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Book Review: What Women Wish You Knew About Dating

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Some months ago I saw What Women Wish You Knew About Dating: A Single Guy’s Guide to Romantic Relationships by Stephen W. Simpson mentioned on a couple of blogs with, if I remember correctly, the first chapter included on one. Having two sons of dating age and one approaching it in a few years, I thought this might be a good resource, so I wanted to check it out first.

I’m more conflicted about this book than any other in recent memory.

There is a lot I like about it. I agree with a lot of the actual dating advice: getting to know the other person in group situations before asking them out, tips for actually asking them plus suggestions for the first couple of dates, being a man rather than “a guy,” being assertive without being overbearing, taking the lead without being controlling, differences between being authentic (not putting on a false front to impress people) yet not being blunt, working on your life before asking anyone out, signals that she is not interested, understanding that no other person can take God’s place in your life and no one else is responsible for your self-esteem.

But I do have several problems with the book as well.

1. In a discussion of places to meet women and the advantages and disadvantages of each, bars are listed as a possibility. I don’t know why a Christian writer writing to Christians would even list bars and nightclubs: the author does discuss the potential problems of such a setting, and with all the caveats mentioned, any thinking young person would deduce that bars are not really options. To give the author the benefit of the doubt, perhaps that is exactly what he was trying to do: help the reader see the problems without outright saying, “DON’T go to these places,” knowing that that in itself would cause some to seek them out; or perhaps he was thinking of a wider audience who might already have some experience in such places, and he was trying to help them see they were the least attractive options. But I can just picture some people thinking that, because it is listed, and he didn’t say not to consider them, then they’re plausible options: He does say, “This is not to say that bars and nightclubs are evil (though some are close). You can have fun as long as you pay attention to the fun you’re having” (p. 87). As the daughter of an alcoholic and therefore, I am sad to admit, having spent some time in those places growing up, they are really no place for Christians.

2. Drinking alcohol is mentioned here and there as a natural thing that Christians might be doing. If you have a young person old enough to consider dating, you’ve probably already had discussions about your standards on this issue — if not, you should. But with this consideration and the first one, you’d really need to take into account how your young person might respond. (I’m thinking about another post with my own thoughts on this subject, but let me just say for now that though personally I don’t believe in social drinking, I don’t toss a book out just because it might be mentioned, but a book made up of advice for primarily young adults is one where I would be wary of the subject.)

3. I’ve lamented before that reverence seems to be a lost commodity in a lot of Christian literature. Jesus is a “friend who sticks closer than a brother” and was called “a friend of sinners,” but he’s not a buddy. There is a difference. But there is that overly-familiar, irreverent tone towards the Lord in the book, such as “God will never leave you. And He’s a great guy to have around” and our being “lucky to have Him around” (pp. 200-204). I don’t think we have to address Him as “Thou” and speak in King James English to and about him, but to hear the Creator, the Lord of glory being spoken of casually as “a great guy to have around” does just rub me the wrong way.

4. Simpson advocates waiting until the third date to kiss, and that’s with the understanding that the young man has gotten to know the young woman well before he even asked her out: he even advocates it because otherwise “she’ll think you don’t like her” (p. 158). He does advocate waiting until there is some level of commitment and avoiding physical contact on a casual date. Personally I would advocate waiting much longer for that kind of physical contact until there is much more of an understanding and commitment. He also “oks” brief hugs on the first date, but with the increased amount of body contact involved in hugging, I’d hold off on that, too. He also lists “cuddling while sitting up” as an “appropriate physical behavior” for those in “committed relationships” (p. 188). I would be very cautious about that, because, honestly, that’s where a lot of problems start. Parents need to have discussions on this topic with their young people, and seriously dating young people need to discuss it with each other, but one of the things we have told our boys is not to linger with a kiss or hug. Cuddling on the couch while watching a movie is inherently lingering and is especially dangerous if the couple is alone.

Then I have some other areas of disagreement though I wouldn’t call these major problems:

1. The overall tone of the book is more like an older friend or brother coming alongside and giving friendly advice rather than an authority figure giving lists of dos and don’ts, which I think would go over much better with the intended audience. Either the tone or the author’s personal style leans towards a casualness which overall is fine and fitting, (except in reference to God as mentioned above), but here and there it makes me wince, as when, in discussing several Biblical character’s accomplishments, he describes Paul’s trials as going “through a bunch of crap” (p. 37). (I’ve written before how I feel about that word.)

2. He lists as a “myth” the idea that God has one person picked out to be your spouse and that He will guide you to that person. I disagree that that’s a myth — I think God does guide us to the right person — but I do agree probably too many Christians take that to mean there will be some “sign” or that it won’t take personal effort on their part. I think it is like anything else in the Christian life — we don’t always know exactly what is “our part” and “His part,” but they work together: as we walk with Him each day, seeking His direction, He leads and guides, but it doesn’t mean we sit idly by. Dr. Bob Jones, Jr. used to say something like “God will help you with your responsibilities if you ask Him, but He’s not going to do your math homework for you.” He does guide and direct and help, but we have our responsibilities as well, and often He directs through what He guides and helps us to do.

3. For those who believe in courtship over dating, Simpson does not, so if you have strong views you’d want to preview his book before passing it on . I am not one who believes “courtship” is the only option for Christians, nevertheless I do share the concerns some of these folks have. For those who have no idea what I am talking about, there is a growing segment who believes that dating as we know it in this era is wrong for several reasons and that we need to go back to the practice of courtship, where young people don’t date widely and generally, but that a young man comes “calling” on a young lady when he is ready to pursue that relationship through to marriage (unless they discover along the way some reason not to marry), and the girl’s father has to give his permission for this step. There are various levels of belief in regard to courtship, some very rigid and extreme. Perhaps that would be a subject for another post, but the major point I disagreed with Simpson on was a quote from Henry Cloud and John Townsend in Boundaries In Dating that “fear of rejection has spawned the anti-dating movement in the church.” I don’t believe that was the primary factor, if it was a factor at all: rather, I believe it was concern that, 1) the date, form an exclusive relationship with, then break up cycle occurring over and over wasn’t good training for marriage; 2) that these young people who were going together were emotionally married even without being physically and financially married and this wasn’t healthy but rather too intense for this stage of their relationship; 3) that this kind of dating put more temptation and pressure on the young people to get involved physically.

Favorite quotes from the book:

“That’s why this poor girl whom I hardly knew was carrying the weight of my self-worth. It was never hers to bear in the first place” (p. 12, emphasis mine.) (That would solve so many problems if we would realize our self-worth isn’t any one else’s weight to bear.)

“When he’s competing, his goal is to challenge himself instead of humiliating others” (p. 29).

“Confidence is not being cocky and loud. It’s not a personality style. Confidence means trusting that you are God’s unique and important creation” (p. 28).

“You need a reason for getting out of bed in the morning other than finding Miss Right. You need to focus on Mr. Right Now” (p. 36).

“”Being yourself’ isn’t the same as hurling forth every thought without hitting the censor button. It means that you can express yourself while caring enough about someone not to offend them if you can avoid it” (p. 65).

In conclusion, if you have a young adult in your home or under your influence, and you’d like to give them a book about dating, or you are a young person interested in the subject, you would have to evaluate this book (and any other) in light of your beliefs and convictions. I am still undecided about whether to pass it on to my sons or not.

Related posts:

What women want…in a Christian man

Blue Monday: Love Plaque

Posted on January 12, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue — pretty, ugly, serious or funny — and then link up to other Blue Monday participants.

I saw this at our local Christian bookstore and loved it. My husband got it for me this last year for Mother’s Day.

My Jesus Fair

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Barbara Harper

“My Jesus Fair” is a new hymn written by Pastor Chris Anderson. I had read the words on his site some time back, and I don’t remember what my reaction was — positive, I’m sure — but this morning a young man sang it as a solo at our church, and, my, what a blessing. The first verse says:

My Jesus, fair, was pierced by thorns,
By thorns grown from the fall.
Thus He who gave the curse was torn
To end that curse for all.

Though of course I knew that Jesus took the penalty for our sin on Himself, it just struck me in a new way to think that the very thorns that grew as a result of sin coming into the world pierced the One who gave that curse “to end that curse for all.”

Then the refrain says:

O love divine, O matchless grace-
That God should die for men!
With joyful grief I lift my praise,
Abhorring all my sin,
Adoring only Him.

I love the poetry and rhythm as well as the truth of it, especially the last two lines. The whole hymn is filled the paradoxical juxtapositions: joyful grief (I have often wrestled between those two emotions in thinking about salvation: joy at what He did for me, grief that it cost Him so much); in subsequent verses, He meekly took abuse and forgave men acting most unmeekly; though kind, He was cruelly torn; though pure, crushed by judgment for sin.

You can find the full text of the hymn here and hear a sound clip here. I was thinking as I listened this morning that this sounded like something the Petit or Galkin Evangelistic teams would do, and I was delighted to discover that the Galkins have it on their latest CD, Christ Only, Always (and I was reminded that was something on my Christmas list I didn’t receive, but I hope to remedy that this week!)

Thank you, Pastor Anderson, for this beautiful and thoughtful hymn that turns our hearts and focus again to Him.

Stray Thoughts and Links

Posted on January 10, 2009 by Barbara Harper

I can’t seem to get enough sleep this week. I don’t know if it is “recovery” from the holidays and a busy last week or what. Well…it might have something to do with staying up too late and then getting up at the regular time to get Jesse off to school. 🙂 But even then, on Wednesday I took a good nap in the afternoon and still dozed off a couple of times in church (sorry, Pastor — nothing personal!!)

I was looking forward to getting some other obligations done last week and then having most everyone back to school and work this week so that I could really dig in and get some things done. But with feeling sleepy — and unmotivated — and spending too much time at the computer — and not being able to decide which project to start — that didn’t quite happen. I did make a to-do list and have most of it crossed off, but didn’t get to some of the things that have been reentered on multiple to-do lists for months that I was hoping to tackle this week. I plan to get myself in gear, though.

I had my first MIRL this evening! That’s “meeting in real life” of another blogger. Actually, Ann of From Sinking Sand and I knew each other back in college but lost touch over the years, then rediscovered each other online. She lives about an hour away, and our respective Christian schools played each other in basketball tonight, so we got a chance to catch up with each other.

Here’s some interesting reading from the last few weeks:

Chats With an Old Lady has thought-provoking posts on doing our husbands good and not evil (Proverbs 31:11-12) and a gossip test.

Diane at Strength For Today writes about The Ideal Wife.

Chrysalis, whom I am happy to have recently rediscovered, has a great post about Why Beauty Matters.

A Common Room, whom I seem to be quoting a lot these days, wrote about the difference between being against fornication yet supporting the choices of an unwed mother. One quote from it: “To me, an unmarried mother is a reminder to honor and say a special prayer of blessing for her and for those like her who make incredible sacrifices, sacrifices of pride, of financial standing, of self, in order to do the right thing and give the baby the gift of life instead of trying to hide the evidence of their fornication by dismembering that small human being in the womb.”

Sharon Hinck is giving away a copy of her book Stepping Into Sunlight — to be given to someone else. Details are here.

I don’t get political too often here, but wanted to share these few things:

If someone had thrown a shoe at an Arab leader…
Laura Bush Defends Her Husband’s Legacy
President Bush’s reading choices reveal much more mental prowess than his critics give him credit for.
The Common Room linked to some odd media bias in the way Obama’s (“The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games” and “Gym Workouts Help Obama Carry the Weight of His Position.”) and Bush’s (“Chait argued that Bush’s passionate devotion to exercise was a dereliction of duty. ‘Does the leader of the free world need to attain that level of physical achievement?’”) exercise programs have been covered.
Diane at Strength For Today posted a list of things that are true no matter who is elected.

On the crafty front:

I love these crocheted hearts. I can’t crochet and don’t know what I’d do with these if I had them but they’re sooo cute.
So are these felt heart ornaments. I am trying to think of other ways they could be used besides ornaments so I don’t have to wait til Christmas to hang them if/when I make them.
I might give this heart wreath a try — only in pink, of course.
Love this button tree.

Have a great weekend!

Whose life is it, anyway?

Posted on January 8, 2009 by Barbara Harper

It’s interesting how God brings something to my attention just as I need it. I had just been chafing under an area of service to another, a particularly minor service, when Michelle’s post about serving the Lord with gladness convicted me. That led me to thinking about serving one another in love. Then last night in Joy and Strength I read the following:

Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good.
ROMANS 15:2

Let us consider one another.
HEBREWS 10:24

LOOK around you, first in your own family, then among your friends and neighbors, and see whether there be not some one whose little burden you can lighten, whose little cares you may lessen, whose little pleasures you can promote, whose little wants and wishes you can gratify. Giving up cheerfully our own occupations to attend to others, is one of the little kindnesses and self-denials. Doing little things that nobody likes to do, but which must be done by some one, is another. It may seem to many, that if they avoid little unkindnesses, they must necessarily be doing all that is right to their family and friends; but it is not enough to abstain from sharp words, sneering tones, petty contradiction, or daily little selfish cares; we must be active and earnest in kindness, not merely passive and inoffensive.

There is no author listed for the quote: under it is just “LITTLE THINGS, 1852.”

Selfish as I am, I have to be frequently reminded my life is not my own. It’s His, and often serving others is serving Him.

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2.

Booking Through Thursday: The Best?

Posted on January 8, 2009 by Barbara Harper

The weekly Booking Through Thursday question for today is:

It’s a week or two later than you’d expect, and it may be almost a trite question, but … what were your favorite books from 2008?

(It’s an oldie but a goodie question for a reason, after all … because, who can’t use good book suggestions from time to time?)

The Bible. I really mean that: I’m not trying to sound trite or cliche or “spiritual.”

As far as other regular books go — I always have trouble with superlatives, but I’ll try to name one in each category:

Instructional:

Winning the Inner War: How To Say No to a Stubborn Habit by Erwin Lutzer, about…exactly what the title says, reviewed here.

Non-fiction:

Mistaken Identity by Mark Tabb, about a girl who was misidentified after an accident, reviewed here.

Classic:

Hard to choose between The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, reviewed here, or Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, reviewed here.

Christian Fiction:

Stepping Into Sunlight by Sharon Hinck, about a woman who experiences panic attacks after witnessing a violent crime, reviewed here.

My whole list of books read in 2008 is here.

You can find more answers to this question and join in with your own at the Booking Through Thursday site.

When children’s beliefs and practices differ from ours

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Barbara Harper

When you work with young people, whether as a parent, teacher, or just another adult with some influence in a particular child’s life, there comes a time when you’re dismayed to discover the child has a mind of his or her own and is not afraid to use it. 🙂 Of course we want our young people to develop and use their minds, but when they take views opposite to ours sometimes we wish for the “easier” days when they agreed with everything we told them and our primary care of them was physical (though at that time we longed for the days ahead when our kids could take care of themselves more.)

Let me encourage us to, first of all, keep the lines of communication open, and second of all, to choose our battles. I sometimes wince at that last phrase because I have seen some parents use it when they abandon training their children in some area that the child is resisting. But there are some areas of difference that are fine and just expressions of different personalities. For instance, if you like pastels and florals in your decorating, but your daughter likes dramatic colors and modern abstract patterns, that’s fine. God gave us different personalities to reach different people.

It’s a little harder when it comes to different convictions. We may hold strong views on courtship vs. dating or schooling or entertainment choices or any number of things, and we see signs that our children are not going to maintain those views in their adulthood. Romans 14 applies within families as well as within the church. I had to really wrestle with some of these things when we lived out of state and could not find a church that held to some of our convictions, though we found many with whom we agreed doctrinally. Unity in Christianity doesn’t mean we all do everything the exact same way. Roman 14 and related passages teach that good people can be on complete opposite sides of an issue and still be right with God, still doing what they do as unto the Lord, fully persuaded in their own minds that what they are doing is what He wants. So we need to discern whether the issue involved is a matter of core doctrine and truth or whether it is an issue that good people can disagree on. If the latter, as parents, teachers, authorities. or mentors, we can still insist that a certain standard be maintained in our home or classroom, but we don’t need to regard the young person with the differing conviction as a second-class Christian or as out of the will of God.

Still harder and scarier is when the young person does begin to question our core values, doctrines, and beliefs. Let me encourage us all not to shut down the questions. The first fundamentalist pastor I had was an old-school authoritarian who not only did not entertain questions but looked on the questioner with suspicion as a rebel. Even as adults we can sometimes wrestle with questions like “How do I know this is all really true?” I’ve often prayed for myself as well as my children, when those kinds of questions come up, that if there are answers, the Lord would help us find them, but also help us to be willing to take by faith what there are no answers for. One of the best messages I have ever hear along these lines was “God Is Wise and We Are Not” by Dan Olinger of the BJU faculty. I like that he says “God is able to handle our questions.” He doesn’t always answer them the way we’d like. But He’s not intimidated by them. And, honestly, I’d much rather have a young person wrestle through some of these things and truly make their beliefs their own and come out the stronger in their faith for it than to be swept along in a positive peer pressure without knowing why they believe what they believe.

The hardest of all, though, in this progression of differences between our beliefs and our young people’s, is when they outright reject truth. The Common Room a few weeks ago shared some remarks that started off my whole line of thinking here. The context of the remarks she has that I want to share had to do with a child of friends who was marrying someone the parents did not approve of. I’ve seen parents handle things the way she describes, a way that will make reconciliation all the harder, if not impossible, and I felt her thoughts here to be valuable:

I wrote last year about an unhappy wedding we attended (and that wedding has already ended), and while I wrote it specifically about a situation where a rebellious and wayward young person was marrying somebody most unsuitable, the general principles apply to several situations, and I’m reviving it slightly for this post:

I am seeing an awful lot of defrauding going on- and it’s the parents defrauding their children.

The time to raise objections, to point out possible character flaws, to object to a relationship that you believe may be toxic- even if you are right, dead on target, and absolutely correct in all your judgments is before there is a relationship to cloud judgment, before saying these things will cause a fatal wound in your child’s relationship with you, and especially if you allowed that relationship to develop in the first place.

Do not let your most fondly cherished hopes and dreams for how your child’s marriage will happen… come between you and your adult Progeny, whether they share those hopes and dreams or crush them under foot.

I have conservative views on mating, dating (we don’t believe in it) and courtship, views shared by my husband happily, still shared by our Progeny- but those views are not more important to us than our children themselves.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love….

All my earnestly held beliefs in the world will not matter a fig if I conduct a slash and burn policy towards a wayward child and use my convictions as an axe against the root of our relationship in such a way as to drive my adult son or daughter away from me. In fact, in several instances I can think of, parents have attempted to bludgeon adult children into compliance with their own cherished convictions, only to see that weapon shift in their hands and become a catapult which only serves to launch that young person as far away from his parents as possible, often into the arms of any waiting other.

It is possible to speak winsomely and gently of those convictions, to explain them sweetly when leavened well with humility.

But too often we prefer to pontificate proudly and strut and huff and puff about them, sure that we are producing a new breed, if only that breed will shut up and get in line, we mean, obey their spiritual heads, and then it is of no matter how pleasing to God the convictions themselves may or may not be, our hearts are poisoned in His eyes, and we are acting in such fashion as to poison any future relationships with unsaved in-laws and grandchildren.

It is a tragedy to see parents angrily but sincerely pleading, insisting, that their children return to the fold, something they truly desire with all their hearts, while all the time they are pleading, they are pouring gasoline on the bridge between them and their loved ones and then setting it afire.

There are times we do have to take a painful stand. But we need to remember that some of God’s tenderest expressions of love, some of the times He most reveals His heart for His people, are in those passages in the prophets where He is having to confront them with their sin. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” applies to loved ones as well as to strangers — perhaps even more so. The purpose of chastisement is reconciliation. We need to avoid destroying the relationship and making it all the harder for the young person to return to the fold while standing for truth. Let us not burn the bridges but rather, like the prodigal son’s father, gaze with anticipation down a clear path while we wait for their return.

(Photo courtesy of the stock.xchng)

Works For Me Wednesday: Couponing once a month

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Barbara Harper

I have a love/hate relationship with coupons. Well…mostly hate. It seems so tedious to cut them out and file them, then most of the time I forget them before heading out to the store. So from time to time I sort through my coupons and toss out the expired ones and cringe thinking of the money I could have saved.

I was going through this ritual a week or so before the end of December when I decided to pull out all the coupons expiring at the end of the year to see if I could use them. I found many for grocery items I regularly bought, some $1 or more off, some for goods that I didn’t need yet but would use soon. I decided this time to shop around the coupons. I ended up saving $12 at Wal-Mart (where we usually but toiletries anyway because they’re cheaper and where I used the $1 off coupons that the grocery store would not double) and about that much again at the grocery store (which doubled coupons under a certain amount). That certainly provided motivation!

I decided that might be the better way to use coupons: instead of trying to deal with them every week and failing, it might be easier to go through them once a month and pull out all the ones expiring within the next month, and shop for those items whether I need them just then or not.

There is a limit to this as we don’t have a lot of storage space. Because of that I still avoid coupons where you have to buy an abundance of one product, and I avoid those requiring a complicated assortment as just taking too much time. But overall this method works much better for me than what I had been doing.

For an abundance of workable tips, visit Rocks In My Dryer most Wednesdays.

Quirky, random, and/or little known facts about me

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Before the holidays I saw a meme going around to list seven things about oneself — one had little-known things, one had weird or quirky things, one had random things. I can’t remember if anyone tagged me (and if so, forgive me, I’ve forgotten who) or if I just thought it might be fun to do. But I’m combining all these various types of facts into one list.

1. In the “You might not know…” category, I seem outwardly to be a mild-mannered librarian sort (I actually was a librarian in college), but I can be very competitive in games. Not cutthroat — but competitive. At least in games where I have some kind of skill.

2. Speaking of games, in the “quirky” category, I seem to have a penchant for getting three “I’s” in Scrabble trays, whether the board game, computer game, or Facebook games.

When I started noticing it, I began taking pictures. These are just 9 out of 17, and that’s just from the time I started taking pictures of them — who knows how many times it happened before that. Weird, huh?

(By the way, thanks to my blog friend Ellen, The Happy Wonderer, for telling me how to do collages. She often has great ones on her site. She told me if you use Picasa 3, there’s a button on the toolbar for collages….and there it was! Duh! I had never even noticed, but I was happy to learn something new today!)

3. I don’t like most flavored drinks, like different flavors of tea or coffee. Saves me a bundle at Starbucks, but I do feel sometimes I’m missing out on a cultural phenomenon.

4. I like iced tea (unsweetened, decaf), but not hot tea. I wish I did — it would add to the variety of warm drinks available in cold weather. But the smell makes me almost nauseous.

5. I don’t like angels. Well, the real angels, yes — they have a vital role in God’s kingdom, but not most art and craft depictions of them. Most are usually feminine or cutesy, far from how Scripture portrays them. If I am going to have angels in art, I want them this way:

(Archangel Michael by Guido Reni, courtesy of Art.com, here depicted in a battle against the devil.)

6. I don’t know how to type — not the correct way. In fact, in college, where most girls typed their boyfriends papers in the days before computers made such things so much easier, my boyfriend (now husband) typed mine. I mainly use my two index fingers, but I have kind of developed my own method. (Although, now that I actually observe myself typing, seem to use my two longest middle fingers the most.)

7. I haven’t figured out Sudoku. But then I have absolutely no desire to. I probably should exercise that part of my brain more.

If you’d like to share six quirky, random, and/or little known facts about yourself, consider yourself tagged!

Blue Monday

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue — pretty, ugly, serious or funny — and then link up to other Blue Monday participants.

This is one of my favorite “blue” pictures:

Several years ago when we were home schooling, I had the boys more involved in the everyday housework. I had them bring their hampers from their upstairs bedrooms downstairs to the laundry room when it was time to do laundry. At some point after the clothes got dumped out, Jesse would often climb in one of the hampers while one of the other boys put another on top. It was just one of those weird but fun things that somehow got started that became part of the routine they looked forward to.