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I’m not sure if this is a date.

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

We probably all are more sure than we say we are, but deny that we’re sure so if we discover that one of us isn’t getting what we want, it doesn’t hurt. It’s one of life’s little dramas. This is how it plays out on a Friday night:

You show up at Starbucks first, slip inside, and slink into a big, black velvet chair in a corner. You pretend to read (who can read at a time like this?). You avoid eye contact with 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 together. You order tea. He asks for coffee.

“Are you together or separate?”

He looks at you. Brother, this ball was made for your court. But he has assumed the decision is yours. Shoot! You panic.

“Separate!” you say. Did you have another, more viable option? If you’d 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 thinks it, too.

You both pull out your wallets. 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.

Don’t we all? And not just during maybe-dates. We do it at work and at church and at school and in grocery stores and at gyms. We do it on the road and at parties, in marriages, in families, and among friends.

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

Do you wish we could be bolder? Do you think we should?

Because if it were socially acceptable to go up to a guy or girl with whom we’d like to spend more time and say, “I like you. Can we explore that?” we’d do it. If we didn’t fear how it feels to be rejected, somebody might be more inclined to say “I’d like to take you out to dinner!” instead of “Let’s hang out!” If social norms didn’t make it so boldness freaks us out, we’d be bold. We’d be honest, with others and with ourselves.

Instead, we are too timid to be bold. We assume and we act on our assumptions. We do, therefore, what presents the smallest risk.

Are we too timid to be bold because we’re avoiding the sting we’ll feel if boldness backfires? Or does that sort of thing only sting so much because we’ve been too timid for too long?

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A version of this post originally appeared on July 22, 2010.

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[Q&A – Dating] How soon do you tell somebody 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 a guy you’ve started seeing know of your chastity and let him know he won’t be getting pre-marital sex from you? Is it something up front? Do you therefore seek out guys that feel the same?” -Jason

The A(‘s): The short answer to the first of Jason’s questions is IMMEDIATELY. Here’s the long one:

How I tell a guy I’m chaste has varied. Google usually beats me to it. But when a guy hasn’t Googled me, I can work it in when he asks about what I write. How I disclose chastity, however, has more flexibility than when I do it.

I am, in fact, a proponent of disclosing chastity up front. I’m for it on the first date or earlier. I’m for this because if a guy can’t handle that I bring up sex so soon, he probably can’t handle dating me. I’m also for this because if one (or both) of us is surprised or disappointed by what the other says about sex, I’d rather it be before we’re so involved we try to make work what inevitably won’t. It’s also a good idea to talk chastity at the start because what a potential mate does with what you divulge during that conversation is important. If he or she resists talking about chastity, he or she probably won’t practice it. If somebody lists incentives of sex before marriage, he or she will list ’em again and again and again, until you break down or break up. If he or she agrees to grin and bear it, you get a version of what you want: to practice chastity. But he or she doesn’t bring to a relationship what a person does who practices chastity, too.

In answer to Jason’s second question, I absolutely seek out guys who share my sentiments. To meet guys who don’t and try to change them isn’t fair, for me or for them. It isn’t my job to turn a guy into one who’d make a good husband, and it’s unreasonable to expect him to forsake his beliefs for mine.

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Q&A is an occasional feature. If you have a Q, I can come up with an A (and if I don’t have an A, I’ll find somebody who does). To submit a question, click here. No topic is taboo (although I can’t promise I will answer every question).

Click here to read all the posts in this series.

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The best parts of being single.

After a breakup once, I hugged my knees on a living room recliner and watched sitcoms through teary eyes.

Another ending.
The hard part that time was not the saying goodbye or the feeling alone. The hard part was accepting how good odds are that – if marriage is my vocation at all – it will take longer than I would like to meet another guy who meets my standards: who loves Jesus, practices chastity, does what he says he’s gonna, acts his age (and not his shoe size).
Caught up in thoughts of how long it’s going to be before we meet other good men or women is a good way to miss the good that surrounds us — to forget the best parts of being single. With the help of readers, I’ve compiled a list of them, a list I’ll read as a reminder should I find myself watching sitcoms through teary eyes again.
The best parts of being single are…

…the nearly uninterrupted pursuits of spiritual, personal, and professional growth; the cultivation of patience, acceptance of what you can’t control, and maturity (all of which are transferable to relationships); and hosting your own personal living room dance parties (just me?).

And according to readers, the best parts of being single are…

…doing whatever I want whenever I want. -Monique

…being free to come and go as I please. -Mary

…saving money. -Caleb

…being able to focus on school and my relationship with God without any distractions. -B-Ran

…being a loner when you feel like it. Also, meeting new people when getting set up. -Greg

…not having to shave every day. -Shawn

…not having to give explanations. -Carlos

…using coupons when you go out to eat. -Abraham

… making your own schedule. -Dan

…going out with the guys. -Anthony

…having opportunities to be spontaneous and travel different places on a whim. -Kelsey

…fulfilling my (current) life purpose effectively. -Discipulae

…having time for God and reflection -John

…the free-ness to serve others, because you have nothing tying you down -Pedro

…the  having no pressure! -Angel

…time to read. Excessively. -Goo

…being able to marathon bad reality TV with no one to judge you! -MCN

…Spontaneity! -Jen

…drinking out of a milk carton. -Mario

…being able to fix myself instead of “fixing” someone else. -Julie

…having the time to help and share my time with others! -Ce

…having the freedom to go on random adventures without having to check someone else’s schedule! -Aimee

…saying yes to the craziest ideas, whether study, travel or just a night out. -Laura

…prioritizing my immediate family. -Julie

…knowing more people on a deeper level. -John

…detachment from worldly and sensible things, more focus on God.? -Jason

…flirting. -Anthony

…not having to put the seat down. -Trish

…sleeping alone. -Michelle

…more time can be devoted to ministry work.? -Nathan

…you still have time to change. -Daniel

…being able to do God’s work. – P Edward

…figuring out who I am. -Marybeth

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What are your best parts of being single?

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Calling the case for early marriage into question: Part 1 of 2.

I crack me up as I car-shop.

I crack me up because I like the coupe but I think the sedan is smarter. This is because my current car has been my car for 10 years, which implies my next car could be my car for 10 years, too.

If it is, I imagine (hope, pray, doubt, depending on the day) I’ll be single when I sign the title and married by the time I trade it in. Which implies I feasibly could have a kid while my next car is my car, and it’s harder to get a kid in and out of a coupe.

This exposes two truths: First, that I think a lot, and second, that I didn’t marry early. I am 27 and single with no obvious prospects. Depending on a person’s school of thought, how old I’ll be before I’m married, if I do marry, is one of the following: a good idea or not as good an idea as early marriage.

Lately – mostly online – I have encountered a couple of people who aren’t in the good idea camp. On the side of proponents of early marriage has been Mark Regnerus, who made a case for early marriage in popular articles in Christianity Today and the Washington Post in 2009.

His point is that marriage is designed to be formative as opposed to an institution into which you enter once you you are “fully formed.” Secondary to that point is this one: “A key developmental institution for men – marriage – is the very thing being postponed, thus perpetuating their adolescence.” Parents of young adults, he implied, encourage their kids to finish school first. Attain financial independence. Grow up, then get married.

In other words, Regnerus said, people – particularly men – mature by being married. To postpone marriage to the part of life post-age 25, then, is to prolong immaturity. If he is right, we create a catch 22; we wait to get married until after we’ve attained what we’re supposed to attain by being married.

But I’m not convinced that’s what we’re actually doing, or that we are disadvantaged by marrying later. Here’s why:

We don’t necessarily choose not to marry young. I am not single at 27 because I decided not to marry young. I’m single at 27 because I didn’t happen to marry young. I, like Regnerus, believe marriage is designed to be formative. But I do not believe we postpone formation by postponing marriage. Marriage is formative, but so are our families of origin, our educations and lines of work, our religious affiliations, circles of friends, communities, and life experiences. Marrying early does not mean marriage alone will form us. Marrying late does not mean we’re not going to grow.

We don’t completely control how mature we are. Rumor at work has it that the latest research says the male brain isn’t done developing until the male turns 29. For females, it’s 24 or 25. Marriage doesn’t make a prefrontal cortex grow faster. Regardless of by what we’re being formed (marriage, school, friends, or all three), if we haven’t hit our mid-to-late 20s, we generally aren’t our best at solving problems, foreseeing consequences, creating strategies, or knowing what to do with intense emotions. It is not impossible for a marriage to last when the wedding happens before the bride’s and groom’s brains are done. But it doesn’t hurt to start a marriage with a fully developed one.

How mature we are before we get married might affect how receptive we are to formation. A proponent of early marriage once told me it’s easier to marry early and establish one life than it is to marry late and merge two established lives. While each is different from the other, both strike me as difficult and formative. Both require us to solve problems, foresee consequences, create strategies, and experience intense emotions. We can do this when we’re young, but we can do it better when we’re older. We also probably expect it when we’re older, more than we do when we’re young, perhaps rendering us more receptive to working through it.

“How old we are when we marry” and “how prepared for marriage we are” are not synonymous. People exist my age and older who objectively are not ready for marriage. There are people younger than I who probably are. This means age is probably not as relevant to this conversation as we traditionally have made it, which is part of why I’m not opposed to early marriage. What I do oppose is this: pitying the people who push 30 (and beyond) and aren’t married, putting early marriage on a pedestal, and encouraging it widely without preparing young people for marriage — which our culture won’t do and our churches generally haven’t done enough.

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Click here to read what Mark Regnerus wrote about early marriage. Part 2 of this post will appear on the blog on July 28.