Relationships

Originally written last Thursday. A number of people have asked me questions about my relationship with Dalia, most detailedly my good friend Zach. I decided to take the opportunity to answer his (solicited) questions and advice with a (very) long piece on my "policy" of relationships, which, mind you, is still in its formative stages. In no way do I take Zach's questions hostily - they were solicited, and it just gives me the chance to write a piece I've been wanting to write for 9 months or something.

For the record, Zach's questions:

1 - Have you read Josh Harris' books?
2 - Where does flirting stop?
3 - Is purity possible in this relationship?
4 - Is this relationship helping you spiritually?
5 - Is she aware that you're leaving?
6 - Are pastors and parents involved?
...and advice:
- Cut it off if she's not a potential spouse.
- Look out for lust.

My Answers:
1 - Yes, both of them. I agree with both on most points, and I found "Boy Meets Girl" an extremely helpful book. Up till now I've been single and I'm still a proponent of singleness.
2 - To me, flirting stops where the relationship begins. To answer the spirit of the question, our relationship is not "playful" or "giggly".
3 - I believe that purity is quite possible, especially in this cultural context. For purity of thought, I'm more on guard in the relationship than usual.
4 - I wouldn't say that the relationship is being a detriment or help to my spiritual development. However, I do believe that it's doing a lot for me as a person, and that these are valuable experiences.
5 - Yes, of course she's aware that I'm leaving!
6 - My parents are out of touch in Europe, and I certainly wouldn't consider this serious enough to involve a pastor 5,000 miles away.

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My Principles.
To go into generalities, these are the three biggest principles that I could think of that are guiding me in this and future relationships:

1 - Permission and Accountability. "He who seperates himself seeks his own desire, he acts against all wise counsel" - Solomon. By keeping everything I do accountable to her, to others, and to God I can keep myself from acting foolishly, and with God's help live with no regrets.

2 - Profitability. "All things are permissable to me, but not all things are profitable" - Paul. I will not enter a relationship that I do not believe both she and I will profit from in the present and, more importantly, the long run.

3 - "DTR". The relationship must be defined and kept to the agreed level. My relationship with Dalia is a "get to know you", not a "should we marry?"

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My Reasoning.

I met Dalia at my cousins', and by the second time we'd met we were both attracted to each other, but had talked little. I spent a week mulling over the question, felt at peace with God about asking her out, and checked with my cousin to make sure it was culturally appropriate.

The reasons I asked her out are diverse. First of all, I was attracted to her, and wanted to get to know her better. However, in a group context where most everything is in local Arabic, I can only follow ~20%, so getting to know her without speaking one-on-one was pretty much impossible over 6 weekends. In the same situation in the U.S., I would have followed my normal course: make friends with her. I make a point at home to get to know girls, and generally I can do that pretty easily, without flirting, and in much the same way I'd befriend a guy. Here, because of our remoteness, and a culture in which guys and girls rarely befriend each other outside of "romantic" relationships, it was either (a) ask her out or (b) not get to know her.

A second reason I asked her out was to clarify the relationship. I talked with her quite a bit on the day I asked her out before popping the question, and our friends (I later learned) "knew" we were going out before we knew it! I prefer having a low-key, public dating relationship to having to deal with rumors in a community where gossip travels at the speed of sound. I felt that if I didn't ask her out, it would still be obvious to at least one person in the group that we liked each other, and it was best to put my emotional cards on the table.

A major personal reason that I even considered a relationship - something I wouldn't have done a year and a half ago - was because of my own experiences in the last year. I went on one date with a girl last summer (she had an extra ticket to a Sox game - I'll go see the Sox with Ariel Sharon if he has a ticket for me!), and my own reactions and actions scared me a bit (we didn't even get to the point of holding hands, but it was way too flirty and touchy nonetheless). I was very glad that I went, because I feel I've been a lot wiser to my own weaknesses since. I had a few other, non-romantic, experiences with girls in the year since then, and in all of them I noticed that there's a whole different set of actions and emotions that I'm unfamiliar with. You and I may differ on this point, but I believe that it is wise to get to know - and to take control of - my own emotional structure. More on this in the next section.

The main reason that I went ahead with asking her out was that the relationship is safe and manageable. It's safe physically - in the mountains, especially for a priest's daughter, physical purity is absolutely expected. PDA's aren't kosher, and most of the time that we're together we're with cousins et al. The times we've had alone have been outside her house with her parents at home and in the busy town square. It's much safer than a similar relationship in the U.S. It's also safe emotionally. Because we're entering this relationship with the expectation of amicably parting on August 18 neither of us is building up high hopes or investing emotionally in the other. I'm also committed to preventing emotional escalation - I won't go to her with my problems, and I'll encourage her not to come to me with hers if they come up. Not that I don't care or don't want to help, but I don't want dependancy developing at all. The distance between us also makes it safer emotionally - we're not going to see a lot of each other real fast. Lastly, it's safe timewise and friendwise. At home, I'd shy away from most potential relationships for fear of straining a friendship and because any relationship there is open-ended. Here, while I cherish the thought of seeing her again, and I'll almost definitely make it back here sometime in the next few years, our friendship is pretty much confined to letters post-8/18.

Ultimately, I felt that I could go ahead with this as long as I obeyed the Biblical precept to treat every young woman as a sister. No, I wouldn't date my sister, but I do enjoy talking to her and hanging out with her. By announcing my intention to develop a relationship with Dalia, I can be an affectionate friend without starting rumors or sending her mixed messages.

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My Policy

In case this isn't long enough, I'd like to generalize on the principles above and finally form a clear policy, since I've been needing one.

Again the guiding principles:
1 - Accountability.
2 - Profitability.
3 - DTR.

And a more detailed (but probably incomplete) list of applications:
1 - Singleness is my default. I will not go out, date, or court for its own sake. I wholeheartedly agree with Harris' exhortation to making ones' single years count.
2 - I will not let physical relationships develop at the same rate or to the same level as fraternal or emotional relationships. Along with the DTR comes a definition of what's OK and what's not OK physically. More importantly, this isn't like a wrestling league where certain "holds" are barred; it's about self-control and avoiding physical contact for its own sake.
3 - Stay emotionally grounded as best I can. I'll allow myself to fly high when I'm browsing engagement rings years from now; no girl is worth losing your head for if she's not worth losing your singleness for.
4 - Ration time. In my experience, the biggest factor in the strength of my emotions is amount of time spent together. The strongest crushes I've ever had have been on missions trips and the like, where I see the girl every day for hours, albeit in a group. With Dalia it's easy to ration time; at home it'll be a much more conscious decision.
5 - Avoid exclusivity. There's nothing more obnoxious than a couple who starts dating and immediately owns each other. I will do my best to remain better friends with my "brothers" and family than I am with this girl. If you're not ready to join your lives, don't join your lives.
6 - (I know you're all saying, "Does this guy do anything that's not a numerical list?" It's easier to read this way, trust me).
7 - Christians only. I'm not going to date someone who doesn't share my worldview or my understanding of the important things in life. No offense to non-Christian readers, but that's a label I and those like me apply to ourselves, and I'm sure you wouldn't date someone who's fundamental view of life differed sharply from your own whether you put a label on yourself or not. Also, legitimate options only - the goal of dating is to find a spouse, though I don't agree with Harris that every relationship has to lead up to a specific decision on that matter with that girl.
8 - Avoid the "appearance of evil". This is somewhere in scripture, but I learned it from my Mom. She can be a bit fanatical about it at times, but there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water. Basically, if you don't give people anything to talk about, you won't get blamed for things you didn't do. Americans tend to dislike this notion - we're a "guilt culture" as opposed to a "shame culture" (which the Middle East is), and we strongly believe that we shouldn't be punished for anything we didn't do. While I believe that, living here helps me understand the shame culture - if people think you did something, you'll suffer for it, so make sure they don't have any reason to be suspicious (the dark side of that is "Do bad stuff and make sure nobody finds out", but I'm not all about that).

And now for apologetics. I promise I won't numeral this section. Note that this is primarily written to explain why I'm dating as opposed to not; if you had heard me talking with my friends at an excellent restaurant last night, explaining why I haven't dated until now, and explaining my (in their words) "very conservative" approach to relationships you would have found that I agree with almost everything Harris writes and Zach recommends.

There are two big reasons that after reading Harris' books I decided to take exception. Both of these arguments have been made by more experienced and intelligent minds than my own, so please bear with my flattery-by-imitation.

First of all, in my experience and in that of my friends who date (the majority), dating teaches one a lot. In particular, it teaches one a lot about oneself. A former youth pastor of mine answered my then-challenge to the idea of dating by saying that you find out a lot about what different girls are like when you really get to know them, and you find out what different girls bring out in you. To me the latter is more important - I'm hopelessly behind if my goal is to know-by-dating as many girls as I can. Besides, I feel that I've gotten to know many girls very well as a single. However, I've had glimpses of very different sides of myself from what I'm used to, and I would rather know and tame them than enter a serious courtship relationship without knowing at least how I'm going to act. Again, this doesn't mean I have to date everyone in the world, or that I'm dating for the sake of dating. It means that dating has benefits (yes, I get the double-entendre, haha) and can be a profitable course to take.

One could say that you have a relationship with everyone you know. Moving that relationship to "dating" or "going out" or "friends plus" or whatever you want to tag it is, in my longwinded opinion, a better way to go about developing a relationship where mutual affectionate emotions are present than staying friends without defined parameters. Now, that doesn't mean start dating every time you and her like each other. That means that if you both like each other AND see the friendship/relationship as one that you would like to develop, than it's better to clearly define that - however you both decide to - than to act as if nothing's going on underneath.

That's not to say that sometimes you don't have to swallow emotions - there are more reasons floating around out there not to date than there are to date. I expect to be single in the foreseeable future in the U.S., but if the factors line up to make dating a permissable and profitable course, I'll prayerfully consider it. But there will definitely be times I'll have to swallow my emotions. I've honed that skill so much over the years, I'd hate to see it go to waste...

One of the arguments that I've both heard and used against dating is that, especially for teenagers, dating tends to be emotionally destabilizing and results in a lot of pain. However, looking back over my teenagehood (I'm 3 months from 20!) I have to say that I was pretty emotionally affected by girls I never asked out, and while I wouldn't recommend dating to anyone under 17, I don't think that argument holds as much validity as I once did. Two things that will definitely hurt you emotionally are dating addictions (I know a LOT of people who are co-dependent on dating) and haphazard, American style dating. But my guess and my very, very limited experience is that you're gonna have an emotional roller coaster anyway, and dating isn't going to have as radical an effect on you as it seems like - you'd be agonizing about her even if you didn't ask her out.

In Harris' second book (which I strongly recommend), "Boy Meets Girl", he makes some good arguments that what's been called "courtship" is the way to go. Not that the name is important, but he lays down a lot of excellent principles, and by use of many (often hilarious) stories demonstrates the attitude which ideally goes along with this form of mate-seeking. In the second half of the book, which is even better, he discusses the development of courtship relationships as they move towards the question of engagement (which is the undisputed end of a courtship relationship; either you get engaged, or you decide against it and the relationship ends cordially).

That's the ideal. And it's a nice ideal. And it's an ideal I'll strive to reach when I'm ready to start a relationship with the goal of finding out if a girl is the One for me. However (you knew this was coming), I definitely buy in to the criticisms of courtship leveled by...um...critics. Last fall my Mom was reading some articles by a group that rejects both courtship AND dating, and goes straight to engagement. I reject them because I don't think that's culturally appropriate where I live; it works in some places, and I would be open to it if I took permanent residence in Syria or something. However, in Boston following that path would effectively limit your marital options to 7 girls, 9 if you include non-English-speakers. Nonetheless, the argument they make against courtship is an effective and (a bit surprisingly) sensible one.

The argument is that courtship essentially puts a couple in a situation where they are very seriously thinking about marriage, long before the question comes up. Harris discourages too much of this, but considering it's the point of the relationship, I think it's unavoidable. So what often happens is that a couple ends up devastated when their courtship doesn't work out. The parents had agreed to let them marry (otherwise they wouldn't have allowed the courtship), and they had really set their hopes on one another. And then it didn't work out. To me, that violates the "stay emotionally grounded" thing. You're asking, "Well, how is dating before you court going to help? Isn't that like pre-drinking before you go to a club?" Well, maybe it is, and I'm totally wrong here. However, I obviously think that I am right, and I've come to these conclusions after a long period of thought, and after being single all my life and enjoying it. My answer to the pre-drinking question would be that I think dating can help me avoid painful breakups by (a) not setting my hopes on a "system" that is supposed to take in a bunch of inputs and spit out a marriage (that's not how it's intended, but I think it ends up at that a lot of times), and (b) getting to know her in romantic circumstances before we turn the heat on the relationship. If we've dated for 3 months after knowing each other for 3 years, we're less likely to find out that while we were great friends we're terrible lovers. A relationship with the stated goal of getting to know someone can weed out the worst ones, and can prepare us mentally and emotionally for courtship relationships with each other or with someone else.

Am I making any sense?

Well, I've spent close to three hours writing this, and I'm as glad that it's over as I am that I did it! I hope it makes as much sense in 0's and 1's as it does in my head, and I hope you don't mind my taking exception to some of your opinions. I think that we agree on the main points, however, and there's no reason you can't continue to act as an accountability partner and sounding board despite our difference of opinion. No, I'm not going to marry Dalia, as lucky as the man is who does. However, I believe we can leave both of us better off after the relationship, and to me that's the bottom line.