Should We Follow “Dating Tips”?

When I started this blog the other day, I wondered how many other blogs were out there on Christian dating.  I did a quick Google search, and saw that they were quite a lot.  I didn’t have time to go checking bunches of them, so I clicked on one.  It was written by a guy.  The first entry was pretty good. It talked about what mindset a dating Christian should pursue.  I completely agreed with him when he said that Christians shouldn’t date anyone whom they knew ahead of time could not be a forever match for them.  There is so much potential for train wreck there, why would you even do it?  Someone will end up getting hurt and disappointed. 

That is not saying that a person should start planning their wedding theme when they go out to dinner with a person, it is simply saying that one should not cross a busy street when the light is red.  They should wait until it’s green.  Date someone that you have something in common with. 

If you think tobacco reeks, don’t date a smoker.  If you are a neat-freak, O.C.D. person, you probably want to consider the matter very carefully before you date a person with A.D.D. to whom tidiness is an afterthought. (Ehhh…yeeessss, that would be me….the nightmare of any man with O.C.D.)  The story behind that is, I once tried dating a fellow with O.C.D., but his maturity level left a little to be desired.  He ended up furious with me, because he believed that the things I forgot to do, or the times my attention wandered uncontrollably, or the things I forgot to clean up were deliberately plotted out by me just to aggravate him.  That relationship went down like a jet-liner hitting cement head on…..in a burst of flames.  

That is not to say dating your opposite won't work, but it will take work to make it work.  Yes, opposites strongly attract, and the chemistry is usually explosive.  When BOTH persons are emotionally mature, relationships of opposites can often work out very well, with each person playing up the others’ strengths and playing down their weakness.  However, you have to ask yourself if you are MATURE enough to handle a relationship with your opposite, or will you be upset with them and begin wishing they would change when they don’t do things the way you would?  If you don't have the maturity to accept those quirks which will be foreign to you, don’t even date them, chemistry be hanged.

I went on a date with a Christian man, very nice, very personable, but who was an incessant yakker.  I like to talk, but I believe in giving another person the chance to speak too.  By the end of the evening, my brain was about to explode, I was exhausted, I wanted to wring his neck, and I knew that I would never be able to tolerate a second date.  Yes; I should have gone out with him to explore the possibility, because he was a devout Christian of good character, with a similar background and high values.  But a date with him brought out the fact that we’d never suit.  However, when the guy battling a drinking problem whose divorce wasn’t even final from his third marriage asked me for a date, I gave him an unequivocal NO.

When I read this fellow’s second blog (called DATING TIPS, by the way), my eyebrows shot up to my hairline.  His advice to a man was to NOT bring flowers or gifts on a second date, if you wanted a third and more dates thereafter, because most women wouldn’t really appreciate a gift. Deep down, a gift or flowers made the man appear too eager, and would engender the woman's inner contempt.  He also said that if women wanted gifts from men, they were probably mercenary, and you, as a guy, wouldn’t want a mercenary woman anyway.

SAY WHAT???  I had to disagree (and you know I SAID SO). If a man shows up at my door on a second date with a 4 foot teddy bear, or a $85 bouquet of star lilies and roses, yes, I will probably freak, and I might think he has potential to be a weird stalker.  However, if he shows up with a $5 bouquet of sunflowers and fern wrapped in cellophane from Tom Thumb, I will be impressed, and I will think “How sweet and thoughtful!”  And no, I am NOT mercenary.

Another thing he said was that if you were really interested in dating the woman, you should wait for 5 to 9 days to call her after your date.  This would allow her interest in you to have time to build, like money in the bank builds interest, and she would wonder about you, wonder if you liked her, wonder if you planned to ask her out again, wonder if you’d found someone you liked better.  When you finally did call, if she’d liked you, she’d be ecstatic and thrilled to go out with you.  He also said that you shouldn’t ask her out for a weekend date until after several dates. You'd only date her on weeknights, in order to build up her anticipation for a weekend date night with you.

SAY WHAT???  Again, I had to disagree.  If, after our first date, a man waits 5 days to call me, I won't be very happy.  If he waits for 5 days to call me, I start thinking that he must not have been very impressed by me after all, so I won't be very excited to go out with him.  I'm a woman who wants to be wanted, and to unequivocally know I'm wanted. Most women I know feel the same way.  Who cares to waste time on a ho-hum date, certainly not me. Maybe the date wouldn't be ho-hum, but if he waited 5 days to call me, I'd believe it would be.  I’m also going to wonder if he asked someone else besides me first.  If there is one thing I hate, it’s being second best, or taken for granted.  If he waits 9 WHOLE DAYS to call me, I will probably decline his offer and hang up.  My thought process would tell me that he had called 4 or 5 other women, and they’d said NO. He finally got to me, his 7 th  or 8 th choice.  If I am that far down on his list, he’s a huge waste of my time!!  Also, I am busy during the week, I really don’t want to do much besides have a quick cup of coffee--decaf.  If he is not asking me out on the weekend, yet he still wants to date on weekdays, I will believe he is dating some other girl he likes better on the weekend, and keeping me hidden out for a Tuesday night so no one will see us together.  That is not happening, Mister!

Then, he went on to say that it always works better for the man if women think they have to “box other women out of the ring to get you, that is just how women are”.  I really wondered what sort of women he was hanging out with -- but giving it some thought, I probably know. Judging by the ridiculous behavior I often see, it was likely the typical Christian singles group crowd of women he was hanging around. He said that women want to have the man that every other woman wants, so if they think they are competing with other women to get you, you’ll seem much more desirable to them.

SAY WHAT???  Again, I had to STRONGLY disagree.  If a man wants to date me, and he appears to have several other women chasing him, and especially if he appears to be greatly enjoying it, this woman will spin on her heel and walk away as she sings out to his bevy of twittering admirers “Have at him, girls, y'all enjoy yourselves!!!!”  I find competition ridiculous, as do most mature, self-respecting women. God wired men to be the hunters, not women.  In my opinion, a man who won't hunt is an anomaly, and a woman who does hunt is a predator.  I know that will make me sound terribly old fashioned and fuddy-duddy, but so be it.  It is what it is.

I find women who voraciously HUNT and who frequently “knock other women out of the ring"  very ”unladylike".  I once had a friend who was a ravenous piranha when it came to men.   She flirted like mad with every man she met, married or single.  She was also extremely competitive and jealous  when it came to other women. She’d shoot a good friend down in flames with no qualms whatsoever to draw the attention of a man in their vicinity. She'd often walk up and hijack a girl friend's conversation with a man, literally giving her friend no choice but to walk away and surrender the entire conversation to her.  I was shot down in flames by her so many times, two years later, there is still smoke rising off my back from her shenanigans. I could write an entire book on just the abuse she heaped on my head alone. 

God forbid, I do not ever want to be such a woman. If my refusal to compete renders me dateless, so be it.  Let the female piranhas compete and squabble over the men!!

All of this is to say that everyone out there has their own opinion on what works and what doesn’t in the dating world.  After reading his last blog entry on DATING TIPS, I did not read any more of that man’s blog, I found it too nonsensical to spend further time on.  It sounded to me like premeditated GAME PLAYING -- games of cat and mouse.  I am not saying those sorts of games are evil or wrong. Some daters find them highly entertaining and stimulating.  I just don't  happen to be one of those people.  I simply don’t have the time and the energy for such baloney, and neither do most other self respecting, mature people.  That behavior is not something I, as a Christian, would engage in.

There is nothing wrong with reading books and blogs on dating tips.  If you are an ignoramus, you’ll probably learn some new tricks.  If you are an intelligent woman, you might decide to hide your brain under a bushel so as not to intimidate anyone for the first few dates. There is a statistic out there somewhere that says for every 10 points over 100 that a woman's IQ goes, her chances of dating DECREASE by 60 percent--per 10 points!!!  (I won't share with you what my IQ is, let that remain a mystery between us.)   If you are a man who likes giving gifts, you’ll probably keep that habit under wraps for awhile too, especially if you read the same blog I did.

In a NUTSHELL,  APPLY COMMON SENSE to dating.  All of these dating tips were written by people, from the perspective of their own personal experiences and their own preferences.  This includes mine.  Thus, the reader’s personality and preferences will likely be different than those espoused by the author.  Pick and choose what works for you personally from all these tips abounding in the library and on the internet.  Try not to get crazy and stupid.  People tend to get uncomfortable with crazy.  But above all, BE REAL, don't employ tricks and games.  Because, what’s the benefit of the exercise if you get 4 or 5 dates by pretending to be someone or something you are not?  Eventually the real you will emerge, and if you had to hide that real you to be accepted, that leaves you in a bit of a quandary, does it not???? Do you remain indefinitely in hiding, or let your real self emerge and possibly run the person off?

Also, apply the Golden Rule.  You will hear this theme repeated over and over in my blogs, because many people I encounter in the Christian dating scene don't do it. Apply the Golden Rule.  Do NOT treat someone like you would NOT want you or one of your children, or your sister, or your parent to be treated if they were dating.  You wouldn’t want someone playing a game on your little sister or your daughter?  Then, don’t you play a game on someone!  And remember, God sees all you do, and one day you will be required to give an account.  What would you do, if God said, on Judgment Day “HEY, um, you strutting around over there like you are something special, what are all those SCALPS I see hanging on that wall behind you?  What’s up with that?”

If you don’t get what I mean by scalp collecting, that will certainly be addressed in another blog, on another day.  Probably at length. Scalp collecting is something I find to be extremely contemptible.  It has no place in Christian dating, but church singles groups are generally full of people who do it.  This is especially true if the church singles group leader believes his singles group is an "airport terminal where people come and go", and he does not find it important to shepherd his flock.   If a Christian is scalp collecting, then I hesitate call them a true Christian.

Meanwhile ….. if you’ve gone on a date with somebody you liked recently, go ahead and call them up.  I don’t recommend you wait for 9 STINKIN’ DAYS !!  I talked with my girlfriends, and they agree with me.  So, there you go.  The vote has been cast.  Call them the next day.  Mature women have little patience with silent phones.  Silent phones make them feel like they are being played.  Unless they are desperate, feeling played is the quickest way to get them to completely loose interest.  Until next time….. be blessed my friends!