Relationships

A little personal history…

Originally posted 10/10/2004 on bibleforums.org:

I feel like such a loser…

I just had another relationship end because of the apparent lack of spiritual depth and passion in my life.

I met K in December 2000 when we were on a missions trip together. She was a senior in high school and I had just graduated college that spring. I didn’t really see her as a potential mate due to the age difference, but the more I observed her, the more I saw her maturity, and the more attracted to her I became. When the missions trip was over, I began emailing her, and we would talk at church. In March, I asked her dad if I could ask her out, and he said okay, so we started dating casually. She had never dated anyone before, and wasn’t really sure how to handle herself, so she kind of kept me at arms length, and even though we went out every week, we were technically “just friends.” In the fall, she went off to college, and we didn’t pursue our relationship further.

Several months later, I met T. She was attractive, and had a lot of good qualities that I respected. When she showed an interest in me, I asked her out and we started dating. She was a single mom, so we knew going into it that we weren’t just going to date casually. We were both in a position where marriage was a possibility (unlike K, since she was younger and just starting college), so our purpose was in evaluating each other as potential mates. After about six months, she concluded that I was not growing spiritually and put my own interests above hers.

Fast forward to December 2003. I haven’t dated anyone since T. When one girl thought (hoped) I was interested in her and decided to ask me about it, I said I wasn’t ready to be in a relationship. I saw K occasionally at church when she was home from school, and we would always talk for a little while. I still found her attractive, and even thought once or twice about asking her out again. Shortly before Christmas Eve, she emailed me and asked if we could get together to talk. She revealed that she felt like she was now ready to be in a relationship, whereas she hadn’t before. She had had opportunities to date others while at school, but had always declined, feeling like all the others fell short in comparsion to me. So we started dating again, this time in a romantic relationship instead of just dating casually. I was taking things slow, trying to get to know each other, and allowing time for an emotional bond to develop so we could decide if we were right for each other. By August (possibly sooner), she was experiencing doubt due to not knowing what my intentions were. We spent the month of September apart, and had no contact for five weeks. Today was the first time I saw her since the end of August. During that time, she felt increasing pulled towards missions, and feels like I do not share the same passions that she does, and therefore needed to end our relationship.

I’ve been a Christian since I was five years old. I grew up in a strong Christian home, with strong Christian grandparents on both sides of the family. We went to a fundamental, evangelical church 2-3 times a week, and I was always in a Christian school except a few years I was homeschooled. Both at church and at school, I was always the model student, the good example, the one people trusted and respected. I was the one who befriended the people that other kids picked on. After high school I got involved in a brand new college ministry at church and ended up leading it after the original two leaders got pulled away to other things. Today at age 28, my friends sometimes joke about how straight-laced I am, but they respect my opinions and patience with difficult people. They see me as calm, rational, wise, diligent, and an overall “nice guy.” Unfortunately, I have possessed these characteristics for a long time, and my life has become stagnant. I’ve been trained to behave well, but I’m not growing on the inside. I find it difficult sometimes to read the Bible, because everything I read is familiar. I find it difficult to pray, because I don’t really feel like I need anything. I’m not sure what I’m passionate about. I feel empty.

Both T and K saw a lot of things they liked about me. When we were dating, others who knew us both would commend them on their choice. But as we got closer and spent more time together, what they saw was unrealized potential, and a lack of desire to be continually growing. Having two women who I respect and had hopes of possibly marrying tell me essentially the same thing, makes me feel like such a loser. I want to change, but I’m having a hard time actually doing it.

Originally posted 10/11/2004 on bibleforums.org:

I know I’m not a loser, but yesterday I felt like one. After T and I broke up, I realized we probably weren’t right for each other. I’ve had doubts about K also. I think we could have made it work, but I didn’t have the assurance that we were ideal for each other. My brother, who has been married for 8 years, thinks that if I had been more aggressive in pursuing her, and making her feel wanted, that she would not have had the doubts she had and would not have felt like we needed to end our relationship.

I don’t think K was trying to use “God’s will” as an excuse to break up. Breaking up would not have been her first choice, but she felt staying with me was the “safe” route and that instead she needs to be free to pursue missions if that’s what God calls her to. I had shared with her before that I didn’t feel like I was growing in my spiritual walk; I think she indicated that she saw some evidence of that (or lack thereof), but it wasn’t an accusation that she came up with and hit me with as an excuse for breaking up.

I have a hard time making decisions sometimes, and prefer to make them based on facts, not feelings, so I may never be 100% convinced that any girl is the “right one.” I know that love is a decision, so I will love whoever I marry. I know marriage is hard work sometimes, but I don’t want to be in a marriage where we stay together just because we “stick it out.” It would be nice to be in a relationship where I was really excited about getting married, rather than just trying to weigh the pros and cons of whether we’re compatible. Although, I kind of have a hard time opening up to people and letting them know what I’m really like, so I’m not all that excited about going through another relationship. All that communication and sharing and stuff is hard work and kind of scary!

Originally posted 1/6/2005 on bibleforums.org:

End of a dream

In 1995, the summer I turned 19, I worked as a boat driver at Word of Life Island in Schroon Lake, New York. While I was there, I met a beautiful girl named J. Initially, she didn’t seem like my type, but for some reason we just clicked. We saw each other every day for two full months, spending as much time together as we could. I thought she was perfect, and she thought I was perfect (we knew this wasn’t realistic, but it felt that way). We spent a lot of time talking, gazing into each other’s eyes, or just sitting together. Although there was strong physical attraction between us, our relationship was based totally on emotional connection, since WOL had very strict rules prohibiting any physical contact (hand holding, hugging, etc.) between unmarried males and females.

When the summer was over, we said tearful goodbyes, then she went back to her home in Las Vegas, and I returned to my home in Fort Wayne, IN. With such a great distance between us, and a very protective father on her part, we had no idea when we would see each other again. We wrote and called each other regularly, and missed each other greatly. She returned to New York to attend the WOL Bible Institute in the fall, and somewhere along the line felt a renewed desire to pursue a childhood dream of being a missionary. I’ve never been opposed to being a missionary, but never felt a calling to do so either. My skills are technical, not interpersonal, and I’ve always felt that God’s will for my life was to serve Him as best I can by pursuing the gifts He has given me. I can see working in a support role for a mission organization, but I don’t see myself as a pastor, preacher, or church planter. Anyway, on top of the distance between us, her desire for missions was another potential barrier to our relationship.

We put our relationship on the back burner, and I casually dated another girl for a little while, but I kept wishing that I was with J. On my spring break I went to New York to visit her, and after 6-7 months apart, all it took was those couple of days seeing her again for me to fall in love all over again. However, we still didn’t see how it could work out, and although she seemed to want to be in a relationship with me, she didn’t seem to think it was a good idea.

We kept up communication for a while, but over time she met someone else, and I started dating someone else, and our letters became fewer and less frequent. Last I knew, she had broken up with the guy that she had been confident she was going to marry, and was still going to school in Las Vegas. That was somewhere around ’98-99 I think. I knew she had moved, but we were communicating via email, and I never got her new address.

Since then, I’ve met a couple of women that attracted me, and I admired their character, but there was just something missing. I was excited about the prospect of romance, and enjoyed spending time with them, but they just didn’t make me feel the way J did. In times when I have felt lonely and longed for female companionship, my thoughts always return to J. Maybe it’s because I have an idealized image of her in my head, or maybe it’s because I only knew her in an isolated setting, but just maybe it’s because she is the only woman I’ve dated who possesses the qualities I’m really looking for. I’ve tried to move on, and meet someone else, but I think deep down, I’ve always held on to the dream that maybe someday J and I would be reunited.

About a week ago, I decided that maybe I should take a step to pursue that dream, or at least find out if it’s even a possibility. I didn’t know her new address, her old email address was inactive, and her parents apparently have an unlisted number, because I couldn’t find anything in the whitepages. I’ve tried in the past searching for her or her father’s name on the internet, but nothing ever turned up. However, this week I found a database with her name in it, so I requested her address and got three results. One was the old address, and two new ones. So I wrote a letter and sent a copy to both “new” addresses, hoping that at least one of them gets to her. I just sent it a few days ago, so it remains to be seen if I’ll get any response.

Then today, as I dug around a little more on the internet, I found the Clark County (Las Vegas) database of marriage certificates. One little click of the mouse, and my dream ended. J got married 3 1/2 years ago.

I still hope she responds to my letter. Clark County property records seem to indicate that her parents still live at one of the addresses I found, so she ought to at least get that letter. It would be nice just to find out what she’s doing, if she’s working, has kids, etc.

I’ve never been much of a dreamer or goal setter. I pretty much just take what life hands me. If there is something I would like to do, I either do it or if it’s not practical, I put it out of my mind. Even though my dream of seeing J again has been dormant or pushed into my subconscious for much of the past 10 years, it’s sad to see it come to an end unfulfilled. Maybe it’s been holding me back though. Maybe now I can pursue a new relationship without so many reservations. Maybe it’s a good thing, but for now, I’m sad.