Rick in Sacramento called, could not stay on the line, and asked if we would just
ask you this question: "Can you discuss the proper place for physical and
emotional attraction in our relationships?" and he gave an example of
maybe you meet someone who seems like a good person to marry, but you don't feel
attracted to that person. Good question, a loaded question. Again, I'm so glad I
have six hours to answer all of these questions.....that was a joke.
So basically, that's deep because he said emotional and physical attraction,
and what happens if you maybe feel more of one and not the other, or more of the
other and not--you know--that happens. My very short answer, which...I spent over
sixty pages in my book answering what I call the natural progression of a
relationship, so how do you go from "Hey" to "I do" in a social media texting world?
So it took me a long time and a lot of prayer to try to figure that out, and so
I basically took the book and I kind of build it on stones, you know, like baby
steps, you know, and so one of the things that I just find in relationships
is...to be honest, the best relationships really start in a really solid friend
group. And I know that sounds cliche and, you know, whatever, but there is that
aspect of...okay so I'm gonna do this quick. But you know, women out there,
you've got to find that squad, that tribe, that group of women that you can run
with and you run to the Lord with, and have that big group of women, right? At
any age. And then the men out there, hopefully you men out there that are
listening, like, you've got to find some brothers in Christ that you can run with,
you know you have a squad, you have a tribe, you have a group of men that you
rely on, that can hold you accountable, that can, you know--to show you the way, to
run with, because when things get hard, and things get tough, and relationships
get messy, and the opposite sex gets confusing, you need someone that you can
run to. And I want you to run first to our Lord, but then I also want you to run
with a group of like-minded people, you know, that are the same sex as you because
what happens is, especially in high school and colleges, you hit a rough
patch or you hit, you know, life gets tough and life gets messy, and it will and
it does, it is so tempting and it is so easy to run into the arms of the
opposite sex, and to think that that's gonna be okay, and bypass friendship
whatsoever. Right? So you talked about how emotionally involved, how physically
involved do I get? If your starting--if your starting Point A is in
these groups of true friends, and then the trick is to not only have these
group of like the same sex--like for the females, you know the women they run with
with the males the males they run with-- but for those two groups to spend time
together in person, hanging out, cosmic bowling, IHOP, you know, I mean, going to
dinner, you--doing fun--I mean going to ice cream, like doing fun things that you can
do, throwing the alternative party, you know, like you don't have to compromise
your morals to have a good time, right, like everyone wants to get dressed up
and go out and have a good time, right? That's awesome in a group of men
and women. And then what happens is, you naturally--the natural progression of
relationship. Those groups naturally start--someone start standing out in the
crowd, right? It's not a flirt fest where you just try to figure out who you're
gonna date in the male group brothers in Christ field, right, but really just
authentically, you already gave up using people because we know that that's not
what's good for you, you know, emotionally or physically, so all of a sudden your
relationships become about, "How can I get my brothers in Christ to Heaven? How can
I help them in virtue and not be an obstacle that stands in their way?
How can I authentically love them and be there for them as they try to figure
out what God's calling them to do?" That--I mean, as a woman, you know. And then for
the men to look after the women and say, "Man I want to really--like I love Suzy
and Sally like they're my sisters, like I want to be there for them, I want to
protect them and respect them as women," and you start learning virtue through
relationships. And so it's a natural progression of a relationship, right? So
not only do those friendships hold checks and balances for you, because your
whole friend group is watching it all go down, but you also have this beautiful
kind of natural progression to the next stage. So that's where texting gets
really kind of messy, because you might meet someone at a function or at a bar
or out, or something like that and you're like, "Oh I think I'm gonna text them
and see if there's potential here." So all of a sudden you just start texting this
person that your friends haven't met, they don't know who who this person is,
and you start texting for like six months, just
all of these really revealing things about yourself, maybe you meet up in person,
maybe you don't, but you have this like really intense intimate relationship
with this person, and there's no accountability there. Right? There's no,
"How does he act around my girlfriends? How does he act around my
guy friends?" So I guess my very long short answer is: I know that it's hard
and tempting to want to jump into a relationship with someone and just be
like, "Okay, how do I figure out how emotional and physical can I be," but I
think the very first step is to take the time, and I know it's hard, it's very
difficult, but take the time to really build up those friend groups and make
those really strong, so that when you do go to that next step, you have all kinds
of people that are there cheering you on, helping you out. And my last thing is, you
know: God, time, trust, virtue, honesty. In my book, those are the five steps for moving
forward in a relationship. And in my book I actually break all of those down, and
how, you know, to go from one step to the next, whether you're going from true
friends to having a DTR to defining the relationship, stating your intentions in
person, to dating you know, to courting, to engagement, to marriage. And I spent a
lot of time and a lot of prayer really breaking that down, because there really
isn't a lot of dating books out there. There really isn't a lot of..."How do we go
about this?" You know? There's a lot of great books out there in the secular
world but their advice isn't all that awesome sometimes, and so I really took,
you know, what I always kind of say, you know, Jason and Christina Evert
are really good friends of mine, we all work together at the Chastity Project,
and we really are trying to approach this at a lot of angles. And for me, what
I felt like my piece of the puzzle was, was that whole relationship side, and how
do we cultivate just fantastic, virtuous, excellent, holy, striving--striving, because
no one's perfect-- striving relationships that really
center on being vulnerable and being sincere and being clear with our
intentions?