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[Guest Post] A respectable man’s respectful pursuit of a woman.

For yesterday’s Q&A, a woman asked why a guy flirts with a girl but doesn’t attempt to pursue a relationship with her. Fellow blogger, folk music lover and chaste dater Jake Nelko weighs in today on what holds a guy up when he flirts but goes no further:

Jake.

Being a single Christian man who actively pursues romance, I am constantly faced with the conundrum of how to respectfully pursue women. If I see a cute girl in a coffee shop, for example, I am naturally interested in approaching her to strike up a conversation, learn that we like the same music, discover that she, too, loves Jesus, take her out for coffee (or caramels because it’s arbitrary, right?), meet her parents, get married, and live happily ever after just like she potentially wants. So what holds us back? It could be a number of things.

First, does she actually want me to talk to her? This could be my lack of self confidence talking, but I’m not always sold on the potential of a conversation with the young lady in question being one that is welcomed. Unless she is giving me numerous glances and the occasional smile, I may not feel completely welcomed to the point of actually talking to her. I, like many men, am terrible with reading body language, so it’s never my assumption that she wants me to do what I want to do unless glances and smiles are thrown right on target.

Second, respectable men try very hard to be respectable. We’ve been to plenty of bars, parties, etc. where we’ve seen the bros bothering women or at the very least approaching them in a way we don’t see as respectable. We don’t want to come off like them, with only sex or some other version of our own pleasure as our main motivation, so we tend to err on the side of doing nothing. We’ve heard from too many of our female friends that they get hit on when they don’t want to and, therefore, we decide we want to avoid being another girl’s story of annoyance. Let’s do the polite thing and let the young lady get back to her copy of Jane Eyre and Bon Iver (she’s wearing Toms, so she is probably listening to Bon Iver, begging the question again of why on earth am I not talking to her?).

Third, there may be intangibles. That gentleman may have a significant other at that moment and is oblivious to the vibe he may be putting off himself. He may simply have other interests in his life keeping him from feeling a desire to approach a new interest. He may have other things on his mind, but probably doesn’t.

Fourth, sometimes it’s just a game. We want to see what sort of flirting we can do in public without developing the obligation to do anything more. As a guy who has been on his own as a single man with plenty of married friends, it can feel good to just know that I still have it going for me; if I can still get a girl’s attention, even if I don’t necessarily want to talk to her or anyone, for that matter.

Honestly, I’d say my top reason is that I don’t want to embarrass myself. My self confidence is already fragile, so the last thing I want is to let other people know what a spaz I am by talking to a girl, potentially embarrassing myself by saying something stupid, and never feeling like I want to go back to that place again for the rest of my life. Overdramatic, I know, but it’s the truth.

My advice for the ladies is to be obvious. If women are looking for the respectable man who is not hitting on every girl he makes eye contact with, then the young lady will have to make it obvious to said respectable man that they should go outside of their norm to approach her. Give us a few looks, flash us a smile, make sure we can see your naked ring finger, and don’t give us any doubt that our approach would be welcome. I could probably point out three girls in the coffee shop I’m in right now that have given me unclear enough signals that I wouldn’t do anything even if I were interested in it at the moment. See the above for why.

If a girl is giving subtle or vague hints, they will attract men that jump on subtle or vague hints, like the aforementioned bros. On my end, though, do I want to approach a girl who looks like she’s trying to attract the attention of every guy she makes eye contact with? Not really. I’m looking for the girl sitting in the corner with her thick glasses, skinny jeans, cardigan, and 400-page novel with her iPod in (hopefully listening to the Avett Brothers). Somewhere in the grey area of coffee shop interaction between completely confusing vagueness and completely impersonal and uninhibited flirting lies a scenario where I only end up speaking with a girl who is REALLY attracting my attention. Maybe, in the end, the ladies really DON’T want all of the guys they encounter to speak with them and we’re all interacting the exact amount we’re supposed to. Life doesn’t always work out that easily, though, right?

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 Jake, 27, lives in Tacoma, WA, while his heart resides in Pittsburgh, PA. He makes a living as a Career Development Specialist at the University of Washington Tacoma and spends his free time covering new music for Ear to the Ground Music, writing for his own personal blog, and playing drums for the gangster folk band Michelle from the Club.

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[Q&A – Dating]: Why would a guy flirt but never ask me out?

The Q:  From a woman, regarding men: “What is up with guys who flirt, but never make a move? He’ll flirt. I’ll flirt back. That’s it. What’s his hold-up?” -Emily*

The A: Few quirks in a guy frustrate a woman like his habit of flirting with her for no apparent reason (if you’re me, anyway, so I feel Emily’s pain). Frankly, flirting is fun, but it gets old when it’s with a guy who doesn’t attempt to pursue a relationship.

This is because flirting communicates something. When I flirt, I use body language and/or other words to say “I kinda have a thing for you.” It’s only natural, then, that when a guy flirts with me, I assume he’s saying “I kinda have a thing for you,” too.

But what if he isn’t? Maybe the hold up for some of the guys who flirt but don’t “make a move” is that they flirt because it’s fun, and not at all because it’s step one in their pursuit of a relationship. If a flirt flirts solely for fun, however, he (or she!) essentially says, “Here,” to the person with whom he or she flirts, “Have this expectation (the expectation, that is, that we’re probably on the verge of eating chicken piccata at a fancy restaurant while we pretend we haven’t Googled** each other).”

Then he or she never delivers.

But my guess is just a guess. Emily’s question would be answered better by people whose insight here is better than mine:

MEN.

So here are a couple quick answers from a couple male friends and fellow bloggers:

Chris Schumerth: “Well, there isn’t ‘one answer’ to this, of course, but at least two possibilities come to mind, both of which too many men would undoubtedly deny. First of all, men are capable of being confused. It could be that he’s sort of interested but can’t decide if he’s really interested. The second thing that comes to mind, and this one’s probably the bigger of the two, is that mutual flirting doesn’t make facing rejection any easier! It’s hard to go out on a limb and ask a girl out!”

J.Q. Tomanek: Men are from Venus but we understand in Martian. When I flirt with my wife and she flirts back, I get the “flirt” but for some reason misfire on the follow-up. Guys can diagnose what kind of bird is flying during dove season, invented Morse code, and can translate a third base coach’s signal, but when it comes to reading women we need it LOUD, clear, and direct. At least for me, I take more risks with my wife when I have greater certainty that I know what she wants or expects.

A third guy whose feedback I sought shares more thoughts in an upcoming guest post. (Check back tomorrow!)

Edit 10/19/12: Click here to read the guest post in response to Emily’s question.

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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, email me at arleenwrites@gmail.com or leave it in the comments. No topic is taboo (although I can’t promise I will answer every question).

*Real person, fake name.

**For the record, I do Google guys but I never pretend I don’t. 🙂

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Virginity: A disadvantage in dating?

Last week, I blogged about author Elna Baker, the woman who wrote an essay for Glamour called “Yes, I’m a 27-Year-Old Virgin.”

She and I would be a couple peas in a pod for that, except what she wrote didn’t explain why she is saving sex for marriage. It explained her decision to “change the rules.” Which is why a couple years later, she wrote a second sex essay for the same magazine, called “Guess What? I’m Not a Virgin Anymore!”

In one of the essays, Baker – who once had planned to save sex for marriage – said “although my virginity was a disadvantage, I stayed hopeful about dating.” She later added that after she changed her mind about saving sex, her “dating life actually improved. By not taking sex off the table right away, I made it past the four-week mark in relationships with several different guys.”

In other words, since more men dated her for longer periods of time after she decided she didn’t have to save sex for marriage, Baker deduced that what made dating difficult for her prior was the saving sex.

I could not disagree with her more, for three reasons:

1. If a person has planned to save sex for marriage and virginity strikes him or her as a disadvantage in dating, he or she perhaps has missed the point of dating. 

Lots of guys like virgins. Very few like virgins who aren’t going to sleep with them. So it’s true (and I’ve discovered this by experience): fewer guys in our culture find a girl dateable who isn’t going to have sex with them before marriage.

This is a non-issue if what you intend to accomplish by dating is to meet somebody who would suit you as a spouse. If you are saving sex for marriage, somebody who doesn’t want to save sex is not suitable for you. Suck it up and move along.

The truth is saving sex for marriage while searching for a spouse in a culture of people who mostly won’t marry you if they haven’t had sex with you does, in fact, mean your relationships with most people are going to end shortly after they start. Which, according to Baker, is the disadvantage.

But a disadvantage is “an unfavorable circumstance or condition that reduces the chances of success.” So if virginity and/or saving sex is a disadvantage because it results in few dates and short relationships with people you could never marry anway, I have to ask:

What is it that you’re really trying to accomplish?

2. That people won’t date you for more than a month because you’re saving sex does not mean virginity is a disadvantage. It means you’re dating the wrong kind of people.

3. If you sincerely want to save sex for marriage, virginity is an advantage (“A condition or circumstance that puts one in a favorable position.”). And if you aren’t a virgin but you’re saving sex from now on, being honest about it with the people you meet is an advantage, too. Because realistically, your “taking sex off the table right away” means people will, in fact, walk away just as quickly. And that is not a disadvantage. It’s a quick way to discover what you set out to learn in the first place: whether this person would make a suitable spouse.

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[Q&A: Relationships] If our feelings fade, is it real love?

The Q: From a guy, regarding a girl in his life: “I like her. Well, more than that. But I know I’m not ready to date. So, we decided to be friends. … I’m scared if we don’t talk about our feelings and just be friends, our feelings will go away. But, love is stronger than that, right? Like, if this is love, then it will continue to grow naturally, without having to always say, ‘I love ya,’ right?” -James*

The A: What James is really afraid of – or so says my hunch – is not that the feelings will fade. He’s afraid of what it means if they do. And that requires a long answer.

According to the brilliant Pope John Paul II – and as fabulously paraphrased in a book by Edward Sri – there are a couple sets of a couple kinds of love (not a typo). There’s subjective love and objective love and there’s immature love and mature love.

Subjective love is emotional (sentimentality!) and physical (sensuality!). It is the part of love widely described as warm and fuzzy. It’s based on what happens to you, both spontaneously and suddenly. And “no matter how intensely we experience these sensations, it is not necessarily love, but simply ‘a psychological situation.’ In other words, on its own, the subjective aspect of love is no more than a pleasurable experience happening inside of me.” (Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, page 56)

Objective love is what exists between you and somebody else in reality (not as filtered by the lenses that are clouded by those sudden, spontaneous sensations). It’s a fact, not a feeling. It’s based on a virtuous friendship, the pursuit of a common good, seeking what’s best for your beloved, self-giving, commitment to and a sense of responsibility for the other person (as paraphrased from Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, page 59).

Immature love looks inward. The immature lover is “absorbed in his own feelings. Here, the subjective aspect of love reigns supreme. He measures his love by the sensual and emotional reactions he experiences in the relationship.” –Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, page 79

Mature love looks outward, in two ways. First, it isn’t based on feelings, but on the truth about the other person, on commitment to that person (as a result of the truth) and on selflessness. Second, the mature lover “actively seeks what is best for the beloved. The person with a mature love is not focused primarily on what feelings and desires may be stirring inside him. Rather, he is focused on his responsibility to care for his beloved’s good. He actively seeks what is good for her, not just his own pleasure, enjoyment and selfish pursuits.” And the “emotions still play an important part, but they are grounded in the truth of the other person as he or she really is (not my idealization of that person).” –Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, pages 79-80

And as I gather (from Sri and from JP2), subjective, immature love propels a person into a relationship because of feelings, and it isn’t real love. Objective, mature love compels a person to remain in a relationship when there are feelings and when there aren’t, and it is real love.

Which brings us back to James.

He said he’s afraid his feelings will fade, and asked whether love’s stronger than that, and whether – if it’s love – it’ll grow on its own.

Which I sum up like this: If our feelings fade, is it (objective, mature) love?

You’ll know the answer if and when they do.

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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, email me at arleenwrites@gmail.com or leave it in the comments. No topic is taboo (although I can’t promise I will answer every question).

Click here to read more about Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love by Edward Sri.

*Real person, fake name.

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Virginity in print.

As it turns out, I am not the only woman who has put her virginity in print.

Another is a woman named Elna Baker, who in 2009 wrote an essay for Glamour called “Yes, I’m a 27-Year-Old Virgin.” But her story and mine are very different. In hers, she wrote of frequent close calls in beds with men and the Mormon roots that repeatedly compelled her to stop just short of sex.

And in 2011, Baker wrote a follow-up essay for Glamour. It’s called “Guess What? I’m Not a Virgin Anymore!”

Both essays are charming. Both are well written. And I have a few things to say in response to snippets of both. Read on.

From what Baker wrote before she had sex:

1. …everything I knew about sex I learned in church. I remember a Sunday school class on chastity when I was 13. The teacher walked into the classroom and slammed a tray of cookies onto the table with a loud clank.

“Does anyone want a cookie?” she asked in an aggressive tone. We perked up in our seats. Chastity class was always easier to endure when the teacher brought food, but something was amiss. Upon further inspection, the cookies were half-eaten, broken and sprinkled with dirt. “Anyone?” When no one answered, she nodded emphatically and said, “That’s right, no one wants a dirty, half-eaten cookie.” And that, my friends, is how I learned not to have sex.

For Baker’s Sunday school teacher to call what she taught “chastity” is unfortunate. Chastity is “the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. … Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. … The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.”* Dirty cookies are irrelevant to chastity. They’re frankly irrelevant to abstinence, too.

2. Although my virginity was a disadvantage, I stayed hopeful about dating.  … Right there on the floor of the yoga studio, despite everything my parents and religion taught me, I decided to change the rules. I, Elna Baker, could have premarital sex. My criteria were pretty simple: It had to be with someone I trusted (no one-night stands). Most important, I would not cave to pressure from anyone. I had to make the decision for myself.

Over the next year, instead of just kissing sitting up, I started kissing lying down (the gateway drug to sex). And my dating life actually improved. By not taking sex off the table right away, I made it past the four-week mark in relationships with several different guys.

That guys won’t date you for more than a month because you’re saving sex does not mean virginity is a disadvantage. It means you’re dating the wrong guys. (And convinced, perhaps, that no other kind of guy exists.)

From what Baker wrote after she had sex: 

1. I thought it would help to go public about my virginity in a magazine; it ended up turning me into a reluctant spokesperson for abstinence. There were perks—the supportive e-mails I got from strangers were moving—but because I was so out there about it, Google soon became my biggest cock block. Guys would look me up and just think, No way. And to be honest, I had grown used to the fascination, disgust and confusion my virginity elicited in men.

So it’s a bad thing that guys who can’t handle your virginity don’t want to date you? Because I prefer that they don’t try.

2. And then it really hit me: I wasn’t a virgin anymore. That part of my identity was gone, and I had to face the fact that, at 28, I had no idea who I was.

This – virginity as part of identity – is a sad side effect of being taught abstinence outside of the context of chastity. Chastity is a way of life livable by people who are single, married or celibate. Chastity as part of identity is safe, because chastity never ends.

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Click here to read what Baker wrote before she had sex.

Click here to read what she wrote afterward.

Click here to read what I most recently put in print about virginity.