AWPATT XV: January 17-February 2 (Thoughts 231-247)

A Woman Provokes A Thousand Thoughts: Hub

231 It’s got to be a good sign when I can go this long without deferring to saying, “I hope she’ll be friendly.” I’ve perused enough dating profiles from time to time (mainly out of curiosity, wanting to see what’s out there) that I’ve had ample opportunity to be dismayed by the shallowness, not of desire (it’s hardly a lousy character trait to want to be around friendly people) but of the amount of thought put into what people are looking for. My anecdotal survey of sites like these turned out that the vast majority of ‘what I’m looking for’ sections, at least for women, say something like “a guy who can make me laugh,” “a guy with a beard/tattoos,” “a guy my friends will like,” “a guy who doesn’t say ‘your’ when he should say ‘you’re’,” “a guy who’s taller than me,” “a guy who can go out or stay home,” “a guy who can keep up with me.”

If you thought I was superficial when I talked about height in Thoughts #50-52, you should see some of these profiles. I was just analyzing subconscious inclinations in myself, but made no hard statement categorically excluding different heights from “wife potential.” But for many girls on dating sites, it’s serious, or at least one of the only things they put thought into. But what I notice when I see those statements is that there’s next to nothing you can learn about a person’s character based on their meeting those criteria. Some profiles will pretend that there’s more to be worked through once she’s interested already, but that just sets you up for a high rate of frustration, because your filter isn’t tuned well enough.

Yes, I want someone friendly, but in person, that’s the first thing I notice, and ultimately it’s a given, so it almost doesn’t even enter into the consideration of what sort of a woman I’m looking for. I have deeper compatibility concerns in mind than the utmost superficial things imaginable. And I’m looking for someone with a similar depth of forethought in their relationship plans. Statements like the ones I quoted show carelessness and possibly intellectual stupidity, and that’s a turnoff, so I avoid people like that, but without being disrespectful.

232 I don’t believe I mentioned being interested in a studious woman. I’ve talked about intelligence, knowledge, that she’s careful to think about things before making decisions, but not specifically about the pursuit of knowledge in itself. While someone who goes to school for the sake of schooling, and to insulate themselves from reality, is not highly appealing, someone who’s had a certain measure of achievement in terms of education will stand out. Now, pretentious Type-A’s are exhausting to be on the receiving end of, so not every personality type is made more magnetic by the increase of education. For some, it reveals abhorrent ego issues. But perhaps more important is the question of whether you can learn outside of structured academia. Someone who pursues learning on their own time is like someone who exercises regularly. They’re not content to languish with what they already have, but are honing it, to get better and better, for themselves and others. That is the root attitude that will benefit any relationship. Because someone who thinks they can improve is someone who isn’t likely to think that they’ve “already arrived,” and thus is less apt to be arrogant. It’s not a guarantee, as I mentioned, but a woman who is reading and learning on her own time is more interesting to me because of what it implies about her character.

233 Noses! Do you like ‘em big or small? It’s one of those things that I don’t typically notice, like prescription eyeglasses, but when I do, it’s temporarily amazing, as I look around and compare others’ to appreciate the variety. I don’t think I like flattened or broad noses very much, but I’ve been intrigued by noticing that a diversity in relative size can still be attractive to me. I remember reading somewhere, where Song of Solomon was being referenced, that large noses were considered appealing in Hebrew culture (Song makes a big deal out of the Shulamite woman’s nose in one section). It’s funny, considering that from ancient Egyptian images of Hebrews to modern day stereotypes, Jews are characterized as having big noses. This is in the back of my mind every time I notice an attractive woman who has a noticeably larger than average nose. I suppose I don’t mind them if they have an isosceles shape, have no bumps on the ridge, and aren’t over-bulbous or over-pointy. Longer better than shorter. Thinner rather than thicker. It’s not usually that I think about what shape of someone’s nose might be more attractive, but I suppose it’s one of the subconscious impulses in your mind, like head shape, eye spacing, etc, that work together to give you the instant reflex of “that’s good looking,” or “that’s kinda odd,” even if you can’t quite put your finger on what makes that person different from others. Maybe it’s the nose.

234 That thought came from noticing a very friendly woman’s nose in one of my prerequisite courses I’m taking. I’m diverting to talk about light subjects before beginning an excursus on “how to approach dating when dating isn’t the focus/goal/objective.” In each of my classes, there are 5 or less males, making the ratio something like 1:6 or 1:5 men to women in each respective course. This is a little odd. I realize the field might be less interesting to men, but the vast difference could have more to do with a simple, unemphasized detail that I’ve been noticing in trend reports for higher education. There’s less and less men, percentage-wise, in higher ed courses, the higher you go. Amazingly, the focus of grants and government projects is still on getting more women to go to school, but the tables have already turned. It’s something like a 40-60% split in the makeup of men and women who attain baccalaureate degrees in this country (unless perhaps it was Master’s). What are the possible consequences of this? Statistics show that more boys are born than girls, so it’s not explained by population. There is a huge chunk of males missing from classrooms. What are the possible reasons, or consequences? Who knows? No one’s funneling resources to investigate; it’s as if men don’t matter. Oh, I’m not bitter. It’s just as easy to take the alternate view, that “women need the help, men don’t.” But I refuse to take either one. It’s just a fact that no one is obligated to help me, so whether they do or don’t, the responsibility is still on the individual to pursue educational success. But I can’t help but wonder if, given the dramatically high gender disproportion in these classes, it might be within a course or within the field itself that I meet my future wife, just looking at it from a statistical possibility perspective. There’s scarcely anywhere else I could interact personally with so many women close to my age, except for bars/clubs/concerts or church-related youth events. For a middle ground in terms of the chance of meeting a wholesome virtuous lady, the classroom is not a terrible place to be.

235 Addendum to Thoughts #22 & 199. What are the chances that I’ll end up with a younger woman? As recently as a year or two ago, I would defiantly have refused the notion that I wouldn’t marry someone within a half year of my age. But that’s idealism, and the realistic outcome might be different. Should I refuse someone who’s perfect in every other way but happens to be 5 years my junior (if I’m 28 and she’s 23, for example)? The older I get, the more likely this becomes, because the margin of what’s appropriate expands with age. Up to now, if I had entered a relationship with someone 2 years younger, they’d have been 21 or less. But now, 2 years younger is 23, which is not quite so young as to have a high likelihood of being immature or naïve. Since I probably won’t seriously look for a spouse until age 27-28, anticipating a solid career by that time, the idea that I’d get to know someone now who’s 22, and maintain a friendship until then, when she’d be 25, is not very far-fetched.

I think the reason I’m resistant and cautious to contemplating a relationship with someone 5-7 years younger, other than the difference in life experience, is that for most of my life up to now, such an age difference would have been monumental and clearly inappropriate: 18 and 13 year olds? 22 and 15 year olds? Eeugh. But people who are 33 and 25 routinely marry, and the brute age difference is even wider there. But they are in the same age group. Adults. Because people mature irrespective of their biological age, it could be that a marriage to a 23 year old, at age 28, would be wiser than to a 27 year old who is far more foolish. Just letting the thought hit me as actually concerning me, and not just as a distant hypothetical, is a source of amazement to consider.

The really weird thing about it is pondering where such a person would be now. If I married a 23 year old at age 29, then by the time I met her and became engaged, we’d have been 22 and 28, meaning that there’s a possibility that a woman like that would just now be graduating high school, or a freshman or sophomore in college. In other words, I’d have no hope of meeting her now, anyway. Our life trajectories don't intersect at this time. So it may be several years before I’m engaged, not only because I’m waiting to get a career and stable income, and not only because I want to be careful to find the right person, but even because, if the ‘playing field’ is too devoid of suitable candidates my age, my future wife COULD BE, because of our age difference, not even here yet. Not arrived on scene. Somewhere else entirely.

What a mind-boggling thought.

236 Taking those last two thoughts together, there’s a real possibility that I might either meet someone in church or at university, while taking courses to get where I want to get. And they might be significantly younger. Respect for them would demand that I don’t make their life more difficult by ‘jumping the gun,’ and inadvertently pressuring them to commit long before the opportunity for engagement arises. But if they turned out to be fond of me, and for those years did not enter a relationship with another young man, then that would be gratifying. I can see myself like Boaz (paraphrasing), “you’ve shown me more kindness than before, because you could have had any younger man you wanted, but did not.” (Ruth 3:10) It’s equally likely that I can’t find anyone there, either, however, and may nevertheless resort to a dating site later on, but only God knows. I have the opportunity to wonder now, that I may marvel later.

How to Approach Dating when Dating isn’t the Focus, Goal, or Objective

Journal Treatise: Oort Cloud

Treatise: Oort Cloud

                        In my three years so far as a passionate apologist, I’ve had a number of varied interactions which I imagine fairly well represent the gamut, though obviously not constituting the whole spread of relationships that Christians can have with unbelievers. I’ve dealt with false converts of Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Orthodox Jewish and Lutheran persuasion, among others unstated. Homosexual ministers, Sadducees (which I take to be Jews who don’t believe in God or an afterlife—the Pharisees were the conservatives from which the modern Orthodox Jewish religion stems), muslims, mormons and jehovah’s witnesses (I refuse to capitalize these as if to indicate that they are credible or honorable, as with the Bible and Christianity). Of atheists, there are also many different kinds of individuals. One of them, whom I shall refer to as Oort Cloud, for a number of metaphorical reasons, was someone I met very early in my study of Biblical Creation and who, despite his mannerisms and facial expressions, came across to me as quite jovial and easy to get along with. Don’t judge someone as being angry just because they look like it. Some of the least pleasant people to talk to – or, some people you might not even be able to talk to – are people who put up a feigned air of politeness. People who are deceitful about their emotions and attitudes anger me much more easily than those who are straightforward.

                        Oort Cloud’s first encounter with me, that I remember, consisted of him showing the “Ray Comfort: The Banana, the Atheists’ Nightmare” video on youtube and asking what I thought of it. I answered that of course the banana wasn’t made in its current form at the very beginning. What I would have said if it had been today, however, would be that despite this, Ray’s statements are no less true about how the banana is an example of God’s care for human beings in how He designed the world. This is because even though the banana as we know it today likely did not exist 4,000 years ago, the genetic information which codes for the variety we see in grocery stores was nevertheless present in the original ancestral variety. The banana is an excellent example of directed selection, where certain qualities in an organism are “hand-picked” and used to develop the next generation, and of man’s stewardship for the earth, wherein he exercises his creativity to utilize the natural world for the benefit of mankind and nature alike. But as it were, my response surprised Oort Cloud, who apparently expected something more ignorant, and it, and a few other subsequent interactions of a similar sort, impelled him to search for “stumper” questions to try to debate me with, and see if he could shake my resolve and get me to relent of my confidence in the Bible.

                        Oort Cloud would see me on occasion and would over time begin to act as if, and tell me that he was angry with me for always having answers. This is not to say that they necessarily convinced him at any point, or that they even seemed to be an impressive argument, but I think his perception was that my answers did not fall to the level of being transparently illogical, and my views were internally coherent. He would often wear a contemplative frown when listening to my responses to his questions. His animated reactions to things that shocked him were amusing and will probably remain in my memory for some time. But as far as I can recall, he never made any effort to slander or attack me as a person, or to spread damaging lies about me to others, as a different group of people attempted to do roughly a year after I first met him.

                        I probably would have forgotten about the Oort Cloud if it wasn’t for a moment in late spring 2012. I hadn’t seen him for a while, but I encountered him suddenly in my campus dining hall. He was either graduating or transferring, and so he had come up to me to say goodbye. It was a curious occasion. Dejectedly is not quite the right word, but it was with a flustered insistency that I understand his reluctance to acknowledge what he was telling me,  that he told me, in effect, that he’d miss me, essentially. Not that he said those words. No, he said something akin to that he was bothered by my strong faith AND mastery of scientific facts and logic, that he thought in his heart that such a thing should not be—that a person of faith could believe without misunderstanding or rejecting science. He said in essence that he was impressed that I was a ‘worthy opponent,’ and expressed a wish to not be reminded of his confusion by meeting me or a person like me again. He would go on to grumble about these things for some time. I am glad to have served as a challenge to his presuppositions, and I hope that down the road, Oort Cloud will encounter something or someone that sparks the seed implanted within him to germinate, and that he does not stifle his discovery of the truth. The fact that he alone of the atheists I’ve spoken to came to me and gave me a verbal handshake is a good and hopeful sign, in my eyes. But you can never be sure. So if you read this and feel motivated to pray, I encourage you to pray for Oort Cloud and others like him to not seek relief from the challenge that they’ve encountered, be it in an intellectually savvy Christian or something profound in Scripture that just won’t let them be, but that they would struggle through it until they come to the foot of the Cross in humility and defeat. They may come unwillingly, as Oort came to me, but God’s Holy Spirit has the power to change a human heart. In time, we won’t want anything but to come to Him, whether we once struggled with it or not.