The Stress

Here is the situation: A cute guy in your New Testament class (FHE group, choir class, Sunday School lesson, etc.) asks for your number and tells you he’d like to take you out this weekend (I know, it’s rare, but it actually does happen sometimes, promise). He calls and you arrange to go see a movie and to get some hot chocolate and a cupcake afterwards. It’s a great night and when you come home your roommates ask, “How’d it go?” So, what do you say?

What do you say? Be honest with yourselves, how many of you will start gushing at how wonderful it was and how you’re going to spend the rest of your lives together? Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but how many of you would expect something more to happen? I think I’m safe in assuming that it’s most of us. So what happens when it doesn’t? What do we do when we get nothing but a first date?

Okay a lot of questions, but hopefully a lot of thinking was spawned from those questions. When we have a really great first date with someone we usually expect that great first date to become a great second date, and then to move on to “dating” and hopefully from there we’d be getting into a relationship… so on and so forth. But sometimes things just stop. Sometimes you don’t get that great second date. So what do we do? This is such a hard question to answer, but I’ll do my best. What we should do is chalk it up to experience and move on, but I know it’s not that easy. Our first inclination is to start dissecting that great first date trying to find the one mistake, slip-up, or misspoken word that made him decide he didn’t like us. Okay, while you’re at it, why don’t you stick a needle in your eye and chew on some glass. This is self-sabotage in its worst form ladies, not to mention self-inflicted torture. In all honestly, the fact that he isn’t breaking down your door begging for a second date probably has nothing to do with you.

Sometimes things just don’t work out. Sometimes someone just isn’t our type, and it can be for so many reasons that trying to pinpoint one is like trying to see a shooting star at 2:00 in the afternoon. So ladies, I want this to be your new mantra (I warned you I’d be coming out with a few of these), “It’s not my fault. It has nothing to do with me.” The truth is, whether or not a guy asks you out is completely out of your control. Yes, you can look your best and put out your best flirtatious moves but the decision ultimately lies with the guy, and this is exactly how it should be! I’m sure you’ve all heard it before, but the guy is supposed to be the pursuer, he is supposed to chase YOU! Not the other way around.

Okay, so what does this all mean? Am I saying that we need to put on our prettiest dresses and our reddest lipstick and just sit around hoping someone will smell the waft of my perfume and come sweep me off my feet? Well, yes and no. I do think that we should put our best selves out there and let the guys do the choosing, but I don’t believe that we should be passive about it. Nothing says that you can’t go out looking and nothing says that you have to wait for the guy to come to you. Here’s an example that recently happened to a friend I think highlights my point:
My friend was at a dance this last week and started chatting it up with a really cute guy who she was very interested in. At the end of the dance she was surprised to see that he had added her on Facebook. She began talking to him over chat and he gave her his phone number and told her to text him sometime and they could hang out. My friend, very politely, told him that she couldn’t accept his number but that he could have hers and if he wanted to do something with her he could call her anytime.

This is a perfect example, and from this I make my point. We are beautiful, sweet, wonderful young women who are going to be very desirable to a number of attractive young men. We don’t need to freak out and stress every time one of the millions of the guys in this world decides we’re not the one for him. What I hope you’ll do instead is repeat your mantra: “It’s not my fault. It has nothing to do with me.” Take a deep breath and remind yourself that somewhere out there is the man of your dreams and he is looking for you just as hard as you are searching for him. And trust me, he will find you, you just have to be patient and let him track you down.