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How to have fun flyin’ solo at a wedding.

The stack of save-the-dates and wedding invitations that covered a corner of my desk at home has begun to turn into the inevitable: actual weddings. Last night, I watched while a friend of 13 years exchanged vows with the man who became her husband. I walked afterward to the hall where we would celebrate.

But — unlike most of the rest of the guests — I walked alone into the hall. Where couples would dance and dream of or remember their own weddings. Where husbands would return to the buffet for seconds for their wives. And where I, regardless of having no date with whom to enjoy it, would have the best time.

It is natural as a single adult to be bummed about being alone at a wedding (particularly if you’re a single adult who intends someday to get married). But it’s entirely possible to have fun flyin’ solo at a reception. Here are a few ways to do it:

1. Live tweet it.

Like this:

Continue reading “How to have fun flyin’ solo at a wedding.”

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What a first kiss can tell you.

[callout]This is a guest post written by Wendy van Eyck, who blogs at ilovedevotionals.com.[/callout]

blog profileMy first kiss happened in the rain.

We were standing in a forest with 100-year old pines spreading a canopy over our heads. Water dripped from the branches onto my pink umbrella as I lent in to taste his lips.

Thirty of our friends and family stood beneath their own umbrellas, unaware that this was our first kiss. The pastor said, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

At 27, I had waited a long time for that first kiss. I had wondered what it would be like, what it would tell me about the man I had just married.

Over the years I had flipped through magazines and seen articles like “5 things you can learn from a first kiss (and one you can’t)” and “Kissing can tell you if someone is right for you.”

It seemed like so much value was placed on this first locking of lips.

So what did my first kiss tell me?

It told me a lot less then the magazines led me to expect. Continue reading “What a first kiss can tell you.”

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Q and A: How soon do you tell your date you’re saving sex for marriage?

The Q: “With our society as it is today and everyone expecting sex outside of marriage, how (or how soon) do you let somebody you’ve started seeing know that you practice chastity (and that therefore, you abstain from nonmarital sex)? -a reader

The A: How I tell a guy I’m saving sex has varied, and — let’s face it — Google usually beats me to it. But if an interested guy hasn’t Googled me, that I’m saving sex inevitably comes up when he learns that I’m a writer and asks about what I write. How I disclose that I practice chastity, however, has more flexibility than when I do it.

When do I disclose it? Immediately! Here’s why: Continue reading “Q and A: How soon do you tell your date you’re saving sex for marriage?”

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The virginity pledge that ‘nearly destroyed’ Samantha Pugsley.

In an essay called “My Christian virginity pledge nearly destroyed me”, which published on XOJane and Salon earlier this month, Samantha Pugsley vilified the pledge she signed in childhood at church. With it, she had vowed at 10 years old — while she still thought boys were icky — to maintain her virginity until marriage. And she did.

But “there was no chorus of angels, no shining light from Heaven” when on her wedding night, she finally had sex. Instead, she cried in the bathroom afterward. She dreaded sex for the first couple years of her marriage, she wrote, but obliged when her husband — who had no idea she dreaded it — initiated. When she worked up the courage to express her struggle to him, he was horrified to learn that she had “let him touch (her) when (she) didn’t want him to.” He suggested she see a therapist, and she did. That “was the first step on a long journey to healing.”

Pugsley’s widely circulated story has raised concern in some readers, who wonder now whether saving sex for marriage is a bad idea. It has “confirmed” for other readers their belief that what Christianity says about sex harms the people who hear it. But what Pugsley wrote — and what others who grew up in churches like hers have written — has not acknowledged a paramount truth:

What her church taught her about sex is not what churches are supposed to teach about sex, because what her church taught her doesn’t align with Christianity. Continue reading “The virginity pledge that ‘nearly destroyed’ Samantha Pugsley.”

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3 Ways To Be Part of the ‘Chastity is For Lovers’ Book Launch

0-59471-480-0Is 108 days in advance too soon to start a countdown? Because in 108 days, on Nov. 28, my debut book — Chastity is For Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin — will ship to the people who preordered it, and will be on sale for real for the people who didn’t.

I am moved each time I remember it’s really happening.

Since I first announced that Ave Maria Press would let me turn my proposal into a book, regular readers have been gracious to support me, by praying while I wrote, and participating in surveys, and practicing patience while I tweeted too much about the critical role pretzels play in the writing process.

I am sincerely grateful.

I turned the book in for the final time on June 12, and while we wait for it to hit shelves, a handful of fabulous friends have asked how else to help. If you are interested, too, here are three ways: Continue reading “3 Ways To Be Part of the ‘Chastity is For Lovers’ Book Launch”