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[Q&A – Dating] Can a guy be persistent but not annoying?

The Q: “How does a guy be persistent without being annoying? Possible?”

The A: Short version: Totally.

Long version: Persistence is pursuit despite difficulty. Dedication in the face of opposition. Most relationships require some of it. Some relationships require more of it than others. In dating, persistence isn’t necessarily bad if what’s “opposed” to your pursuit is, say, time or money or distance. It is bad, however, if what’s opposed to it is the person you’re trying to date.

Ultimately, only she – the woman with whom you’re persistent – can discern the difference between persistent and annoying. This is because for most of us, you’re “persistent” if we like you and “annoying” if we don’t. But for some women, “persistent” and “annoying” are synonymous.

There is only one way to find out.

In the process, we learn a lot about each other. What we do and don’t want in spouses. We discern what all of us must:

Whether getting together makes sense. Whether we’ll make good spouses and parents. Whether the world needs a kid who could turn into one of us. Whether the pursuit, establishment, and maintenance of this contributes to the greater glory of God.

And regarding a guy who pursues a woman despite difficulty, she must discern whether his pursuit is persistent or annoying.

If you like her…

let her.

#WorthIt. 🙂

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This post is part of an occasional series called Q&A. Click here to read all the posts from it.

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On dating the wrong person, and the right one.

Big thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Edmund Mitchell for sharing the below vid with me today via Twitter. It’s a poetic performance by poet Janette-icks, and if you’re single, ever dated somebody who wasn’t the one, worry you’re growing too old to meet the one (or have friends or family who do that for you), this is for you.

Excerpts:

On dating the wrong person:

“He had a form of godliness, but not much. But hey, I can change him, I mean he’s close… enough.”

“…arteries so clogged with my will it blocked His will from flowing through me.”

“…he didn’t even sound or shine like your Son.”

On waiting for the right one: 

“I will no longer date socialize or communicate with carbon copies of you to quench my thirst and desire for attention and short lived compliments from sorta kindas. You know, he’s sorta kind right, but sorta kinda wrong… his first name Luke, his last name Warm…”

“I will no longer get weighted down from so called friend and family talks about their concern for my biological clock when I serve the Author of Time…”

Watch below!

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Sex! And other stuff. | 03.25.13

This post is part of the Sex! And other stuff. series. Click here for more information.

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Love and Responsibility: I am VERY excited to report an advanced copy of Pauline Books and Media‘s new translation of my favorite book arrived last week. Love and Responsibility is a brilliant book written by Pope John Paul II before he was pope. Anybody who ever intends to get married ought to read it. The publisher releases the book for real in April. I’ll try, try, try to read it all before it’s released. Might not happen. But since my hunch is I am gonna love it, click here to pre-order your own copy.

Sex outside marriage v. sex inside marriage: Fellow blogger Jamie the Very Worst Missionary wrote a fabulous post in favor of loving instead of shaming the people who haven’t saved sex for marriage. Best part of the post, though, is this: “Sex matters. It’s the most vulnerable thing you’ll ever do with another human being. Commitment breeds intimacy, and intimacy is what makes sex freaking amazing. I’m not gonna lie, you can have hot sex outside of a committed relationship – but mostly it’s gonna be like… clumsy… and goopy… and ew. The better you know your partner, the better your sex will be. So basically what I’m saying is that wedding night sex is kinda “Meh.”, and five years sex is all “Yes!”, but 18 years sex is like “WOAH!!!” So go ahead and wait. Wait and enjoy the waiting, and then bask in all those learning experiences with your most trusted friend.” Click here to read the whole post.

 Virginity in Tampa: Stumbled upon a story in The Oracle, my university’s student paper (for which I worked for a year while I was an undergrad!). First line says this:  “A recent survey has found that women are choosing to lose their virginity later in life.” By later in life, The Oracle means age 20. Sigh. The study it cites surveyed 77,000+ women, including 4000+ in Tampa. “While a study from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University says the average age women lose their virginity is 17,” the story says, “Tampa women say the ideal age to lose it is 20.” Click here to read the story.

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“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”

A version of this post originally appeared on the blog in 2010.

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Have you ever been on an “I’m not sure if this is a” date?

We are probably usually far more sure than we say we are. But we deny we are sure so if we learn one of us doesn’t want to date the other, it doesn’t sting.

Imagine you’re a college kid. You show up first, slip into Starbucks, and slink into a big, black velvet chair. You (usually pretend to) read (who can focus at a time like this?). You try not to look at the door. And you think.

Do I buy my drink?

Do I wait to let him pay?

Does he want to pay?

Is this a date?

If only he’d been explicit.

“Can I take you out on Friday?” instead of “Want to grab coffee on Friday?” Is that so hard?

He shows up. You smile. He’s nervous.

So it is a date.

You walk to the counter. You ask for tea. He asks for coffee.

“Together, or separate?”

He looks at you.

Brother, this ball was made for your court. But he has assumed the choice is yours. Shoot! You panic.

“Separate!” you say. Did you really have any other viable option? If you had said “together,” he’d think you think you’re on a date. And that’s the last thing you want him to think you’re thinking if you don’t know whether he’s thinking it, too.

You both pull out your wallets. So it’s not a date. He smiles. Did he smile because he’s relieved? Is he offended and the smile was fake? You assume he’s happy to be out with a friend.

You assume.

And “assumptions are the termites of relationships.” (Henry Winkler)

But it doesn’t just happen among college kids on awkward first dates. This is at work and at church and in grad school. It’s in public places and on the road and at parties. It’s in marriages and families and circles of friends.

Imagine a world where we could be bolder.

Where we could communicate when we once were too afraid to do it.

To ask what someone’s intentions are (instead of guessing). To share our true feelings (instead of stifling them). To reject ambiguity (instead of using it as a preemptive defense against rejection). To explicitly identify our needs (instead of waiting for the people who can meet them to read our minds).

We assume and we act on that (which is code for “we do what presents the smallest risk.”).

But our avoidance of risk is what makes taking risks unbearable.

Our caution in effort to avoid the sting of rejection enables us not to try.

Perhaps we are too cautious.

Perhaps what we fear only stings so much because we’ve been too cautious for too long.

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Is attraction enough?

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Once, I sipped a water in a cruise ship bar and made eyes with a cruise ship drummer.

A good looking cruise ship drummer.

Who wasn’t wearing a wedding band.

Whose eyes’ contact with mine resulted in warm and fuzzy feelings.

This, I think, is the coveted “love” at first sight (which, to clarify, isn’t actually love).

It is instantaneous, inexplicable attraction. It is why when I met the cruise ship drummer after his set, I didn’t care that he hardly could speak English. It is why I wasn’t embarrassed by my embarrassing opener: “I don’t speak Spanish.” Not much matters except for attraction when we think the existence of attraction is enough.

But attraction alone doesn’t matter much. It is neither warm feelings nor fuzzy ones that deem the pursuit of a relationship necessarily advisable. Which is why I am mildly alarmed by the frequency with which relationships are pursued based solely on warm and fuzzy feelings.

This is when we are self-focused daters. When we want what we want because it feels good, not because it is good. When we date someone because we are attracted to him or her.

This is not to say we should date people to whom we are not attracted. (Awkward!) It is to say that attraction is not enough (especially if it’s inexplicable).

It is never enough.

The outcomes of self-focused dating vary. Maybe you get lucky and wind up with somebody good. Maybe you fight to sustain or revive an irrational relationship. Maybe you marry a person who, outside the attraction, you don’t even like.

But I can’t even tell you how much this hurts my heart.

My hunch is, in a culture as distracted as ours, most of us are satisfied when looking at, being near, talking to, or sleeping with him or her feels good.

Which is why few people probably stop to consider the magnitude of the self-focused pursuit and maintenance of relationships; to consider what it means that we are more concerned with how good somebody makes us feel than with whether he or she is mature enough to be a spouse.

Than with whether we become better or worse people by being with each other.

Than with whether he or she would be a good parent.

Than with whether we are being fair to our future kids when our future kids will grow up and turn into one of us.

My attraction to you and yours to me doesn’t render us prepared to be spouses or parents. My attraction to you and yours to me is necessary but insufficient for a functional relationship.

“But it feels good.”

But “it feels good” isn’t enough.