Not Dating
I think I wrote about this before, but I wanted to talk about how I got started with the whole "no dating until I'm ready to get married" thing.
Growing up I watched my older cousins date, saw people dating on TV and in movies, and the older I got, the more my friends would talk about it. I just sort of assumed it was what you did when you became a teenager. When I was 14 I got my first real boyfriend and started the dating process. I was happy for the most part. We went on fun dates, attended dances together, and held hands in the halls at school. It was while I was dating this boy that my mom told me about a newspaper article she had read. Someone named Joshua Harris had written a book about the advantages of NOT dating. I listened politely as my mom told me about it, but said I'd never be interested in something like that. To me, getting a boyfriend had always been a goal, and dating was an accomplishment. I figured the author must be a little crazy. As time went on things grew more and more serious with my boyfriend. We even talked about getting married someday. Sure, we had some conflicts; he wanted to live together during college, I was against it, he wanted to go further physically, I wasn't comfortable with it, but we still enjoyed being together. Even though we seemed to have more and more conflicts as time went on, I think we both preffered the hours of fighting to being single. But one night, after 2 years together, somehow it all became too much, and we broke up. He stayed busy with school and friends, even getting a new girlfriend a few months later. I, however, took the break up a lot harder. Combined the depression I had already been battling with, I ended up dropping out of school. I still felt, though, that if I could just get a new boyfriend, or even just go on a few dates, everything would be okay again. But the dating scene at 17 was a lot different from when I was 14. Relationships become more seriously more quickly. Guys expected more, physically, from girls. A year later my ex boyfriend was still with his new girlfriend and I was still completely single.
One day, while wandering around Barnes and Noble I found myself in the Christianity section. I picked up a copy of "Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship" and read the back. It sounded appealing. I realized it was by Joshua Harris, the same author who'd written the book about not dating that sounded so crazy 3 years earlier. The idea didn't sound so bad anymore. I bought the book and read it in about 3 days. I clung to every word. I realized- and repented for- all my past mistakes. I wished I'd actually read his book before dismissing his ideas. What Josh Harris was encouraging people to do wasn't really to stop dating, it was to postpone dating until one was ready for marriage. And instead of dating for the sake of dating, we should instead use the "courtship" stage of romance as a time to deepen friendship and explore the possibility of marriage with that person. I learned that purity was more than keeping your clothes on. I learned how important it is to guard your heart- and the hearts of others. It changed my whole perspective on romance.
I've made a few mistakes and bad decisions since I made the decision to stop dating, but it's never been something I've regretted. In the past year I've made a lot of changes in getting my parents more involved in my life and being more careful with who I hang out with. Those things have helped a lot. My parents keep me accountable to my beliefs and support me. I started spending less time with the friends who encourage me to do stupid things like lose my virginity so I can be more "experienced" or drink and do drugs so I can "relax".
The interesting thing is that I'm getting older now, and soon I'll probably be at a point where I'll be ready "date with purpose". Right now I'm starting to deal with the confusion of knowing when I'll be ready to do that. I'm just going to keep praying and see what happens eventually.