Don't Date Til You're Married!

When I was in seventh grade, my mom had a pretty clear rule about dating, "Don't."  When my brother and I asked about it again a year later, her answer changed, "You can date, once you're married."  Now do not be confused, my mom was not advocating any sort of extra-marital dating. My parents have a great relationship and my family is as conservative as they come (not super conservative, but decently).  When I was sixteen, there was a girl who was pretty openly attracted to me.  We got as close to dating as any kid, embedded in a fairly conservative, evangelical, anti-dating culture, could get.  We would talk on the phone at night.  Sometimes we would talk about music (that wasn't played on the local Christian music station).  I'll be honest, it was a scandalous tryst.   As this "Nothing-Close-To-A-Semblance-Of-A-Relationship" was developing, my mom decided that it was time my parents stepped in and educated me about dating.

My dad sat me down at our kitchen table, telling me that mom said it was time for him to talk to me about dating.  He had two of his year books with him, one from high school and one from college.  He proceeded to pour through his year books showing me every girl he dating during these stages in his life.  This lasted about five minutes, until my mom stepped in, shut his year books, handed me a copy of I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris, and pulled my dad away from the table to start chastising him for his unsanctioned teaching methods.  This sort of sums up my education on dating, as influenced by the previously mentioned sub-culture I was raised in.  Our community had a few dads whose pro-dating (even some pro-casual dating) voices were periodically silenced, while the pro-courtship voices bellowed over the hum of the confused conservative adolescents timidly navigating their romantic identities through uninformed, sexually-suppressed, pseudo-conversations about their perceived roads to marriage.

Today I am 22 years old, living in Southern California.  I spent the last four years at one of North America's top Christian Liberal Arts schools.  While my college community would not have been characterized as hyper-conservative, Joshua-Harris-loving, future-home-school-student-breeding-ground, it had its fair share of ideological peculiarities when it came to dating.  Like most evangelical institutions, we had speakers stand in front of us and tell us that singleness is a great time to prepare for marriage, and otherwise diminish any sort of role singles play in the Church.  Due to the nature of the small student population, everyone knew who everyone was dating.  In fact, everyone knew who everyone went on one date with...just that one time.  Everyone knew whoever everyone talked about dating...even just once.  Everyone even knew who everyone thought about having a crush on...even if it was just once!  Although it was quite the pressurized environment, people did date.  As senior year approached it became clear that there seemed to be a systemically mandated choice for couples, between two options: get married or break up.  While many couples chose the path of marriage, quite a took the alternative route.  Six of the guys I lived with, senior year ended their romantic relationships, three within the same week.  Yes, I was one of the six...and one of the three.  Thus, I managed to make it out of college unattached.

I am at a crossroads.  My life is transitioning out of college and the college community and into the world of the young professional.  And my dating life is just finishing up the third grade.  This new found life station, raises some interesting questions for me.  Where do I meet girls? Has my dating education adequately prepared me for dating in this stage in life?  What are the intricacies of dating in a Christian subculture as opposed to a "secular" culture?  Why am I still single? Will I always be single?  Will I ever not want to be single?  How do I live as a fully functioning, single, contributing member of a healthy faith community?  Is there a way to glorify God while dating, yet not be trapped by the confines of uninformed, culturally insensitive, patriarchal, social script following, conservative-Utopian dating ideologies/models?  Will singles ever be accepted as necessary members of the Body of Christ?

By no means do I commit to answering any of these questions.  However, I will commit to asking them.  No this lack of commitment does not prove any sort of irrational fear of commitment on my part!

Love (in the communal/phileo sense of the word),
Corban Redding