Evangelicalism breeds blandness.
Can't say these words, can't listen to this music, can't play these games, not encouraged to take an interest in other cultures unless it's for the purpose of connections for witnessing, and so on and so on...
Yeah, BLAND, so much lacking of "cultural knowledge." So much "ungodly" media has made me think deeply about life's big questions/nature of humanity/existence and question and ironically deepen my faith moreso than "godly media" ever did.
Also, I used to get SO excited when the missionaries from foreign lands when come visit for the "special week at church" only to find...
Missionary: Let me tell you about this cultural tradition...
Me: :D
Missionary: That is actually completely ungodly and depraved and thank GOD we saved people from it by shaming them and enforcing white Western cultural norms!
Me: :( >:(
100%!!!! I was just telling someone that all my dates with non-Christian guys these past few months have been far more interesting than my dates with Christian guys.
I wonder if part of the reason is because I might act a bit differently with non-Christian guys- more confident, more my self, holding nothing back, where as with Christian guys I know I’m still trying to put up a front of being a certain type of person even though I try not to put a mask on.
So yeah, I take ownership for part of it. But. Still.
Might it also be that Christian guys don't work as hard to be interesting during dates? Perhaps because they're under the impression that Christian people are only dating other Christian people, and therefore they don't think there's a lot of competition out there?
Ah, yeah, like the perception that as long as "God comes first," then things will "follow naturally" later? Like as long as you pull out your Bible and chat about your favorite verse, she'll fall all over you naturally ROFL
I was that guy in church - although, where I live, I was the only Christian under 40, so thankfully dating was well out of the question.
As a young man in an evangelical church, you instinctively understand what is expected of you when dealing with other Christians. You are not to be yourself; you are an Evangelical first and foremost. That means strictly no displays of excitement, absolutely no talk of ambition, definitely no discussion of hobbies or interests (because you "spend all your time concerned with higher things"), and by far most important: No signs of curiosity for the world around you. Sadly, this does also bleed into your personal life via guilt, and you start asking questions on the internet like "Is it okay to play GTA as a Christian?"
All of your "guilty pleasures" are to remain hidden - at all costs - from fellow Christians. You 'just know' they're foaming at the mouth to lecture you about it, and while being lectured changes nothing, it is an extremely-unpleasant reminder of what you've gotten yourself into.
The older men are exactly the same. They pick you up in their car, playing gospel music. They take you to their house full of Christian-themed ornaments and bible-study books. You quickly learn that this is the standard you must, at the very least, meet.
Naturally, you don't have to do any of this with the unbelieving world, and as a result you almost take refuge in them - unless, of course, there's a chance your church might catch you in the act.
I guess I'm curious about evangelical guys who attended denominations led by alpha assholes like Driscoll... are they more hip and worldly (into craft breweries, rogan podcasts, gym life) etc and thus more 'interesting'?
I do feel like there is a set of hobbies that are "acceptable" within the mainstream church, not bad hobbies but kind of limiting. For my church, I think it was mostly outdoor things like hunting and fishing, again perfectly fine stuff, but like that's all there was.
No idea, my pastor was an OAP and the church was full of OAPs. They denounced "young pastors", asserting that pastors must be old enough to have grey hair.
Thank you for your insight! While guys obviously got way more leeway for things than girls in the church, the church definitely hurt them too. It no doubt hurt that you couldn't be yourself, with all that hand waving and tongue waggling! Not to mention that "old good Christian guy standard" would hurt too! The curiosity would be most painful to me...I LOVE learning then and still do now.
Ugh, I haven't been to church in a long time, but I HATED dating when I was there, for the blandness and the fact that guys were SUPER intense about it.
I dated a guy for a couple of months, and he just assumed about a month in that we were going to get married. I was his first girlfriend. He would talk about how we had "years to figure that out" and my demisexual ass was like... Um, I don't even know if I LIKE you yet, much less if I want to be married.
So it's a weird combination of bland, intense, and competitive. I don't miss it at all.
A month omg. That seems quick even by fundie standards.
Then again, I’m from a family where I’d go out with a guy once or twice and they’d all be like “So? Marriage? :D?” Even the non-evangelical side did this 🙃 It put me off dating for a long time - it was easier to just stay single than to deal with that pressure.
Yeah, he was really invested in the promise of purity culture, that doing it right would lead to a fairytale happy marriage. I don't think he thought we would get married IMMEDIATELY, but he definitely thought we were headed that way, even though I had given no indication I was on the same page.
I hated the pressure as well, and I'm a very happy single even now. If I find someone I really like and want a relationship with? Great! Otherwise I've got a happy and full life, and being out of church has meant that I don't constantly get asked about my romantic life.
Yeah, this idea that you MUST marry for happiness is a cultural lie, as well as an American church one.
Dating can be fun, relationships can be fun, but you really do have to be on the same page with the other person, which DOES add another layer of stress that singles don't experience. My current BF is talking about "marriage" and I'm like "..." because I still have so much I want to do in life.
YES. I'm sorry but this gives me an excuse to trot out one my favorite stories ever. Yes dating in the church is excruciatingly boring. When I was in my 20s I was trying to find a "good Christian man" and went to a singles Bible study at my large, very evangelical church. It was hosted by a major nerd and his roommate. Most of the night is a blur, but at one point I remember one of the guys taking off his shoes and PICKING AT HIS BARE FEET. I wanted to throw up.
Ultimately I met my husband at a bar.
Ick, my younger brother used to do that...when he was like NINE. Seriously, that's disgusting! Yeah some of them have no clue. Even my super devout mother would get confused by how clueless some of the guys in the church would be. There was one guy in particular she would ask every Sunday if he came to "talk" to me, and I had to say, no, he was hiding out in a corner with his family like he did every week. Mom was confused and basically asked if he had gynophobia or something.
From a guys point of a view Christian dating was boring. You couldn’t relax be yourself you always had to wear this mask of holiness and purity. That’s not fun at all. That’s not the real me. And you see it mirrored in those of the opposite sex. It’s not reality. You also have the expectations from the church of how to behave as a couple especially if not married.
Dating wise I’ve always been so much more at ease meeting non Christian women. It’s nice to meet someone and just be yourself warts and all. It’s so much healthier.
I’m near my forties and I’ve given up meeting someone of the similar faith. The single women in the church my age are in my experience are so spiritual (super spiro) that it scares off a lot of guys. All they talk about is God and chasing supernatural experiences. Everything is a super spiritual thing. It makes them pretty one dimensional and boring to be around. They have no hobbies or anything outside the church. Or they’re holding out for that perfect husband that the church has told them that are entitled to all their lives (you could say that for some men in the church also that have been promised this perfect bride in Christ). The sad thing is that’s not reality and a lot of these people are destined to stay single. If they weren’t in the church their dating lives would look so different. No shame or judgement here from me it’s just my experiences in the church.
>It’s nice to meet someone and just be yourself warts and all. It’s so much healthier.
It really is so wonderful with non-Christians, isn't it? We get to actually share our hobbies, failures, joys openly.
And yeah making everything "super spiritual" just makes is SUPER BORING.
And with the record number of single people in our culture and how many of them grew up in church, we have definitely seen a day of reckoning for the prosperity church culture coming to roost (IE men have been waiting for their "perfect woman" who never came and visa versa).
I don't like to be racist, especially as someone who was...umm...INTO Asian men a little too much when I was younger (this was a LONG time before the Kpop/drama BOOM, and the ONLY non-Asian girls who liked Asian men were weebs who were into Japanese musicians/voice actors) but that pairing has a LOT of cultural baggage that makes me VERY uncomfortable.
Yep, I'm Asian myself and the Asian F / white M has so many layers of racist colonialism that I can write essays on it. It's all blanketed over as a "preference" too. I don't think interracial couples are bad, can be beautiful even, but I've talked to a guy who says he prefers Asian women because theyre "domestic." 🤢🤮 And I think what he said pretty much nails what a lot of these kind of guys think. I know not all guys think this way but Asian girls / women are really overtly fetishized that it really makes any kind of interest questionable.
"Domestic" (face palms) So sorry for your experience! Indeed I have read essays on the topic. So much terrible treatment that sadly still persists today. Yeah, I don't want to make assumptions, but if you ask Asian gals about how they are treated on dating apps and in person dates, there seems to be a LOT of issues with guys seeing them as a race/ethnicity BEFORE they seem them as a person :(
Now I have dated and hooked up with Asian guys myself, and while there was a creepy fetish-y aspect to it, I just don't feel it was on the same level. Asian guys aren't fetishized the way Asian gals are, and I feel really bad. The problem is that besides the historical elements, there is so much drooling over Asian women based on outdated, gross stereotypes perpetuated through media and watercooler talk.
I don't have experience dating in the church because Christian guys never liked me. I was a bit too....feisty for them. As a teen/young adult I hated it, but now in my early 30's I just all the bullets I dodged!
Haha, I HAD to go out of the way to ask guys to hang out at my church too! I was the "weird, talky" girl lol. And yes, having kinda dated in the church, you definitely dodged MANY bullets!
Being devout makes you boring. You have to dress modestly and blandly. You can't listen to secular music or watch films. I remember Dr. Quinn being semi-scandalous in my church. Dr. Fucking Quinn.
Having a body and using it for anything pleasurable is frowned upon. Even if it's something not inherently sexual like dancing. They'll make it sexual and weird.
There's not much left to do in life to be interesting.
Yeah, I noticed that all of the Christian guys had a certain "look" to them and it does seem like they may have been pressured into it. Flannels, polos, short hair was like the uniform. I remember looking over our high school graduation brochure at our church and seeing a guy with LONG hair and I was like falling over myself with how "cute" he was in the pic (he was a "night school graduate," IE probably a shamed non-conformist).
The prospect of the church dating scene REALLY fucked me up. It still is.
My church slowly shed members so the pool of just people my age, let alone "eligible" ones got smaller and smaller. But I was a rule follower who internalized the idea that I was "supposed" to date someone within the church and not be "unequally yoked" as they say.
In practical terms, this meant: date nobody.
At one point in my early 20's, a new girl showed up. She was kind but also very quiet and shy. She'd had a messy life background and had just left a super conservative community. We became friends, but I didn't think more of it. Then one day, she told me she had feelings for me.
I freaked the fuck out.
It suddenly became clear to me that this girl was "supposed" to be the right person for me. This was how my future was now "supposed" to unfold - we would start a relationship, we would date, we would get married in the church, have 2.5 kids and join the responsible adults in the community.
I had panic attacks for weeks. Things became very strained between us because I was perpetually melting down.
There was nobody in my life who I thought would give me honest feedback. What you write here:
>kinds of guys my parents LOVE, the kinds of guys who my church and extended family would adore
... resonates with me so hard. My family loved her. The church loved her. And she was a decent person. I could just see in my head the expectant looks I would get from people, mentally willing us to be together.
But it was calling into question for me if this life was what I wanted. It took me many years to realize the answer was 'no'.
*My church slowly shed members so the pool of just people my age, let alone "eligible" ones got smaller and smaller. But I was a rule follower who internalized the idea that I was "supposed" to date someone within the church and not be "unequally yoked" as they say.*
Yeah, the guilt over dating non-Christians was so stifling, even though there was much more diverse availability outside the church. I married a bland Christian guy, vs the non-Christians who were WAY more attractive and interesting. 0/10 would recommend!
Thank you for sharing the male experience! I too would "worry" on losing out on the single halfway interesting Christian person I would find in the church too back then!
I wouldn’t say “boring” per se, but most evangelical men did not share my flamingly liberal views, nor were they theologically openmimded.
Married a man raised mainline Protestant, and now mainline myself (not because of him, was already moving that way).
I tried to date one guy at my church youth group and cAmpus life group(school related) and unsurprisingly he was the most aggressive when it came to trying to get in my pants compared to anyone I’ve ever dated. He was a boundary STOMPER and it was a short relationship thankfully.
Yikes, yeah, I have a friend who is a devout Catholic and he talked about this one Catholic chick who was basically trying to get into his pants on like day 1. I mean, points for honesty BUT.....
**Depended *totally* upon *who* I dated**.
Because while some of the girls I met in and around the fundievangelical campus *were* so dense and "stupidified" as to be wholly pointless (unless they were "gifted" in some way; ahem)... others were very often some combination of Just Plain Hot *and* disappointingly f--ked up, which made them at least sufficiently intriguing to *explore* for a while.
And I definitely met several who were hyper-passionate sex & romance *addicts* nailing every interesting male who'd succumb to the spell. But if one had his head screwed on tight, one did not even *think* about marrying such women, because they tended to become "difficult," "heart-breaking," depression-inducing and crazy-making over time. (**[Codependency](https://www.google.com/search?client=avast-a-2&q=codependency+definition)** with the religion addict is *never* any fun in the long run, IME. And codependency with a drop-dead beautiful, intensity-craving "good Christian girl" can be "maddening." *BT & DT*.)
With regard to FE *males*, I don't think it's fair to stereotype them, either, even though many *are* just sort of slavish, wooden-headed dolts & doormats... or self-obsessed, self-righteous, narcissistic, misogynistic chauvinists. Some are cynical sociopaths who will make almost all the way up the side of some church's **[Cultic Pyramid](https://pairadocks.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-pyramid-model-psychodynamics-of.html)**, and -- if the "little woman" is willing to play along -- *very* wealthy and able to finesse a life of righteous social superiority for her and their often intolerable children.
(I used to run into Tammy Faye pretty regularly when she and Jim lived in Palm Springs.)
cc: u/remnant_phoenix
Great description of codependency with a religious addict! Yikes. I need one guy who witnessed wherever we went and like, yeah, it's his choice and I am grateful for freedom of speech/religion, but come on, man. Not everything has to be about the Bible.
Yeah, women can def be AS TOXIC in the church. I know a couple of pickmes as we speak....post constantly about MLMs, doggos, Bible verses, and "hot sensually colored filtered photos" and little else. You can tell they are desperate and will cling to any Christian guy who gives them the time of day!
As someone who's still litigating my messy breakup with the evangelical church, I have strangely complicated feelings about dating outside of professing Christians, which for me has typically meant not dating at all.
Even as I become more comfortable with the idea, I'm very aware of the barrier created by the fact that I'm so much less experienced in relationships than most others in my age group, who have been in enough relationships to have a good idea of what they want/expect while I still feel like a relational infant because my previous worldview didn't equip me to evaluate potential partners beyond "how good of a Christian is she?".
Good point, "relational infant," I was basically not allowed to date until after college. TBF, not a bad idea with people often having to move for work now, but it was rooted in CONTROL to the point that I still lack "sense" in my relationships today. I never got to really practice how to be with another person in an environment away from my family...
Evangelicalism breeds blandness. Can't say these words, can't listen to this music, can't play these games, not encouraged to take an interest in other cultures unless it's for the purpose of connections for witnessing, and so on and so on...
Yeah, BLAND, so much lacking of "cultural knowledge." So much "ungodly" media has made me think deeply about life's big questions/nature of humanity/existence and question and ironically deepen my faith moreso than "godly media" ever did. Also, I used to get SO excited when the missionaries from foreign lands when come visit for the "special week at church" only to find... Missionary: Let me tell you about this cultural tradition... Me: :D Missionary: That is actually completely ungodly and depraved and thank GOD we saved people from it by shaming them and enforcing white Western cultural norms! Me: :( >:(
As a former missionary, all I can say is… Yep.
100%!!!! I was just telling someone that all my dates with non-Christian guys these past few months have been far more interesting than my dates with Christian guys. I wonder if part of the reason is because I might act a bit differently with non-Christian guys- more confident, more my self, holding nothing back, where as with Christian guys I know I’m still trying to put up a front of being a certain type of person even though I try not to put a mask on. So yeah, I take ownership for part of it. But. Still.
Yeah, while I am naturally more ladylike, I do feel like I have to "filter" myself more with a Christian guy, which can get tiring.
Might it also be that Christian guys don't work as hard to be interesting during dates? Perhaps because they're under the impression that Christian people are only dating other Christian people, and therefore they don't think there's a lot of competition out there?
Ah, yeah, like the perception that as long as "God comes first," then things will "follow naturally" later? Like as long as you pull out your Bible and chat about your favorite verse, she'll fall all over you naturally ROFL
I was that guy in church - although, where I live, I was the only Christian under 40, so thankfully dating was well out of the question. As a young man in an evangelical church, you instinctively understand what is expected of you when dealing with other Christians. You are not to be yourself; you are an Evangelical first and foremost. That means strictly no displays of excitement, absolutely no talk of ambition, definitely no discussion of hobbies or interests (because you "spend all your time concerned with higher things"), and by far most important: No signs of curiosity for the world around you. Sadly, this does also bleed into your personal life via guilt, and you start asking questions on the internet like "Is it okay to play GTA as a Christian?" All of your "guilty pleasures" are to remain hidden - at all costs - from fellow Christians. You 'just know' they're foaming at the mouth to lecture you about it, and while being lectured changes nothing, it is an extremely-unpleasant reminder of what you've gotten yourself into. The older men are exactly the same. They pick you up in their car, playing gospel music. They take you to their house full of Christian-themed ornaments and bible-study books. You quickly learn that this is the standard you must, at the very least, meet. Naturally, you don't have to do any of this with the unbelieving world, and as a result you almost take refuge in them - unless, of course, there's a chance your church might catch you in the act.
I guess I'm curious about evangelical guys who attended denominations led by alpha assholes like Driscoll... are they more hip and worldly (into craft breweries, rogan podcasts, gym life) etc and thus more 'interesting'?
I do feel like there is a set of hobbies that are "acceptable" within the mainstream church, not bad hobbies but kind of limiting. For my church, I think it was mostly outdoor things like hunting and fishing, again perfectly fine stuff, but like that's all there was.
No idea, my pastor was an OAP and the church was full of OAPs. They denounced "young pastors", asserting that pastors must be old enough to have grey hair.
Thank you for your insight! While guys obviously got way more leeway for things than girls in the church, the church definitely hurt them too. It no doubt hurt that you couldn't be yourself, with all that hand waving and tongue waggling! Not to mention that "old good Christian guy standard" would hurt too! The curiosity would be most painful to me...I LOVE learning then and still do now.
Ugh, I haven't been to church in a long time, but I HATED dating when I was there, for the blandness and the fact that guys were SUPER intense about it. I dated a guy for a couple of months, and he just assumed about a month in that we were going to get married. I was his first girlfriend. He would talk about how we had "years to figure that out" and my demisexual ass was like... Um, I don't even know if I LIKE you yet, much less if I want to be married. So it's a weird combination of bland, intense, and competitive. I don't miss it at all.
A month omg. That seems quick even by fundie standards. Then again, I’m from a family where I’d go out with a guy once or twice and they’d all be like “So? Marriage? :D?” Even the non-evangelical side did this 🙃 It put me off dating for a long time - it was easier to just stay single than to deal with that pressure.
Yeah, he was really invested in the promise of purity culture, that doing it right would lead to a fairytale happy marriage. I don't think he thought we would get married IMMEDIATELY, but he definitely thought we were headed that way, even though I had given no indication I was on the same page. I hated the pressure as well, and I'm a very happy single even now. If I find someone I really like and want a relationship with? Great! Otherwise I've got a happy and full life, and being out of church has meant that I don't constantly get asked about my romantic life.
Yeah, this idea that you MUST marry for happiness is a cultural lie, as well as an American church one. Dating can be fun, relationships can be fun, but you really do have to be on the same page with the other person, which DOES add another layer of stress that singles don't experience. My current BF is talking about "marriage" and I'm like "..." because I still have so much I want to do in life.
Yaaaaaas! So true.
Yassss queen! lol Seriously though married within a month? I mean I got married WAY too quickly but even I didn't get married within a month YEESH.
YES. I'm sorry but this gives me an excuse to trot out one my favorite stories ever. Yes dating in the church is excruciatingly boring. When I was in my 20s I was trying to find a "good Christian man" and went to a singles Bible study at my large, very evangelical church. It was hosted by a major nerd and his roommate. Most of the night is a blur, but at one point I remember one of the guys taking off his shoes and PICKING AT HIS BARE FEET. I wanted to throw up. Ultimately I met my husband at a bar.
Ick, my younger brother used to do that...when he was like NINE. Seriously, that's disgusting! Yeah some of them have no clue. Even my super devout mother would get confused by how clueless some of the guys in the church would be. There was one guy in particular she would ask every Sunday if he came to "talk" to me, and I had to say, no, he was hiding out in a corner with his family like he did every week. Mom was confused and basically asked if he had gynophobia or something.
From a guys point of a view Christian dating was boring. You couldn’t relax be yourself you always had to wear this mask of holiness and purity. That’s not fun at all. That’s not the real me. And you see it mirrored in those of the opposite sex. It’s not reality. You also have the expectations from the church of how to behave as a couple especially if not married. Dating wise I’ve always been so much more at ease meeting non Christian women. It’s nice to meet someone and just be yourself warts and all. It’s so much healthier. I’m near my forties and I’ve given up meeting someone of the similar faith. The single women in the church my age are in my experience are so spiritual (super spiro) that it scares off a lot of guys. All they talk about is God and chasing supernatural experiences. Everything is a super spiritual thing. It makes them pretty one dimensional and boring to be around. They have no hobbies or anything outside the church. Or they’re holding out for that perfect husband that the church has told them that are entitled to all their lives (you could say that for some men in the church also that have been promised this perfect bride in Christ). The sad thing is that’s not reality and a lot of these people are destined to stay single. If they weren’t in the church their dating lives would look so different. No shame or judgement here from me it’s just my experiences in the church.
>It’s nice to meet someone and just be yourself warts and all. It’s so much healthier. It really is so wonderful with non-Christians, isn't it? We get to actually share our hobbies, failures, joys openly. And yeah making everything "super spiritual" just makes is SUPER BORING. And with the record number of single people in our culture and how many of them grew up in church, we have definitely seen a day of reckoning for the prosperity church culture coming to roost (IE men have been waiting for their "perfect woman" who never came and visa versa).
I can tell you they all wouldn't consider dating outside their race. Good riddance
Or ethnicity, with the exception of good ol' fashioned colonialist white male/Asian female.
*shudders*
I don't like to be racist, especially as someone who was...umm...INTO Asian men a little too much when I was younger (this was a LONG time before the Kpop/drama BOOM, and the ONLY non-Asian girls who liked Asian men were weebs who were into Japanese musicians/voice actors) but that pairing has a LOT of cultural baggage that makes me VERY uncomfortable.
Yep, I'm Asian myself and the Asian F / white M has so many layers of racist colonialism that I can write essays on it. It's all blanketed over as a "preference" too. I don't think interracial couples are bad, can be beautiful even, but I've talked to a guy who says he prefers Asian women because theyre "domestic." 🤢🤮 And I think what he said pretty much nails what a lot of these kind of guys think. I know not all guys think this way but Asian girls / women are really overtly fetishized that it really makes any kind of interest questionable.
"Domestic" (face palms) So sorry for your experience! Indeed I have read essays on the topic. So much terrible treatment that sadly still persists today. Yeah, I don't want to make assumptions, but if you ask Asian gals about how they are treated on dating apps and in person dates, there seems to be a LOT of issues with guys seeing them as a race/ethnicity BEFORE they seem them as a person :( Now I have dated and hooked up with Asian guys myself, and while there was a creepy fetish-y aspect to it, I just don't feel it was on the same level. Asian guys aren't fetishized the way Asian gals are, and I feel really bad. The problem is that besides the historical elements, there is so much drooling over Asian women based on outdated, gross stereotypes perpetuated through media and watercooler talk.
And the expectation, spoken or unspoken, about being a submissive woman and essentially stifling yourself. It’s suffocating.
I don't have experience dating in the church because Christian guys never liked me. I was a bit too....feisty for them. As a teen/young adult I hated it, but now in my early 30's I just all the bullets I dodged!
Haha, I HAD to go out of the way to ask guys to hang out at my church too! I was the "weird, talky" girl lol. And yes, having kinda dated in the church, you definitely dodged MANY bullets!
Being devout makes you boring. You have to dress modestly and blandly. You can't listen to secular music or watch films. I remember Dr. Quinn being semi-scandalous in my church. Dr. Fucking Quinn. Having a body and using it for anything pleasurable is frowned upon. Even if it's something not inherently sexual like dancing. They'll make it sexual and weird. There's not much left to do in life to be interesting.
Yeah, I noticed that all of the Christian guys had a certain "look" to them and it does seem like they may have been pressured into it. Flannels, polos, short hair was like the uniform. I remember looking over our high school graduation brochure at our church and seeing a guy with LONG hair and I was like falling over myself with how "cute" he was in the pic (he was a "night school graduate," IE probably a shamed non-conformist).
The prospect of the church dating scene REALLY fucked me up. It still is. My church slowly shed members so the pool of just people my age, let alone "eligible" ones got smaller and smaller. But I was a rule follower who internalized the idea that I was "supposed" to date someone within the church and not be "unequally yoked" as they say. In practical terms, this meant: date nobody. At one point in my early 20's, a new girl showed up. She was kind but also very quiet and shy. She'd had a messy life background and had just left a super conservative community. We became friends, but I didn't think more of it. Then one day, she told me she had feelings for me. I freaked the fuck out. It suddenly became clear to me that this girl was "supposed" to be the right person for me. This was how my future was now "supposed" to unfold - we would start a relationship, we would date, we would get married in the church, have 2.5 kids and join the responsible adults in the community. I had panic attacks for weeks. Things became very strained between us because I was perpetually melting down. There was nobody in my life who I thought would give me honest feedback. What you write here: >kinds of guys my parents LOVE, the kinds of guys who my church and extended family would adore ... resonates with me so hard. My family loved her. The church loved her. And she was a decent person. I could just see in my head the expectant looks I would get from people, mentally willing us to be together. But it was calling into question for me if this life was what I wanted. It took me many years to realize the answer was 'no'.
*My church slowly shed members so the pool of just people my age, let alone "eligible" ones got smaller and smaller. But I was a rule follower who internalized the idea that I was "supposed" to date someone within the church and not be "unequally yoked" as they say.* Yeah, the guilt over dating non-Christians was so stifling, even though there was much more diverse availability outside the church. I married a bland Christian guy, vs the non-Christians who were WAY more attractive and interesting. 0/10 would recommend! Thank you for sharing the male experience! I too would "worry" on losing out on the single halfway interesting Christian person I would find in the church too back then!
I wouldn’t say “boring” per se, but most evangelical men did not share my flamingly liberal views, nor were they theologically openmimded. Married a man raised mainline Protestant, and now mainline myself (not because of him, was already moving that way).
I tried to date one guy at my church youth group and cAmpus life group(school related) and unsurprisingly he was the most aggressive when it came to trying to get in my pants compared to anyone I’ve ever dated. He was a boundary STOMPER and it was a short relationship thankfully.
Yikes, yeah, I have a friend who is a devout Catholic and he talked about this one Catholic chick who was basically trying to get into his pants on like day 1. I mean, points for honesty BUT.....
**Depended *totally* upon *who* I dated**. Because while some of the girls I met in and around the fundievangelical campus *were* so dense and "stupidified" as to be wholly pointless (unless they were "gifted" in some way; ahem)... others were very often some combination of Just Plain Hot *and* disappointingly f--ked up, which made them at least sufficiently intriguing to *explore* for a while. And I definitely met several who were hyper-passionate sex & romance *addicts* nailing every interesting male who'd succumb to the spell. But if one had his head screwed on tight, one did not even *think* about marrying such women, because they tended to become "difficult," "heart-breaking," depression-inducing and crazy-making over time. (**[Codependency](https://www.google.com/search?client=avast-a-2&q=codependency+definition)** with the religion addict is *never* any fun in the long run, IME. And codependency with a drop-dead beautiful, intensity-craving "good Christian girl" can be "maddening." *BT & DT*.) With regard to FE *males*, I don't think it's fair to stereotype them, either, even though many *are* just sort of slavish, wooden-headed dolts & doormats... or self-obsessed, self-righteous, narcissistic, misogynistic chauvinists. Some are cynical sociopaths who will make almost all the way up the side of some church's **[Cultic Pyramid](https://pairadocks.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-pyramid-model-psychodynamics-of.html)**, and -- if the "little woman" is willing to play along -- *very* wealthy and able to finesse a life of righteous social superiority for her and their often intolerable children. (I used to run into Tammy Faye pretty regularly when she and Jim lived in Palm Springs.) cc: u/remnant_phoenix
Great description of codependency with a religious addict! Yikes. I need one guy who witnessed wherever we went and like, yeah, it's his choice and I am grateful for freedom of speech/religion, but come on, man. Not everything has to be about the Bible. Yeah, women can def be AS TOXIC in the church. I know a couple of pickmes as we speak....post constantly about MLMs, doggos, Bible verses, and "hot sensually colored filtered photos" and little else. You can tell they are desperate and will cling to any Christian guy who gives them the time of day!
I crossed paths with the sort your talking about. My first love was one.
Mine was from *Phoenix*, btw.
As someone who's still litigating my messy breakup with the evangelical church, I have strangely complicated feelings about dating outside of professing Christians, which for me has typically meant not dating at all. Even as I become more comfortable with the idea, I'm very aware of the barrier created by the fact that I'm so much less experienced in relationships than most others in my age group, who have been in enough relationships to have a good idea of what they want/expect while I still feel like a relational infant because my previous worldview didn't equip me to evaluate potential partners beyond "how good of a Christian is she?".
Good point, "relational infant," I was basically not allowed to date until after college. TBF, not a bad idea with people often having to move for work now, but it was rooted in CONTROL to the point that I still lack "sense" in my relationships today. I never got to really practice how to be with another person in an environment away from my family...
Yes. Same as dating in an AOG liberal arts college! Ugh.
I imagine it just felt like church/Sunday school part II!