Online Dating 101

I currently have three part time jobs and while I could have spent the day preparing for one of them (I did do a bit of “LipSense work”, I will admit that), I instead decided to open up a dating app to see what was going on in the world of Bumble.

I haven’t been on this app since January I believe, but I actually re-activated it a few days ago when I was laying in bed and could not fall asleep for the life of me. It was 3 am and I had to get up for work the next morning, but my body wasn’t letting me fall asleep. So…I guess it’s time to fire up the good ole’ Bumble and see what was buzzing. I figured after that night, I would get too busy with school starting up, that I wouldn’t spend much time on it anyway.

But with absolutely no plans on this Saturday, I decided to start swiping again.

I have a love/hate relationship with online dating and apps. And if anyone else has been on them, you will know exactly what I mean. On one hand, I think it can be a wonderful way to meet someone you would have never met otherwise. I believe there are a lot of wonderful and potential matches out there, that just might not be in your radius. Or maybe they are, but you just haven’t bumped into them at the grocery store yet – which has always been a dream of mine actually – to meet my future husband as I walk up and down the produce section.

Anyway, my hate comes from the fact that nothing usually seems to change when I sign back on and begin communicating with my matches. I know, I know, why do I keep doing this to myself? In fact, I actually despise the word “swipe” to indicate a level of interest, but alas it is 2017.

However, tonight after “swiping” through a few potential matches and having a conversation with one of them, I realized how badly I wish I could teach an Online Dating Course. I know that seems ridiculous that I even think I have something to teach others, since I have obviously not had a successful relationship come out of one. But if someone were willing to listen to my suggestions, I really think I could help. Ha! It’s the teacher in me. I have room in my life for a fourth part time job, right?!

So let me explain:

For the most part, dating apps are free, so unlike eHarmony, you will find many guys on there with a wide variety of desires. This could stem anywhere from a desire to find a serious relationship leading to marriage all the way to just wanting to “text,” with no intention of ever meeting. Usually it’s somewhere in between.

To give you an idea of what I experienced tonight and what inspired this post, let me introduce you to Mr. Cynical.

Mr. Cynical and I connected because we both “swiped right” on a dating app called Bumble at 3 am in the morning.

By the way, if you are single and have not read Levi Lusko’s Swipe Right yet, I highly recommend it. Ironically, I was recommended the book sometime last year by one of my matches.

Anyway, I have a love/hate relationship with Bumble because it requires the woman to initiate conversation. On one hand, it’s kind of nice to have the control of who I message. However, on the other hand, I will always have that innate desire to be pursued first. But I guess I can live with sending the first message and seeing what happens from there. The pursuit really only comes into affect after a few “get to know you” messages anyhow.

So my first message to Mr. Cynical (although that wasn’t his name at the time), was asking him what he was doing up so late. I actually hesitated even connecting with him because in his “info section” he stated that he was looking for a woman who liked to exercise and eat healthy. Which is usually just a politically correct way of saying he wanted a woman with a good body. Anyway he didn’t end up responding, but messaged me the next day and said he had fallen asleep. I had “opened” the chat by my first message and now I was leaving it up to him to guide the conversation. But he didn’t say anything else, so I didn’t respond.

Today I received a message from him asking me where I lived. Which I also found a bit odd becuase that is stated in the profile. But I responded this time and double checked his info section.

He changed it to this:

I think that girls have it in their head that if they say hey, and then you reply, and they wait forever to reply back that it makes guys want them more or something, not this guy. I see it as blatant disrespect and will unmatch you. If you can’t reply in reasonable time then don’t match me!

I couldn’t decide if he was referring to me or not. We were stil matched, so I seemed safe. But would you be surprised if I told you I really didn’t have any desire to keep communicating with him after reading that?

Here is how the rest of our conversation went:

Me: Your info section is interesting.

Mr. Cynical: Yeah, I’m tired of all the dumb games, so I just changed it to that. Hopefully it will weed em out.

Me: Haha…I don’t know.

Mr. Cynical: You don’t know what?

Me: Do you want my opinion?

Mr. Cynical: Sure

Me: Ok, it’s just one opinion…and it’s okay if you disagree… but here is what I look for in the info section…you only have so many characters to write something that makes you stand out amongst the rest. So I like when guys talk about who they are as a person.

Here is where the desire of teaching that class came into play…ha. Why I think people want to learn from me, I have no idea! I can tell you that he didn’t.

Mr. Cynical: Oh I had that before..

No, he didn’t. He put he wanted a healthy-eating, exercise loving, kinda girl.

Mr Cynical: …I always get this stupid game of the girl saying hey, me replying and then them never replying or taking like 3 days to reply. It’s flat out ridiculous. So what I had before in the info section, clearly didn’t work.

Me: Okay. I guess it’s just the nature of the app.

Mr. Cynical: Nooooo! It’s the nature of the female.

Is his nickname making a little more sense to you yet?!

Me: Some…I’m sure that is true. But you know not all females are the same, right?

Mr. Cynical: I do, but roughly 90% are eerily similar in my opinion. They all play hard to get, like to shop and buy crap that they don’t need all the time. I have been doing this a long time.

Me: You must attract the same kind then.

Mr. Cynical: Haha nooo…they all think alike and girls do all that girl talk…so they all express their opinions together to form this united conspiracy against men. Men don’t talk like that or share our crap near as much.

At this point, I started to wonder if he remembered that he was still talking to a female.

Me: How are you going to put up with being married to one?

Mr. Cynical: I only lasted 2 years the one time I did that. So I guess there’s your answer.

Me: Haha yep!

Mr. Cynical: Now you are probably red flagging me in that head of yours!

I actually “red flagged” him way back when I read his info section for the second time. But I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that and add to his hatred for women.

Me: True. I am sorry it hasn’t worked out for you.

Mr. Cynical: It works out fine. I just go with the flow.

I think this is my point to stop replying. There really isn’t much that needs to be said. Until like 20 minutes later he says this…

Mr. Cynical: You are pretty by the way.

Whew! I thought his next message was going to be him chewing me out that I didn’t respond.

Me: Thank you!

Mr. Cynical: You are welcome.

While calling me pretty was way better than what I expected, that obviously did not change my desire of wanting to continue chatting with this guy.

So I instead started writing down an outline for the first class in “Dating Online 101.” Just Kidding! There is no outline…on paper anyway!

Most of my dating app conversations have been pretty similar to that one, or we just don’t make it past the first few questions of “What do you like to do for fun?” and “Why are you still single?” type questions.

But every once and awhile there will be someone that stands out like a shiny gold star.

This happened to me back in April.

On a different app, I ran across a profile of a man that described himself like this:

“A Christian who is serious about faith, purpose, and the calling to be a follower of Jesus.”

Can you see why I immediately tried to connect with him?!

Since this was a different app, anyone could message the other one first. So as excited as I was, I even broke my first rule of letting the guy be the first one to reach out to me. I mean, come on, did you read what he wrote above or should I type it out again?!

The only problem is when I get eager to connect with someone that loves Jesus, I may come across a bit desperado.

Miss Desperado (that’s me): I stopped using this app awhile ago because it got to be pointless, but randomly started it back up a few days ago. I told myself I was only going to connect with guys that actually mentioned Jesus in their profile and who I could see myself being physically drawn to…

Sidenote: He was a good-looking guy.

…but I know our distance isn’t ideal.

Another sidenote: He lives somewhere in NC – I think the Northern part, so I think we are several hours apart from each other. However, distance wasn’t going to keep me from connecting with him. Although, it seemed to be a deal breaker for him. I guess, who can blame the guy?

Follower of Jesus: Haha! I am flattered. I agree…I download and delete this app often. Yours was the first profile up and it was a bit refreshing. I initially thought you lived in NC, only 30 mins from me, but now I see that you live in SC…bummer.

Miss Desperado (again, remember, this is me): Refreshing is a word I would have used as well when seeing you mention your heart for Jesus. So do you feel the distance makes it pointless to chat?

Follower of Jesus: No, it doesn’t make it pointless…I’m always up for making a new friend. You can add me on Facebook if you would like. Just look me up.

He proceeded to give me his last name.

And here is where I break my second rule.

I almost NEVER add guys on Facebook that I meet on dating apps. Mainly because I don’t really KNOW them and secondly because they will probably post about their engagement in a few short months and that is certainly something that is missing in my newsfeed – ha! Don’t worry, I am not turning into Miss Cynical or anything.

And I really am not desperate either. After breaking my rule and adding Follower of Jesus to my list of Facebook friends, I knew that if the Lord wanted us to meet, He would make it happen. If not, then He would make something else happen with someone else…one day.

So those are my two extremes – I have a ton of stories that mirror what happened with Mr. Cyncial and even a few similar stories of what happened with Follower of Christ, but both usually end the same way.

Me deciding to shut down the app again.

So who knows, maybe dating apps are just not going to be used in my happily ever after story. Or maybe they will be. But there will be a story. I’m convinced of it. Yes, I have my cynical moments and fleeting seconds that I forget that God has a plan. But I always come back to the fact that there WILL be a story.

About a month ago, my mom’s cousin visited us at the lake and she was telling a story about someone she knew who mentioned to his friends and family that he would pay them $10,000 if they found his future wife. Someone eventually did set him up with his future wife and when I asked if he ever paid the $10,000, she said no.

So maybe that’s my answer. And I would follow through with it too! But I cannnot afford $10,000, so either I am going to need to drastically lower that number or I can pay you in montly payments of $50. Who am I kidding? My budget is as firm as…as firm as…Mr. Cynical’s view on women, so I can’t even afford that. Then again…if I start teaching that course and charge…

Okay, friends, I am going to end this post before I really start typing out that outline. But thanks for reading. Writing these posts keeps me hopeful and actually gives me an entertaining Saturday night.

And don’t you worry – I am STILL trusting AND believing and I will NEVER settle for less than God’s plan.

So until my next story…

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

What do you do when you strike out? Twice? You get back up and you try try again. However, with that simple statement, another round of questions arise.

What amount of “trying” is healthy? Should I really even be trying?

Does trying mean that I am not content in my current single situation?

Does having the desire to get married mean that I am not satisfied presently?

Should I feel guilty that I have this desire?

Does the sadness that I feel mean I am not trusting the Lord enough to provide for me?

Those questions have been swirling around in my head for months. And thankfully, by the grace of God, I feel because of conversations this week, coupled with prayer and choosing to believe in truth, I am starting to get answers. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, I am not sure) that didn’t happen before I decided to step back up to bat.

Stepping up to bat both in the literal sense and physical sense, is not very easy for me.

I am not very athletic and I am not good at sports. The only time I can hold my own is when it comes to water sports and even then I am not sure you can count staying on a tube and getting up on a wake-board a big accomplishment. I try to stay far away from being a member on any team, so when someone suggests playing volleyball at the beach, you’ll see me slip off to find the nearest bathroom.

However, I did play softball on an actual team in 6th grade. That year one of my best friend’s dad coached the girls softball team and I don’t think they had enough players to make a whole team, so I was asked to play. I remember warning them that I was not very good, but I got talked into playing under the disguise of “just give it a try, it will be fun!” They must have been desperate for numbers. As I began attending practices, I remember being embarrassed because I barely even knew the rules of the game and many of the girls had been playing for years. I tried to fly under the radar as best as I could. I was a quiet, shy, skinny little girl, so that was easy for me. But then one day when we were throwing the ball back and forth to one another, warming up for a game, things changed at bit. At this point, I still didn’t even know how to catch a stinkin’ ball, so I just did my fair share of running after it whenever someone threw it to me. That was when another girl’s father saw what was happening and he came over to me and showed me how to hold my glove the correct way to catch a ball. He threw a few balls to me and I followed his instructions. Shortly after the game began, for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to have me play short stop. After asking someone on my team where that was, I jogged to the in field. The next thing I remember, the ball was hit towards me. I didn’t do much, I don’t even think I had to move my feet. The only thing I did at that moment was look up at the ball racing towards me and hold my glove up like I had been taught. The ball came right in. I can’t remember all of the details, but for the sake of the story, let’s just say that was the third out for the other team. My team cheered and I couldn’t stop smiling. As my team went back to the bench to get ready to bat, the girl’s father came up to me and congratulated me for catching the ball. “See, you just had to learn how to hold your glove, I knew you could do it!” he said to me. I think that was the only time I caught a ball the entire season and I probably played in the out field from that point forward. But I will forever have etched in my mind the feeling of catching a ball on an important play.

A few weeks after Dr. G vanished and Mr. Sold Out put me on hold, I began going through my eharmony matches. While communicating with Dr. G, I didn’t sign on to eharmony much at all.

That night, I made a poor choice and initiated communication with someone with a good-looking picture and a brief profile stating he no longer had a subscription but to reach out to him through email. I am not going to go into that story, but red flags were thrown up several times during our conversation. I thanked the Lord for the gift of discernment and moved on from that one.

If I had just gone to bat, that would have been another strike out for yours truly. I told myself after that experience that I would no longer be the one to initiate. Lesson learned.

The next day, I received an email from a guy that I had been in communication with in the midst of my 30 dates adventure in 2014. We had reached the email stage at that time, but after he inquired about my adventure a little more, he stopped emailing me. Not all guys were up to being one of my 30 dates and I totally understood. No hard feelings on my end.

Now my profile had no trace of 30 dates or an adventure, so he probably thought it was safe to email me. Thankfully a girl going on 30 dates didn’t turn him off altogether. In fact he even emailed me joking about it later.

This is what his email said,

Hi, I am trying to go on 32 dates before I turn 32. Do you want to be one of my dates? 😉

Bubba

I literally laughed out loud and emailed Bubba back and asked him if he was a creeper.

His response:

Hi there,

I am as creepy as they come. I like long walks on the beach and dark chocolate.

I turn 32 in December. What about you?

Bubba

P.S. You can call be “Bubs” for short.

Bubs had a different real name and he most certainly was not creepy, so these emails were just jokes and actually came after our first date. So let me back up and tell you about that.

After a few initial emails, he asked for my number to talk on the phone. At this point, I didn’t want to make the same mistake as I did with Mr. Sold Out and not give him another method of communication, but I also did not want another Dr. G story to happen. I emailed him back to let him know that I would just prefer meeting him if he was up for it. He actually liked the idea and we planned a lunch date for the next day! I was thankful for his flexible schedule and internet navigating skills as he sent me the address of a cute little restaurant halfway in between where we both lived.

Driving to our lunch date, I wasn’t that excited. I think that was because coming off the disappointment with Dr. G, I was guarding my heart as much as I could and just figured this would probably be a “one and done” date. At least we were actually getting to the date part. I got there a bit early and decided to walk through a couple of the nearby antique stores. When I got his text that he arrived, I walked over to the restaurant and he was standing outside. I think I might have went to shake his hand or something but instead he hugged me. I got a very good first impression from him. He was tall and good-looking and I all of a sudden got a little excited about the upcoming hour.

Bubba did everything correctly on this first date. He was friendly with our waitress and held conversation well with a perfect balance of answering and asking questions. At one point I told him that he was not what I expected him to be like and he inquired further about that. For some reason, I was just not expecting someone as laid back and social as he was. When I told him that he said, “thanks for the feedback,” and I all of a sudden felt badly for letting him know my preconceived thoughts. I then asked him if I was different than he expected and he told me that I was prettier in person than in my pictures. I never really know how to respond to that but I think I said thank you. Then I kinda felt badly because I didn’t mean to fish for compliments.

After about an hour and a half from when we first got there, we boxed up our meals, he paid and we walked out. He walked me to my car, gave me a hug and said he enjoyed lunch and that he hoped we could do it again some time. He said that sort of passingly, so I don’t think I gave a definite answer, but I thanked him for driving halfway to meet me.

As I was driving home, I began to process, realizing I hoped to hear from him again soon. I remember smiling when I received his text a few hours later. He asked if I got home safely. We sent a few texts back and forth that day.

The next day I initiated a texting conversation and he again told me he enjoyed our lunch together. I wanted to let him know that I had enjoyed it as well and not keep him guessing. I texted back, “I enjoyed it too. Sometimes it takes me time to process but I always know that I enjoy being in someone’s company after the fact when I look forward to hearing from them again – which happened with you.”

Bubs texted back and said that was sweet of me to say and nice to hear. He then asked me out again for the following week. My text must have given him the courage to ask me out again or maybe it was his plan all along. Either way, I liked it. I still wasn’t sure where I stood in my feelings with him, but I did know that I wanted to spend more time with him to see where it could go.

We had two phone conversations that week. In one of the conversations he asked about our next date. He explained to me that we could do another short lunch date or he would be willing to drive to my town for the evening, get a hotel room for himself, and then go to brunch or something the next day. This would allow more time for us to get to know one another but he also told me he wanted to respect my time. I told him I liked the idea of spending more time with him, so we could get a better sense of where this might be going and we began to make plans for that.

The following Friday, he got to my house around 3 and soon after we headed to the pool to cool off from a hot day. As we talked at the pool, I realized that we seemed compatible in many different areas regarding our beliefs and outlooks on life. However, I did share with him that I was excited to spend more time with him because while I knew we could be great friends, I needed to see if there was a romantic connection. He agreed and we left the pool soon after.

I had asked him during our phone conversation prior to our date if he would be willing to choose a restaurant for dinner. Since he came to my town, I figured it would have been understood that I would pick where we would eat, but I don’t always feel comfortable doing that. I know not all men pay on dates, but if he wanted to pay, I didn’t want to be the one picking a place with a certain price range. Plus there are so many restaurants around here that I have not ever been to and I knew he would find a good place. He didn’t seem to have a problem with that at all and actually seemed to enjoy the idea of surprising me.

As I got ready, put on make-up, curled my hair and slipped on a new, cute, little summer dress, I was excited for our dinner. I have bought so many outfits in my lifetime under the guise of “I could wear that on a date one day,” but it usually just sits in my closet for years. So that night, I was thankful to have a reason to get dressed up and wear something new. Later, Bubba complimented me on my outfit, I commented about the fact that we kinda matched with similar color schemes and we were on our way.

He drove to the restaurant using his phone’s GPS and while I had a few guesses of where we were going, we ended up at a place I had never been to. It had a wonderful atmosphere and great food and I enjoyed myself very much.

However, on the way home, I began to wonder if I was feeling a connection or not. I didn’t want to seem distracted and I told myself that I didn’t need to over-analyze things at that moment, so I shoved those thoughts away. We ended our date with going back to my house for ice cream.

The next morning, I had some extra time to begin processing before Bubba picked me up for lunch. I could already tell that Bubba loved Jesus, had a servant’s heart and treated others very well. But I just couldn’t get over the intuition of the fact that I didn’t feel anything beyond a friendship level. A pit started to form in my stomach because no one likes to be put in the “friend zone.” And to be honest, we both were not looking for just another friend.

When he picked me up at my house around noon, I think I had my mind made up, I just felt horrible about it. I was racking my brain about the best time to tell him, wondering if it should even be that day. Do I tell him at lunch? Do I wait and call him in a few days? Do we go out on one more date to be sure?

As we were eating lunch, we kept the conversation going but I was having a hard time staying focused. At the end of lunch he said, “I hate to have to bring this up now, but what are you feeling?” I was shocked that he asked me, but I was so proud of him for doing so. I am not sure I have ever had a guy come straight out and ask me so soon, if at all. This showed that he had great communication and he was not into playing any games.

Even though I knew what I was feeling, I needed a few more minutes to process, so I listened to him share that he had fun with me and that he would like to continue to get to know me if I felt the same way. He complimented me on a few things and I felt tears begin to swell up in my eyes. I would normally categorize myself as not much of a crier, but I would have a hard time convincing anyone of that since March.

I told him that I was just not feeling it and as I began to process my feelings out loud with him, I started crying. At no point did he look disappointed, sad or mad. Instead he listened to me and told me that it was okay. He thanked me for being honest and told me that he would have much rather have heard what I was feeling now rather than later. He said he would have hated to have tried calling me the next week and me talking with him out of obligation instead of excitement. I felt so badly because I could already tell what a great guy he was and it is never easy having to tell someone that you are probably not interested in a romantic way. This was not my first time having to deliver this news, but it was the first time I felt THIS badly about it. I think that stems from my break-up in March. Even though it was quite different, since my relationship ended after a year, and Bubba and I had only gone out on two dates, I knew what it felt like to hear the other person tell me our feelings didn’t align. No matter what, it is hurtful. I am not sure if Bubba was hurt or not. If he was, he was doing a good job of hiding it for the sake of my heart. He also understood how dating worked and the risk that comes with it. I appreciated that about him so very much and it was most definitely an advantage of going out on a date with a mature man. He was treating my heart with respect and every word he said to me built me up, instead of making me feel guilty. He didn’t try and hurt me back, he didn’t beg me to change my mind or for more time. He accepted what I told him and I never had any person treat me as well as he did in that kind of moment.

We got in the car to leave and I turned to him to let him know it was nothing that he did or didn’t do. He didn’t do anything wrong. I think he already knew that, but I also know the questions that arise after news like that, so I wanted him to be sure. I told him that he was good-looking and that his love for the Lord made him so attractive. He asked if he could give me a kiss on the cheek and I agreed. He did and I hugged him and then he drove me back to my house. When I got out of the car, we said our goodbyes and he told me that I was welcome to keep in touch with him and even stop by to see him with my new man one day if I was ever in his area. He told me if that ever happened he would let that man know just how blessed he was to have me. I started crying again and told him that finding a man was not that easy. He smiled at me and got into his car while encouraging me to be patient and that it would happen.

Bubba is a strong man that knows God has great plans for him. He knows there is someone out there more suitable for him and there is someone out there more suitable for me. The way he responded was grace-filled and a lesson that every single person could learn from.

I walked into my house and of course cried some more. I knew he was right and that God has a great plan for me regarding my spouse one day. But I was sad.

I felt like I struck out again.

Maybe getting on eharmony, going through my matches and accepting dates wasn’t the best idea. These questions re-surfaced for me.

What amount of “trying” is healthy? Should I really even be trying?

Does trying mean that I am not content in my current single situation?

Does having the desire to get married mean that I am not satisfied presently?

Should I feel guilty that I have this desire?

Does the sadness that I feel mean I am not trusting the Lord enough to provide for me?

As I once again asked myself these questions, I fell asleep crying that night. Are you surprised?!

Then the next couple of days, God’s love poured into me through other people.

And what I learned this week is the whole reason I felt like I needed to begin blogging again – in hopes that maybe this post could be the words that someone else needed to read.

Being on eharmony is putting myself out there, it is letting people know that I am interested in getting married one day. It is making my desire known in a more public way. Meeting new people and dating has to happen before marriage is an option, so eharmony allows for that. It allows for me to meet guys that love the Lord that I may not have come into contact with otherwise. I don’t want to live my life strategically trying to position myself in places where single Christian guys might be. I am not sure how I would even do that and I would drive myself crazy trying to figure that out. I would be afraid that my focus would become on that and not on glorifying the Lord.

So if being on eharmony means that I am “trying,” then I really do not see anything wrong in that. Who knows if eharmony will actually work for me, I am starting to think probably not, but that is okay. It may or it may not. One of my friends who is recently learning the same lessons as myself shared this with me just yesterday:

“Being obsessed with the Lord is much more rewarding and gives me peace. While being obsessed with finding the right person for my spouse gives me dark circles under my eyes.”

I thought that was very well said and I couldn’t have said it better myself. I can spend 5 or 10 minutes on eharmony each day, responding to questions of guys who I think I might be interested in. But when I become obsessed over it and when my emotions for that particular day depend on who does or who doesn’t contact me, then I am at risk of those dark circles showing up.

At the pool the other day, I had another God appointed meeting. I met a lady who has five grown daughters herself and we began talking. I saw her love for the Lord almost immediately and could tell she was a very wise and discerning lady. My mom shared with her about my story and desire to get married one day. Towards the end of our conversation she began reminding me of truth. She prefaced it with the fact that she wouldn’t be telling me anything new but she felt the Lord wanted her to remind me of a few things today.

She reminded me that waiting was hard and it was not always an easy feat to accomplish. But in the meantime, while I was waiting, to try and stay focused on becoming the woman that God wants me to be and to pray for my future spouse that he would be doing the same. I think she might of sensed my apprehensiveness about wondering if there really is a future spouse out there for me. Then the next thing she said is exactly what I needed to hear. She said that I had the desire to get married and that was good. It was the way God created me and it was a normal desire. I wasn’t doing anything wrong by having this desire. In fact, God is the one that gives us the desires of our heart and as long as it lines up with His word, it is good. So many times I feel guilty for having this desire. I feel like I should be okay being single for the rest of my life and I should push the desire down so much that no one can see it. But I realized those thoughts were more lies. Here we go again. How many lies are we believing when we shouldn’t be?

So through that conversation, I realized that it is okay to have that desire. There is nothing wrong with it. And it is okay to have emotions too. When someone falls in love, they are going to be happy, they are going to feel joy and probably laugh and smile a lot. They will probably feel the relief of not having to wait anymore. Wouldn’t we expect that from them? So why would the opposite not be okay as well? Why would it be wrong to feel sadness when it doesn’t work out like you hoped? Why would it be wrong to cry over a disappointment and feel sad that you have to wait a bit longer? Emotions are okay. Emotions were created by God and it is what makes us human.

Emotions will come and go. If we are happy at the moment, unfortunately we will probably one day experience something in our life that will make us sad again. If we are sad at the moment, we will one day experience something that will make us happy again. What we do with our emotions at the present time is where we need to focus. If my sadness made me stop trusting in the Lord, that would be the problem. If my sadness made me stop loving the people around me that God has already put in my life, then that would be the tragedy. Obsessing and worrying about things out of my control is exactly what God has asked us not to do.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Matthew 6:25-26

He does not tell us not to be sad. So if you are sad. Be sad. If you feel like crying. Then cry. But my advice is to find someone to remind you of truth. I have parents and best friends that do this often for me. And now I have the sweet lady from the pool.

It also really helps to talk to people who are in your similar situation, so you know you are not alone. A sweet single friend reminded me that she prays for contentment when I reached out to her recently. She said that she prays that even though she has the desire to be married, she hopes to make the best out of her single years and prays for opportunities to come her way that she might not have available to her if she was married.

So one of the opportunities that I felt the Lord has given me while I am single and struggling through the game of dating is this blog. If I have the opportunity to just encourage a few people through what the Lord is teaching me, then I am making the best out of my single years. I am learning so much and I am growing as a person.

And to my friends who are not in a similar situation, thank you for listening to my batting stories and my many strike outs. You don’t need to have the right words to say. I am just thankful to have people in my life that want to listen and people in my life that will share in my excitement when I am excited and understand my heart when I am sad.

To tell you the truth though, I am getting a bit tired of striking out when I go up to bat. So maybe I will take a break from that for awhile and instead switch it up and play in the field for a bit (no I did not say “play the field” – read it again).

So if you are looking for me, you will find me on short stop with my feet firmly planted in place. I will be holding my glove up, looking to the sky and waiting for my turn to catch what is meant for me.

Back In The Game?

I might as well just categorize myself as a “blogger” now. I am not sure how this happened, it just did. I first thought that I just blogged because my friends were curious about each date that I went on when I decided to go on 30 dates before my 30th birthday and it would save me from having to recant the story over five different times. I continued to blog those dates because of the encouraging comments and likes I received from my facebook friends. But now even after my 31st birthday has come and gone, every once and awhile I still get this strong desire to write another blog post. So does this make me a blogger?

I just have all of these thoughts swirling around in my head that typing them out is actually quite therapeutic for me. These thoughts come from so many different places. Mostly they come from deep within my being, the cries of my heart. Some come from listening to friends or random people, while others are lies of the enemy. And every once and while, when I am quiet and I try to just stop thinking for a moment, they come from the still small voice of my Heavenly Father. Those are the thoughts I especially want to cling to and typing them out where I can read them again and again helps me get through times of trial and sadness.

I have done that a few times actually. I have gone through several of my past blog posts looking for the snip-its of truth that I need to remind myself to cling to. Each time I read a past blog post, I find myself spending some time praying if I should try and turn my story into a book. Some days I actually think it could be a reality, while other days I laugh at those thoughts, thinking no one will want to read a book about someone they do not know. But regardless if I ever add author to my resume, I guess I should surrender to the fact that I am indeed a blogger.

A few months ago, my mom signed me up to receive blog updates from a woman named Holley Gerth (http://holleygerth.com/) and while I received her most recent blog update in my inbox five days ago, I just opened and read it today. Usually after reading other blog posts, I begin to compare mine to theirs, which makes me feel like my story (at least now) is not really worth sharing or that I am not as good of a writer as many other bloggers out there. But when I saw Holley’s blog title was, God Isn’t Done with Your Story Yet, it made me feel the familiar itch to blog again. And as I read, I then began to feel the familiar peace overcome my soul. A peace that I had been missing for a few weeks now. Instead I have actually spent most nights crying soft tears as I drifted off to sleep. Let me tell you why. But first it will require me taking you back a few months and will require two different posts to keep the length a readable amount.

The month of March was a pretty rough time period in my life. The beginning of the month is when I experienced my first real heart break, but the rest of the month I was left with questions. Questions that I swore I would not think after the first week. Questions that I knew deep down were stupid to ask and I wanted to run far away from. But these questions would still linger. Usually popping up on the weekends during my free time or late into the night when I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep to get them out of my head. These questions stemmed from deep within me and surfaced the deepest of my insecurities.

Here are some of those questions I asked myself regarding why David didn’t fall in love with me, why he chose to, in his words, “let me go.”

-Did he still think I was beautiful? At the beginning of our relationship, he would let me know his thoughts in this area often and while he would still send me good night texts with the word beautiful thrown in there, did he still really think that? I had become comfortable enough with him, that many weekends I no longer tried to look my best. Several evenings were spent watching TV on the couch with no make-up on, acne break-outs, and in a pair of sweats. Should I have tried harder to always look my best around him?

-Did he think I was lazy and slept too much? My weeks were exhausting and my days began at 5:45 am. So the weekends were the times where I would catch up on sleep and rejuvenate. I think I require more sleep than the average human being, I have always been like that. So while I started my day before the sun on weekdays, I usually liked to sleep in several hours after sunrise on weekends. And then on top of that, sometimes I even liked to nap when I was fighting against allergies or the common cold. The weekends were used to re-energize myself, however they were also the time that David and I would be together. So did I not give him enough of my time? Did he resent that I would sleep in and chose to start my day with him in the afternoons and not mornings?

-Did he think that I was boring? I always prided the fact that our relationship seemed good even when we stayed in for the evening and just snuggled on the couch and even when we went to dinner and spent half of it in silence. I would joke about how I hated running or hiking, but did he not want to be with me anymore because I wasn’t active enough? Did he not feel that I was capable of engaging in stimulating conversations? Did he think that I hated riding with him on his motorcycle because I would complain of my neck hurting from an over-sized helmet? Was he bored with me? Should I have initiated more outdoorsy dates?

-I am a picky eater. I hate that about myself and I am really trying to push myself to eat different types of foods now that I am an adult, but I still don’t eat as many things as I should. Did he get annoyed with my eating habits? Was it annoying to him when we would pick restaurants to go to if I voiced my opinions about the food? Was he tired of having to tell his family and friends that I didn’t like a certain food?

-Did I serve him well enough? David served me so well and every single weekend at that. There was not a time that went by that I didn’t feel he cared for me in the area of service. So did I not reciprocate that enough? Was he getting tired of serving me and felt like I wasn’t giving back? Did I not cater to his wants and desires? Should I have initiated hugs and kisses more than I did?

I am sure there were many more questions that arose but those were the main ones circling in my head that month. Maybe if you have experienced a break up, you have experienced those same questions or ones similar about your insecurities. I absolutely HATE that those questions existed. I even kinda hate that I am typing them out now and making them known.

But it’s what happened.

And why is that?

Because we are human. Because we make everything about us. Because we are prideful. Because we are weak when we are broken. Because the enemy has come to kill our joy, steal our smiles and destroy our testimony. Because we live in a fallen world.

So by the end of the month and for probably the 100th time, I reminded myself that those questions stemmed from lies. That the truth remained by seeking the Lord. And when I did that I was reminded that this break up was God’s plan. That David was not the best for me. That I was not the best for David. Period. There didn’t need to be any of the above questions. The only question I needed to ask was, “How do I fall deeper in love with Jesus?” So I poured myself into finding that answer.

And while I always tried to keep that question at the forefront of my mind, another question started creeping in by mid-April.

How do you know when it is time to start dating again after a relationship end?

I think I had accepted the ending of my relationship with David but that didn’t come without still pushing away those earlier questions. I had to literally train my brain to change my thinking. So while I was training my brain to focus on truth, I wondered if going out on dates again would be a bad idea.

I talked to my dad about these newly surfaced questions and about my thoughts of maybe re-joining eharmony to see about lining up some weekend dates. Was it too soon? I cringed and waited for his response through half squinted eyes. And then he gave me what I think I was looking for, an approval. I told him I didn’t want it to come across like I was searching for a rebound relationship. I knew that no man or earthly relationship would ever be able to heal me from my brokenness, I knew God would be the only One who could do that. But I was looking for some weekend company as a bit of distraction from my sadness and lies that seemed to surface at night. He told me that anyone that knew me knew I wouldn’t just date a guy as a rebound. I valued relationships way too much than to enter into another one flippantly. So I prayed about it. I am not sure if I got a clear answer from God or not about what to do, but when I pulled up the eharmony website and saw that they would give me a deal of less than nine dollars a month, I signed up again.

At first I decided to not tell anyone except my dad. I think I was still a bit embarrassed and nervous what others would think. I even tried to keep it from my mom, but that only lasted about three days.

As I was trying to decide how to approach this new season of eharmony dates, I began communicating with one guy pretty quickly after joining. He caught my attention because even though I wasn’t quite sure what he actually looked like due to all four pictures of him looking totally different, he wrote, “living a life sold out for Christ,” under the question of what he was most passionate about. He also stated that he thought that a woman who is intentional in her relationship with Jesus is sexy. I let him know that I liked that little phrase after we hit the email stage. However, without my “30 dates” philosophy to fall back on, I didn’t know how soon was too soon with giving guys my number or even meeting them in general. So one particular day, this guy, we will call him Mr. Sold Out, and myself began sending a few emails back and forth within minutes. During those emails, he asked to move our conversation off of eharmony and to something a bit more easier for him to communicate with like texting or facebook messaging. I froze a bit and told him I wasn’t ready for that and he said he understood. We kept emailing, although several days would go by in between each other’s emails.

Soon after, I was matched with a man that lived six hours away but who caught my interest from the start. We will call him Dr. G because he was my age with a PhD. You will see why the initial is G soon enough. While there were many more matches before Dr. G and in between him and Mr. Sold Out, these were the only two that seemed to keep me interested. Normally I didn’t communicate with men more than a few hours away but being in a relationship with David taught me that I was willing to move if it was right. So six hours away or not, I answered Dr. G’s questions. I was not going to let distance cause me to not communicate with a good-looking, educated man that seemed to seek to glorify the Lord according to his profile. And not only that but he said he was looking for a “walking and talking” woman of God. I didn’t know him yet, but for some reason deep inside of me I thought we could make a great team. Those thoughts strengthened as we began to email. After a few emails he suggested we should facetime because obviously the distance wouldn’t allow us to meet in person for some time. I agreed and it went fairly well. I didn’t hear from him the next day and thought that I must have said something wrong or he didn’t find me attractive.

When will I stop questioning if a guy finds me beautiful?! I am quite sick of those insecure thoughts always creeping into my head.

However, the following day he emailed me on eharmony, following up with our facetime conversation. He told me he enjoyed our conversation but at the end sensed hesitancy on my part. I was relieved to finally have heard back from him and proud of his communication skills and the fact that he let me know he sensed hesitancy. I returned his email admitting my insecurities about him waiting more than 24 hours to get back with me and asked if our next conversation could be on the phone instead of facetime so I could explain myself a bit better. It was actually harder than I thought facetiming a complete stranger and I wanted to make sure I communicated the best way I knew how.

During that phone conversation I admitted to maybe being a little bit awkward on facetime but it was not because I was hesitant about communicating with him further. He said he was glad to hear that and we began what turned into a three week communication. During our second facetime he brought up the fact that I wondered if he thought I was beautiful or not. He went on to tell me that he thought I was gorgeous. Each time I talked with him I seemed to like him more and that little comment sure didn’t hurt. During our communication we talked on the phone another two times and facetimed once more, with a few short texts in between each time. During our last phone conversation, I asked some tough questions about distance and how he felt about that and inquired about meeting him. We ended the conversation with him telling me that we seemed to be on the same page and I felt good. The conversation had gone really well.

But as the week went on, I think he changed his mind. Towards the end of the week, he shared some apprehensiveness with me and I responded with a really long email explaining why I thought we should still meet one day to just see if we clicked in person as much as I thought we did “on paper.” He texted me and thanked me for that email and told me he needed time to process as well as the fact that he had found this blog so he knew that I had recently just gotten out of a relationship. I responded and told him that if he really knew me, he didn’t need to worry about that but I understood if he needed to figure that out for himself. In my head, I again knew that I would not enter into a relationship with him if I didn’t feel like the Lord was leading me that way. However, I would not know that until after we met and so I was beginning to wonder how much longer that would be.

But instead of arranging a time to meet, I never heard from him again. Each day after that texting conversation, I would hold out hope that he would contact me. I had come to really believe that we might actually be a good fit, despite the fact that he was probably moving another 6 hours farther from me. When I was telling my friend about this story, my friend told me that it was called “ghosting.” Ghosting?! There was a term for what happened to me? My friend went on to explain that it was when one person just decided to stop communicating with another person without an explanation or a reason or an ending. I am not sure if the goal is to leave it open ended in case that person wants to start it back up again or if it is just an easy way out to avoid tough conversations. Or maybe three weeks of communicating via the phone didn’t require a clear communication about it ending, since it was never anything to begin with. I am still not sure.

I spent the next few weeks trying to analyze what happened and of course questions began to arise. Maybe he realized that long distance would be too much work after all and I wasn’t worth it? Maybe he felt like I needed more time after just being in a relationship? Maybe he thought he would be the rebound guy? Maybe I expressed my interest in meeting him too strongly through a very lengthy email that could have been shortened? I don’t know if any one of those were the real reasons he decided to “ghost me,” maybe a combination of all of them, but what I do know is that I didn’t guard my heart well. Each time I talked with Dr. G (G stands for ghost…get it now?), I became more excited because we seemed so compatible, but maybe that was just all in my head. I even began to envision what it would be like to meet him in person and then maybe even one day move to where he would be living.

I don’t know what was wrong with me. I NEVER do things like that and I usually can keep my thoughts in check and my heart guarded pretty darn well. But I got too excited about this one and it came back to teach me a lesson. I think I took the mystery out of pursuing me. I hate playing games and I was trying to be open and honest with him, but in the end I think I just showed my interest too much. I wasn’t even sure if I did like him enough to be in a relationship with him, we hadn’t even met in person yet for goodness sake. All I did was express an interest of meeting in person, but he might have took it another way. Maybe the chase was over for him before it really began? I am still not 100% sure where I went wrong or if I went wrong at all. But in the end, those questions don’t matter anymore anyway. There is nothing I can do but to continue to surrender to the Lord.

After a few weeks of waiting to see if Dr. G would contact me, I emailed Mr. Sold Out again. He had taken about ten days to respond to one of my emails, so after that long and the fact that I was in communication with Dr. G, I never emailed him back. But now, I did. I apologized to him about the length of time it took me to respond but that I had been communicating with someone else and I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to communicate with more than one person at a time. I still don’t know how that rule works on eharmony, but I figured I might as well be honest. He told me he understood and explained that he actually had met a woman and that he was going to see if it would work out between them. He explained that he would love to meet me if it didn’t though. I liked that he was honest with me and I respected that. I told him that I wished him the best with the woman he met (and I really did mean that) and I would be fine with him contacting me if they didn’t work out.

So far, I was back in the game, but already struck out twice.

That didn’t stop me from continuing to get back up to bat though, maybe it should have, looking back now. Stay tuned for a few more stories because like it or not, I am most definitely a blogger.

Sigh, I hope this is a good idea…

The Aftermath

It’s now been exactly two weeks since I sat on my bed and held the phone up to my ear while hearing my boyfriend tell me, “I think I need to let you go.” Those words marked the end of a 17 month relationship. A relationship that I thought was going well, a relationship that I thought was progressing. A relationship where I thought feelings were mutual. But that’s usually the case in a breakup, isn’t it? Most of the time, one person decides that this is not what he/she wants and the other is left in a wake of destruction, often times blind-sighted and left wondering what parts of the relationship were real and what parts were just figments of imagination. Even though I sat on the other end of that phone call, wishing that it was just a bad dream and that I would wake up the next day still in a relationship with the person I was falling for, I was thankfully not blind-sighted. My heart was preparing for that breakup the entire week, I was pretty sure it was coming that day. I think in a way God warned me for my heart to prepare for what it was about to experience.

The first week after the breakup, I walked around with my heart bleeding. One of my co-workers said that she would see me in the hall and even though I was there physically, I never seemed like I was really there. I felt an extreme sadness. People showed their love to me through messages, words and hugs and I am so very grateful for that. I am not sure I would have been able to get out of bed each day if it weren’t for the love that I was feeling. But no matter what was said, the sadness still lingered.

However this past Tuesday I began to notice a change. Slowly but surely peace began to set in.

On Wednesday I received a picture in my head that made a bit more sense to me and why the breakup had to come. I think it was another part of healing for me and therefore I wanted to share this process with you. Just when I think I will probably never blog again, I wake up with a string of thoughts that I can’t help but type out. It might not make any sense and maybe some of you will find it ridiculous, but it is helping my brain process. Maybe God revealed it to me to help me heal. Or maybe I am just making it all up myself. Still not quite sure.

So here goes:

Numbers have always been my thing, I guess that is why I became a math teacher. So as I began to process and look back at the last 18 months of my life, numbers started arising in my thoughts and by the end of the day it made complete sense to me.

It involves numerical stages. While I understand that abstract concepts, such as love and emotions are very hard to rank, I am going to do my best and explain the inner workings of my mind.

Like most rankings, the stages go from 1 to 10. Stage 1, obviously the beginning stage, of feelings is when you meet someone for the first time and you have this desire to get to know them more. Or maybe you have known them for years, but you all of a sudden start wondering what it would be like to be more than just friends. This is stage 1.

Stage 2 is when the butterflies begin and you feel excited at just the mention of their name. And then stage 3 probably begins after a few months of dating. It is most likely the infatuation stage. This is when the brain state is an “idealization” of the other person.

I am re-reading the book The Sacred Search by Gary Thomas. This is the book that David gave me on our first date. Going through it a second time has really helped me and I am loving it just as much as the first time.

Gary Thomas uses research from Dr. Helen Fisher about the neurological markers of infatuation. How do you know if you are infatuated?

Here are some from the list:

-The person focuses on the other’s better traits and overlooks flaws

-Sleeplessness, impulsiveness and euphoria and mood swings occur – probably based on what the other person says or does (the italics are mine)

-One or both of the partners develop a goal-oriented fixation of “winning” the other

-The person becomes emotionally dependent on the relationship

-Partners reorder their daily priorities to remain in contact as much as possible, separation anxiety may exist when apart

I think that David reached stage 3 pretty quickly in our relationship and I was a bit slower to evolve.

Once after our second date, we were having a texting conversation, where I shared that my feelings may not quite be where his already were but that I was really enjoying the process of getting to know him. I was a little nervous because David was affirming me and pursuing me a lot and I was a bit scared I was going to hurt him or let him down. After sharing with him something along those lines, David’s response went like this:

“My goal is to not let myself get too far ahead of you emotionally. I think it is good for me to be a little ahead so I can lead you, but also know that I need to put barriers in place to keep me from getting too emotionally involved when you aren’t. And I already know that you will treat my heart with the utmost respect…another thing I like about you. I too am absolutely loving getting to know you and communicate with you, even if I just end up annoying you most of the time with all my texts about how beautiful you are.”

The reason I can still type his words out nearly 18 months later is because I saved certain texts from him that I thought were adorable. Most of these saved texts were in the infatuation stage, stage 3. Many times he would text me good morning, when I was getting ready for work at 6:00 am, even though he didn’t have to be up until 2 hours later. He would tell me it was because he couldn’t sleep and so he began thinking of me. Cute, huh?

A few other texts, after only our first date, went like this:

“After meeting you today, I confirmed that you are the most beautiful woman in the world when you smile.”

“So I may or may not have been thinking about you a lot this weekend. But I feel that you dating all these guys is such a great thing for you. It will either confirm or deny what you see in me. Or you will find some great guy that will make you forget about the rest of us. Such a win-win for you and I will be cheering for you either way because I have become a HUGE fan of you =)”

“I wasn’t really nervous at the beginning of our first date at the zoo. It was only after seeing how beautiful you were in person after removing your sunglasses that REALLY made me nervous from that point forward. You took them off when we walked inside the snake exhibit and I remember looking at you and thinking …dannnnnnnng! haha”

On one of our dates, I asked David if he was giving me all these compliments just to flatter me because he knew I liked hearing it or because he really meant it. He said that he didn’t say things he didn’t mean.

That same statement came back to me the week before our breakup when I was constantly wondering why he wasn’t telling me that he missed me. He didn’t say things he didn’t mean.

After our first couple of dates, I think David was at stage 3.

Here is a thing about being at 3. To some it may feel like you are in love already. But in all reality, according to my personal revelation, it is not until stage 8 that love gets brought in the picture. Stage 3 is sneaky and if you close the gaps on the left of the number 3, it soon begins to disguise itself as a number 8. Here are where some couples get in trouble. If both people think that their 3s are 8s, they tend to get married very quickly without too much thought process or consideration of other factors because “why not, they are in love?!”

“Dr. Fisher found huge discrepancies between the brain scans of couples who had been in love just about eight months and the scans of those who had been in love about twenty-eight months. Those together just over two years had a far more realistic view of their partner and their relationship than those who were still in the rush of infatuation. How many of your friends have told you, after being let down by someone they truly loved, “He’s not the person I thought he was?” That’s because he wasn’t. That’s a true observation! They were relating to an idealized version of a man – or woman – not that person’s authentic self (p. 39).”

I am not saying that those who got married in less than eight months will not work out. In fact I know several couples who have married quickly and they are still going strong. I am also not saying that if you wait over two years to get married, your marriage will be sure to last. There are way more factors in a relationship, then the amount of time you dated before marriage. However, personally for me, I just don’t want to skip any stages.

So getting married in the infatuation stage seems a big dangerous to me.

Stages 4 through 7 are not as profound and many of the things I am about to type, can probably be lumped into one big middle stage, but here is what I have come up with:

Stage 4 is moving past the infatuation stage, therefore you are beginning to recognize the other person’s flaws but it is not scaring you away. You are continuing to learn more and more about each other on a daily basis.

Stage 5 is the stage where you can begin to be more honest with the other person. You don’t feel badly sharing your opinions, no matter how strong they may be. You no longer have this overwhelming desire to always look your best in front of the other person. Girls are starting to feel comfortable showing up with out make-up and the guy may begin to share about his insecurity of a few more pounds showing up around his middle. This is the stage where insecurities are shared.

Stage 6 is when you begin to start really trusting the other person even more so than in stage 5. You are getting ready to trust them with your heart and begin to realize that you are only a couple of stages away from falling in love and it is scary but safe all at the same time. You want to share your hopes and dreams with the other person, hoping that somehow you fit into each other’s futures.

Looking back on our relationship now, I think I got to stage 6 with David around our first date anniversary. It was on September 27th, however that weekend we were not together for one reason or another. The following weekend we were flying to Michigan to attend a wedding of one of my high school best friends. David agreed to go with me and I was ecstatic. We both even took two days off of work to go, since the wedding was on a Friday. I had never brought a date to a wedding before! When I arrived at his house prior to flying out for the wedding, he gave me a present and a card. I was not expecting that at all. I had mailed him a card that week, but I hadn’t even thought about a gift. When I opened the gift, I felt so special because he bought me perfume. He had remembered me saying passingly that I was out and I needed to buy some soon. I felt so cherished that he remembered and knew exactly what kind to buy. He also threw in a pack of Reese’s cups, so that was another plus.

This was written in the card:

“The last year of my life has definitely been more blessed, more joyful, and filled with more laughs and smiles because of you. You give me more to look forward to on the weekends other than just sleeping in. I love having you to shop with, be my shotgun rider, cook with and for, be the one I open doors for, and the one I text before bed each night. Thank you for being by my side and letting me hold you so tight…and for allowing me to annoy you in all my many ways. Thank you for a wonderful year! Happy Anniversary, Babe!”

Receiving those words in that card was just the beginning of a wonderful weekend together. We flew to Michigan for the weekend and I had thought I was in the clear from some sort of allergic reaction that I had a few days prior when my eyes swelled. However, that weekend, I was still not quite healthy and I remember feeling taken care of by David. He saw me at my worst and he still told me he liked being with me.

I remember specifically telling a friend after that weekend that I think I liked David more just from that weekend together. She asked me if we told each other we loved each other yet and I responded that we didn’t. “So do you love him?” she asked. I couldn’t bring myself to say that I did, but I now know I went up a stage, this was before I knew the stages existed of course.

Up until this time, I always felt cherished by David. I felt pursued and adored. We didn’t seem to have any misunderstandings, we loved being in each other’s company and it felt like there was really nothing that could go wrong. In fact, I think my stage 6 started slowly turning into stage 7 by the end of the month.

Stage 7 is when you look into your future and the other person seems to be there. You are not quite at the point of discussing marriage because falling in love needs to come before that but you are only a stage away.

Here was the turning point for us. I was well on my way to stage 7 and I think I might have left David behind at stage 5. I actually wasn’t clear where his feelings were. And I remember always being afraid to ask. Firstly, because I would be the one taking the lead on an important conversation and secondly because I was nervous it would scare him away. So many times, I suppressed the desire I had for these types of conversations.

However, I guess one day, I didn’t do my best at accomplishing that goal. It had been just over a year from our first date and we were finishing up reading from the book of Acts together on a Sunday. After David prayed about our relationship and for God to continue to reveal to us what a godly dating relationship looks like, I brought up moving closer to David’s house so we didn’t have to travel our normal 2 hours to each other’s houses every weekend. Of course, being a teacher, if this move even happened, it wouldn’t be until at least 8 months down the road, when the current school year ended. Maybe I was premature in talking about it, but it had been in my mind for over a month already and with stage 7 upon me, I felt like I needed to see what David’s reaction would be. I had been a bit nervous to bring it up with David and looking back I understand why now. This conversation and his reaction showed that I was moving forward with my feelings and he wasn’t.

I was starting to become the one that was getting farther than him emotionally and therefore he could no longer lead me in this area. Shortly after sharing with him my desire of living in the same city, I left his house because our conversation was not progressing. As I was getting ready to leave, David went and pulled my car up and I wanted nothing else other than for him to tell me to stay. I didn’t want him to let me go – but he did. He let me leave that day.

I spent the next three days in confusion until he called on a Wednesday night and explained his reservations and his silence. He told me that he was not ready for marriage and that he didn’t know yet if I was the one he was supposed to marry. I think the idea of me making a major life change to live closer to him made him immediately think about marriage. I told him that I agreed with him, I was not ready for marriage either. I explained that I probably wouldn’t know if this relationship could progress to marriage until I at least lived in the same city with him. I wanted to know what it looked like to spend time with him during the week. I wanted to know what it looked like to see him stressed from work or what he did after a bad day. I wanted to be able to call him up at 6pm on a Tuesday evening and go get dinner because I just wanted to see him. After explaining this to him, he felt relief and said that he agreed with everything I said. I asked him if he wanted to break up and he said he didn’t. It was during that conversation that I told him that whenever he felt like it was time to break up, he needed to tell me. I didn’t want him holding on because he was scared to hurt me or because the timing may not be right. I think we both ended the conversation feeling good. We had worked through our little bump and I was actually quite proud of our communication that night.

The next few months were good. We went into the holidays and I met most of his family for the first time. I spent the majority of my Christmas break with him and we entered 2016 on such a good note. Every time I was with this man, I felt safe and taken care of. I continued to miss him when I was away from him and cherished the time I was with him. I am pretty sure I was full blown into the stage 7 at this point.

Stage 8 was next. This was the stage where you fall in love. When a friend asked me “So do you love him?” I couldn’t answer immediately, I had to really stop and think. No matter what I said, if I said yes or if I said no, I felt like I would be lying. I think I wanted to say yes, but deep down, I knew David was not at the stage that I was and so that scared me. I think I began telling my heart that I was not allowed to fall in love with him yet. I explained to my friend that to me loving someone meant you could trust them with your whole heart and I really wasn’t there yet with David. She understood and I settled on being okay at stage 7.

I wasn’t sure what stage David was at, but when he broke up with me, he told me that his feelings were not progressing. As much as I wanted to accept that answer and was actually thankful he did what I asked, he broke up with me when he knew it was right, I had a hard time really making clarity of the situation for about a whole week.

9 days after the breakup, I had a rough evening on Sunday night. I had talked with one of my friends that day and she asked if I was still hoping that David would change his mind. I told her that I wasn’t and that I knew it was a final decision. But after hanging up with her, I think I realized that I was. I think a little part of my heart was hoping he would still call or email or even show up at my house and tell me that we still had things we needed to talk through. Maybe we could talk through our misunderstandings and have another hour long conversation like back in October and realize we really were on the same page after all. That wasn’t going to happen though, I knew it wouldn’t. So I texted him. I just needed to hear it again.

“Tell me again that you stopped liking me, that your feelings for me have been at a stand still for a year. Tell me again you were never gonna fall in love with me. I think I need to hear it again.”

I knew it wasn’t a good idea to text him, I told myself not to text him. But I typed that out anyway and I hit send before I could spend any more time thinking about it.

Eight minutes later he responded. “I’m so sorry, my dear, I really hate that you have to experience this, as I NEVER wanted to hurt you or disappoint you. I just couldn’t bare to waste any more of your precious time knowing that my feelings for you hadn’t evolved to where they should be or where yours are, and they likely never will. I really wish I could make the hurt go away, but only time and the Lord can do that.”

I told him thank you and that I just needed to hear it again.

He sent another message, “Emotionally and spiritually you are the strongest woman I’ve ever known. You will get through this and emerge stronger, better and more beautiful than before. My prayer is that Christ himself surrounds you with His love and protection while you heal and that the uncertainty of tomorrow is seen as, not just hope, but God’s divine promise that He will soon reveal to you. If there is anything I can do or not do to help you heal, please let me know. Wishing I could take away all your pain and tears right now.”

Mr. Knows Just What To Say was back. Within one week, that’s how I felt. I felt that my boyfriend David reverted back to Mr. KJWTS. A man who I didn’t really know after all. When I read his text messages, I appreciated his words, I really did. But in a way I felt like I was reading a stranger’s words. I am not sure what that meant. It was probably because he was no longer my boyfriend. He was no longer the David I thought I really knew. He was Mr. KJWTS – the man that impressed me with his words from the beginning. The man I didn’t know, but I knew I wanted to. The man that could potentially hurt me and break my heart. He was Mr. KJWTS.

That night I cried more than I had the night of the breakup and the whole week combined. I let out my sadness and I cried out to God to help me stop believing stupid lies in my head.

A few days later is when I realized something. I spent a week since the breakup thinking about all of our times together and it just didn’t make sense why or even how he could end something that was just so good. But as I was receiving the epiphany of these stages, I realized something else. I realized that I was viewing our 17 months together through my own eyes and my own feelings. Because I was on another stage than him, I was viewing things differently than him.

One morning on the way to work, I changed my thinking. I began thinking of all of the times we spent together since our bump in the road in October and I began to view it through David’s eyes. I think when I mentioned moving closer to him, he got nervous because he knew his feelings had stopped progressing awhile before that. After our talk that day and the fact that I didn’t give him an ultimatum for marriage, I think he wanted to see what would happen between then and Spring, when it would really get serious for me to make the decision whether to move or not.

I assumed that David was stuck at stage 5. But I wasn’t sure. He told me that if there was anything he could do to help me heal to let him know. I think I needed to know to continue this process of healing, so I asked him.

Last Wednesday, now 12 days since our breakup, I sent him another text.

“I have a random question and I need an honest answer. It doesn’t require any explanation. And don’t worry your response will not hurt me any more than I already have been, just be honest. On a scale of 1-10, 8 being in love and 9 being you wanted to get married. 1, 2, and 3 being the getting to know you stages, the chase, and the infatuation stage. What number were you stuck at with me? And when did you get there?”

I was a little nervous he wouldn’t answer back or that he would refuse to answer such a ridiculous question. I was wondering if he would tell me that there was no way for him to really know that. I was scared I was going to get a vague answer.

I texted him and reminded him that this would help me and that I would really appreciate him giving me an answer.

After a half an hour of silence, he said, “I would say probably close to a 7, and I reached that around our June trip to Michigan. I don’t think it declined much after that, just didn’t grow further. I hope that helps.”

It did help. I thanked him and I began to process.

He said it was close to a 7, so I am assuming he was stuck at stage 6. That makes sense to me since I was at stage 7 probably on the verge of stage 8. I was at a higher stage than him with my feelings and he probably lost the control to be able to lead with me moving ahead.

So I began to go through the last five months or so in my head, thinking from David’s perspective.

When we flew up north for my friend’s wedding, I sat in the airport next to David and it felt so good to be with him. At one point, he got up to go get a coffee and as he walked back toward me I watched him and realized how happy I was to be his girlfriend. That was a special weekend for me. But David’s feelings did not progress that weekend.

We talked through the biggest conflict we ever had in our relationship and our communication was so good that night, that it actually seemed easy. But David’s feelings did not progress that night or the weekend after when I shared with him how I was a bit confused about how he would be willing to give me up so easily. His response was that he now realized how much he would be giving up and he didn’t want to do that. But that didn’t mean his feelings had progressed.

I met his family for the first time on Thanksgiving. And as I sat in his brother’s house, meeting and conversing with his relatives for the first time, I felt so special that he was willing to “bring me home” to meet his family. But David’s feelings did not progress at Thanksgiving.

We went riding on his motorcycle the day after Thanksgiving in 68 degree weather. And as I bundled up and wore the pink flowered helmet that he bought me for the first time, now much more comfortable than an over-sized helmet from before, I realized how much I loved being on the back of my boyfriend’s motorcycle. Every once and awhile he would place his hand back on my leg as a form of communication and affection. But David’s feelings did not progress during that ride.

We spent most of my Christmas break together, David took off several days to have the same schedule as me. But David’s feelings did not progress over Christmas break.

We ushered in a new year together with hopes and dreams of 2016. It was a new year, but not a new stage for David’s feelings. He was still stuck at stage 6. David’s feelings did not progress as we set goals for ourselves and began to hold each other accountable for some disciplines in our lives.

David called off of work on Martin Luther King Day because I had it off and the weekend was just not long enough, we wanted one more day together. But David’s feelings did not progress that weekend either.

One Sunday, I was sitting in his office studying for a test for GRAD school and he was writing code on the computer. He became a bit frustrated but looked over at me and I smiled. We were not doing anything fun at all, instead it was quite the opposite, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. David’s feelings were still at a stage 6 that weekend too.

One Friday, I got home from work after a particular trying and emotional day and he came over as we had dinner plans that night. When he walked in and asked me how my day was, I immediately began to cry and he wrapped me in his arms. David’s feelings did not progress as I stood crying in his arms for a few minutes.

Valentine’s day came and went and I left his house that day, pained that I wouldn’t be able to see him for three more weeks. As I left, he probably saw me fighting back tears. He probably knew my feelings were growing. And yet, he probably shut my car door and watched me drive off, knowing his feelings were the same. The same feelings that he had since June. He might of even been a little mad at himself about that.

One of his texts to me in stage 3 went like this:

“I don’t think you have ANY clue just how much I and the rest of the world love seeing that wonderfully beautiful and stunning smile of yours! It really does take my breath away sometimes. Seriously.”

And while I realize that text was sent during the infatuation stage and maybe those texts become non-existent after that, I realized since he was stuck in stage 6, his breath no longer seemed to be taken away by my smile.

How could we keep on living like this? Looking at it from this perspective, I feel badly for both of us. Here I am, each moment falling more and more for this man and all he could do was watch me. He couldn’t join me. He wanted to so badly. He wanted to catch up to me, but he couldn’t. So, how could we keep living like this?

We couldn’t. And he knew that. It makes more sense to me now. A lot more sense.

A few quotes that I highlighted in Gary Thomas’ book talks about how we need to be careful of basing all of our decisions on feelings. I know I have talked a lot about them and in the end, they are the reason that David broke up with me, but we have to be very careful because as my dad used to always tell me, “feelings are free agents.”

“Maybe feeling like you’re in love with someone isn’t enough of a reason for you to get married. Maybe you need to set the bar higher, find something more.”

“I’ve seen people fail to pursue a relationship, even though they respected, admired, and loved another person, because there didn’t seem to be that over-the-top, make-my-knees-weak chemistry.”

“Far too often, we are more motivated to preserve the relationship if the feelings are there than if the match makes sense. In other words, most of us are motivated more by feelings than by wisdom.”

“I’m trying to get you to see that falling in love, even as a single, is something to evaluate, not something you should slavishly give yourself over to. Falling in love is what it is – a very pleasant, very real brain obsession – but it’s a dangerous and false god.”

Gary Thomas goes on to say in another chapter that “The crucial third stage of relationships goes beyond sexual desire and romantic attachment and is a long-term affection. This is a bond that is best fostered through friendship and a shared mission. It lasts until death and, unlike romantic infatuation, gets deeper with age. Time serves intentionally cultivated intimate affection, even as it kills infatuation (p.51).”

Maybe this is what David wasn’t feeling – the long-term affection. Maybe that begins in my self-proclaimed stage 8 or 9. Or maybe he was missing the romantic attachment. I am not sure, but he was missing something.

And so this week I reached clarity of the situation and I continued to beg for healing. I was already tired of being sad. I understood the situation better now. Now I just wanted this sadness gone.

And that is when I listened to the song “More Than Anything” by Natalie Grant. I spent the ending of the week driving to and from work with this song on repeat. I wish it was on youtube, so I could attach it here for you to hear, but the lyrics will have to do.

“More Than Anything”

I know if you wanted to you could wave your hand
Spare me this heartache and change your plan
And I know when he said you could take my pain away
But even if you don’t I pray

Help me want the Healer more than the healing
Help me want the Savior more than the saving
Help me want the Giver more than the giving
Help me want you Jesus more than anything

You know more than anyone that my flesh is weak
And you know I’d give anything for a remedy
And I’ll ask a thousand more times to set me free today
Oh but even if you don’t I pray

Help me want the Healer more than the healing
Help me want the Savior more than the saving
Help me want the Giver more than the giving
Oh Help me want you Jesus more than anything

When I’m desperate and my hearts overcome all that I need you’ve already done
When I’m desperate and my hearts overcome
all that I need you’ve already done

Oh Jesus Help me want you more than anything

Help me want the Healer more than the healing
Help me want the Savior more than the saving
Help me want the Giver more than the giving
Help me want you Jesus more than anything
Help me want you Jesus more than anything

I needed to hear that song every single day this past week and I will probably need to hear it every single day this up coming week. But that is my new prayer: Help me want the Healer more than I actually want the healing.

I began to think of the stages again and my sadness came from a broken heart because of a man who could not get past stage 6 with me.

As I said before I was teetering the line of stage 8, of actually falling in love. And to be honest, maybe I was already there, at stage 8. Maybe I did love him. I am not sure if my heart would hurt this badly if I didn’t. But it doesn’t really matter anymore. It doesn’t matter what stage I was at. All that matters is that he wasn’t there with me and he never saw himself getting there.

I think after both people reach stage 8 and fall in love, stage 9 is the commitment stage. Stage 9 is when two people decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together no matter what stage they feel like they might be at, at any given time. Because I am sure there are times in marriage, when couples forget that they were ever at stage 8. Or they think stage 8 is no longer there for them. But stage 9 is greater than stage 8. Stage 9 is telling another person that no matter what happens, no matter how many times they are let down, no matter what their feelings tell them that day, they will choose every single day to keep loving that person. That’s stage 9.

I am looking forward to reaching that stage 9 with someone one day. But in the meantime, I am going to fall more in love with the Healer.

Because as cliche as this is going to sound, Jesus is at stage 100 with us. There is no one on this Earth that will ever love me more than He will. And He is the only person that will never turn His back on us – no matter what. There is nothing that I can do that will make Him love me more or less because He was already at stage 100 with me the moment I was conceived.

God blessed me with a relationship with David for 17 months. A relationship that both of us wouldn’t trade for anything. But God also allowed me to experience this heart break. And while I wasn’t sure why that happened at first, as my mind is becoming clearer, I am now thinking it is because God wants me to move up stages with Him instead. He knew a heart break would help me do that. Maybe Jesus was even a little sad that I have been stuck at a stage when it comes to loving Him for several years now. Maybe just like I longed for David to move up to stage 7 or 8, Jesus is longing for me to move up in my love for Him.

I believe God’s promises to be true in my life and I know that even though my plans have changed quite drastically in the last two weeks, His plans haven’t. God’s plans included this exact place where I am now- in this place of brokenness, sadness and heart break. Maybe it is so I would have the time and desire to want to spend more time with Him.

And maybe it’s so I could learn how to want the Healer way more than the healing.

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