. The idea of not kissing someone until I am married is an attractive one. There are difficulties in the idea too though.

When I was a senior in High School (man, it seems so long ago), like Ben from Top of the Mountains, I had never kissed anyone. I’m an only child, so dating has always been a bit more difficult. I’m not sure what the reasons were, but I’m pretty sure that not having older siblings to learn from and emulate, as well as no younger siblings to escape, contributed to my general lack of relationship skills. Up until about two years ago, in fact, it was pretty consistently first-dates only, with no second dates. But that’s off the subject for this post.

My senior year, I met a girl in one of my extra-curriculars who had just moved up to my hometown in Minnesota from Louisiana. For years, she would be the exception in my love-life. She made all the moves–I remember when she first showed up at one of our meetings she gave me a big hug when she introduced herself. First off, I was an officer, and we were STRONGLY discouraged from Public Displays of Affection while in uniform. Secondly, as already stated, I had no clue how to behave around girls to begin with. So needless to say, I panicked, pushed her away, all that good stuff. She continued flirting for a number of weeks, but finally gave up. At which point it occurred to me…hmmm, maybe I should ask her out. Well, I wasn’t too late, as it turned out, but a month later we still hadn’t kissed. We were an official couple, etc, etc, but nope, no kiss.

I was just fine with this–As I’ve said already, romance made me nervous. Relationships, communication, fine by me–I enjoyed it. But beyond the hand-holding and talking, I really didn’t want more. Idealism aside, most people can probably guess where this is heading. At this point, about a month into our relationship, we went out to a movie, as we had been doing most weekends. I should note that I still wore baseball hats all the time at this point. Anyways, we got into the theatre, and she proceeded to grab my hat and sit on it. She then announced that I would not get it back until I kissed her to her satisfaction. True Story! Well, after that, I couldn’t claim I hadn’t ever kissed anyone. And, while it lasted, it was great. I think it was during that period that my mother found an article about a kid who had written a book called “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” and showed it to me. I looked at the article briefly, thought “what a horrible idea,” and threw it away.

Fast forward three years. Now I’m at USC, doing my stuff in the band, and frustrated with relationships to no end. I happened to be at a bookstore in the relationship section, which I did frequent for a few years (yes, at one point I DID own “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dating,” I’m sorry to say), and I see the book I had laughed at the idea of several years before. I picked it up out of sheer curiosity and read it. Much to my surprise, I read the whole thing in one sitting. It was THAT good. Aside from appealing to the part of me that was sick of getting hurt, it also made sense. After I read the sequel, “Boy Meets Girl,” I decided that I had finally found something for relationships that made sense to me. I was blown away by the idea of Courtship instead of dating.

The basics are these: “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” was Josh Harris’ Manifesto on why he wasn’t going to date by the world’s standards anymore. “Boy Meets Girl,” written after his marriage, told how he went about things from then on. It’s very unorthodox by today’s standards, but look back even a hundred years and it looks a bit more realistic. Basically, Josh met a girl for lunch that he had gotten to know over several months through his church’s activities, and asked her if she would consider joining him in a relationship to see if they were compatible to be married. Right up front. No subtlety, very direct. Just my style. Or so I thought at the time. Anyway, the book continued from there and described what they went through on the road to their marriage. And yes, they did wait to kiss until their wedding day.

I thought for a long time that I wanted exactly that. I wasn’t worried (and still am not) about what others might say, I thought that the reward would be in the knowledge of what we had waited for. And I proceeded to not date over the course of the next three years, just while I looked for the girl I might decide I was interested in.

Then reality set in, and the cycle began again. A lot had happened since I first read “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” I had been baptized into the LDS Church and joined a Singles Ward. Because I was moving every few months, I had been in several of these. If you’re not familiar with the LDS Church, we are organized into wards, which are very similar to other churches–except that instead of going to the Church where one relates best to the preacher, as a Mormon you go to a ward which is specified by where you live. This has several advantages–by being in a geographical grouping, you get to know people better. Your leaders generally live relatively close to you. It adds another sense of family and common goals to your congregation. Also, most areas have congregations specifically for singles of similar age groups. These can be University Wards (specifically for singles in college), Young Single Adult Wards (singles from 18-31), and Single Adult Wards (singles 32+). Again, you get groups of people with common interests who live geographically close together. It’s a great thing.

I’ve mentioned in an earlier post some of the issues that I have run into as a convert, but generally I have nothing but praise for the way the Church is organized when it comes to finding your congregation. As I understand it, traditionally someone who is raised in the Church will be in their Family Ward until they are 18. At this point, some guys stay in their family ward until they leave for their mission at 19. Girls start attending the singles ward soon after they turn 18, and guys generally go once they return from their mission. Then, once you get married, it’s back to the Family Ward with your new family. Since I got baptized when I was 22, I was told that I needed to be in the local University Ward, which became a singles ward shortly after I graduated from school at 25. So I’m slightly unique, in that I have never been part of a Family Ward. I know that many young people are extremely intimidated when they join a Singles Ward. I was not.

Anyway, I’d been in singles wards for about two and a half years when I broke down, took the Church’s council to heart, and started dating again. It’s a fascinating part of a singles ward–most of the talks and teaching you get are tailored to encourage the membership to be dating. Which isn’t that surprising, given the Church’s focus on the importance of Family. For the several years I’d been involved at this point, I’d consistently been looking for someone who I would be interested in, going to activities, doing service projects, etc. I’d amassed a huge number of female friends as well. However, without fail, about the time that I would decide “maybe she’s the one,” the girl in question would announce that she was engaged. People from Utah or other heavily LDS-populated areas can relate to just how fast that happens sometimes. I’ve seen couples go from first date to engaged in a period of weeks. I wouldn’t say that it’s particularly common, but it does happen surprisingly often. Even more surprising is that in my sphere, most of these couples are still married happily. I could spend an entire post on my thoughts about this phenomenon, but right now, my point is that I found there to be a sense of urgency toward dating, because if you didn’t make a move on someone you liked immediately, the odds were good that they’d be married in a month. So I broke off from my plan, while holding on to the ideal of not kissing anyone again until I was married, and decided to start dating.

I soon discovered, though, that not all was as I expected. Aside from the fact that I hadn’t served a mission getting in my way, as it did all too often, I found that Mormons are a very touchy-feely group. I had noticed this right after I got baptized–I went into Elder’s Quorum (the men’s group, for non-mormons), sat down, and the guy next to me had his arm around my shoulder when he was talking to me. It’s not odd to me now–that’s just how we are, but at first it struck me as an affront to everything I had learned about male society that another male was actually touching me. Of course, nowadays I could probably fill another whole post with the state of society where the only way that completely heterosexual males can ever have physical contact is in a handshake or a punch/tackle/sports-related contact, but it struck me as odd at the time. I then noticed that this whole thing carried over to almost everyone in the church–one of my good (now-married) friends commented to me once that part of the fun of a singles ward was seeing who was scratching who’s back during church (a very Mormon gesture denoting a couple). It was good that guys weren’t scratching guys backs, or I might have been seriously worried, but it’s just a very open environment, and EVERYONE in the ward knows who’s dating who.

This was frightening to me–again, being an only child who hadn’t served a mission, I have a VERY large personal bubble. The three girlfriends I had had in my life to this point had been more of the “we spend our time together in private” variety. From my CAP/ROTC days (which is when I had last dated), I had developed almost a neurosis about Public Displays of Affection. This was another reason why Mr. Harris’ book appealed to me–it could leave the physical parts of a relationship for behind closed doors (in marriage). For me, this extended even as far as hand-holding. It was a source of very real distress for me that most of these girls were so open about their romances, but I thought I could get around it.

The obvious answer, as in everything, is in open and honest communication. However, I found as I went forward that most of the girls I dated didn’t want to talk about the relationship. As one said, “Why does everything have to be defined?” Most girls out there want the relationship to flow. And while most recognize that at some point there will need to be discussions about where the relationship is going, they don’t want that in the early days. The reason is evident–it takes away the feeling of romance early on, and I have yet to meet a girl who doesn’t want to be swept off her feet. The problem is that without those discussions, it’s very difficult to explain why I didn’t want to deal with the physical sides of a relationship before marriage. And in every case, it’s come back to bite me.

Of the several girlfriends that I have had since I joined the church, every one has eventually concluded that I was either not interested or not right for them. One of them (who, interestingly enough, I was with longer than I’ve dated anyone else in my life) asked me after we’d been together for three months if I had ever kissed a girl (we hadn’t). I told her I had, and thought nothing more of it. Typical guy response, I know–I answered the question and called it good. She didn’t say anything more about it until two weeks later, when she announced that she couldn’t wait anymore for me to decide to make a move. I realize now that if I had explained why I hadn’t kissed her when she asked, it might have made a difference, but maybe not. But the point is that there seems to be very little room early on in relationships to have serious discussion about boundaries and personal values, and if it does come up, it tends to be received as an attempt to put restrictions on, or define, the relationship.

I also tried another approach. I stepped back, and decided to try relationships without this restriction. The first one was an absolute disaster–I made a point of all the things I’d learned from my female friends that women want. I was SO uncomfortable that it ruined the whole thing. The second try wasn’t much better–though we did kiss, it was still very awkward when it came to discussion. It felt like the whole relationship was based around the rush of hormones rather than common interests and goals. And because all of the cuddling and kissing was tied into the relationship, I had no way of knowing where it was, so I was back at the beginning.

Oddly enough, Hillary Duff actually has a song that summed up what most girls I know have told me–”If you can’t do the math, then get out of the equation.” Or, more plainly put–if we have to discuss this, it must not be right. It is because of this that I am once again not dating–and have pledged myself to remain single. Will it happen? I don’t know. I do know that this decision flies against what most would say is the right thing to do. Heck, it outright contradicts some of the primary instructions to men my age in my Church. I know it. I’m sure there will be consequences. But in the meanwhile, I know that this is what is right for me.

Josh Harris openly admitted in both of his books that this was not for everyone. It would take open communication, understanding, and a common goal on the part of both the woman and the man for it to work out. I still applaud him for it–I think that it is ideal as a relationship model. However, I don’t know that in our modern climate that it has much chance of success. I know it didn’t work for me, although I’m still not going to compromise on it anymore. I’m just to the point where I realize that for me, the rewards cannot possibly outweigh the aggravation I have to go through.

All that said though, I always like to hear about successes and other peoples thoughts, so post away!