Monday, January 26, 2009

Reflections on dating/marriage

The first person I seriously dated was "safe"--it took him four months to kiss me goodnight, and that was only because I made him (it was New Year's Eve). I knew I had bad habits with guys, and was trying to figure out how to stop.

The second person I seriously dated was "perfect"--going to be a doctor, good looking, from a good family...but I've met puddles deeper than him. For the first three years of college, we'd start dating at the end of spring, then we'd go far apart for the summer. It was God's way of keeping what looked on paper to be "perfect" from happening.

The third person I seriously dated was "my dad". Similar job interests, similar personality...but with some attraction. I think a lot of women (especially if they had healthier relationships with their fathers) go through this.

The fourth person I seriously "dated" (though we never "dated", we said we were "just friends", but that wasn't the depth of what happened) was me...but better. The problem was we had the same faults. So instead of complimenting each other, we amplified each other...sometimes leading to disasterous consequences (like him leaving grad school and both of us messing up almost all of our friendships.)

The last person I seriously dated was very different from me. At first I didn't even really like him. But what I discovered is that we complimented each other. Those differences were the iron sharpening iron, that we needed those differences to both grow and be able to do what God has called us to do.

Dating is HARD. It would be so nice if God would just give us a big neon sign saying "Marry this one". I think he doesn't so that we can learn and grow...and depend on him.