Thursday, February 07, 2008

no more bad boys (probably can't say the same for bad decisions)

we all know the stereotype of the bad boy. i admit, i've fallen for a few. i've never seriously dated one, but i've 'hung around' a few, and um, may have made a bad decision or two concerning a rally-attending socialist venezuelan and also an underachiever rich-kid with bad words tattooed on his knuckles.

i am definitely making better decisions now, though! heck, the last guy i made a bad decision with was a really good guy! baby steps, right? right.....

so i saw vball dude at a church function last night. he was in line next to me for communion. we chatted some, and that was that. i hung around afterward hoping to talk to him some more, as i actually had something to tell him, but he was deep in conversation with someone else. i emailed him today, and when he emailed me back he mentioned the humanitarian trip through our church thathe was helping to plan, and added that if i wanted to help out, to just let him know. and before i really knew what i was doing, i hit reply and said, yup, i'd love to help out.

and with the click of my mouse and the stroke of a few keys, i committed to a trip to new orleans in August to build houses.

now, in my defense, i was thinking about going on some kind of trip like that this year. a few years ago i went really far away (africa), and i'm not ready to shell out for that again right now. but new orleans is much more do-able. and i was thinking that with some of my experiences, i could help with leadership stuff if they need it. but before that email, i still wasn't sure if i was committing or not. but i think that now i am committed.

but, you know what? vball dude is a good guy. a really good guy. even though at this point i don't think he's being anything more than nice to me, i'm ok with me doing a few silly (but hopefully subtle) things to hang around him a little more. for the first time in a while. i've found a good, solid guy, and i'm intrigued. i'm intrigued by his goodness! that doesn't happen much. hopefully we'll become friends and i can see what he's really all about, and if he's as good as he seems.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Be careful. Be very careful. Your faith and your personhood matter more than how Mr. Volleyball responds to you.

BTW, my name is Emily. I am not going to be anonymous because I want to be accountable for what I say to others.

Anonymous said...

Good point, Emily. I've seen both sexes do this. Here's an amusing story with respect to a guy...

Many years ago, during my tour of duty at Southern Baptist Theological Cemetary, a whole bunch of us from one of our classes got together at a restaurant one night.

One guy--Echo Bravo--was very boisterous whenever the gals were around. We got to know his whole biography that night. He was CLEARLY trying to get noticed by the ladies.

He had always spun himself as a conservative who aspired to be a foreign missionary. Back then, most of the women at Southern Seminary were feminist--Mohler had just arrived, and let's just say that things were quite contentious. The women tended to lean to the left.

Okay...whatever issues came up that night, Echo Bravo was now quite the moderate liberal, because that was what the ladies wanted to hear.

I would have none of it. Ergo, I argued with him on every issue, some of it because I really disagreed with him and partly because I wanted to help him make a complete ass of himself with the ladies. (Not that he needed much help!)

It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

One of the ladies brought up sex education in public schools, and he proceeded to step into it.

He started off on a spiel about how we need comprehensive sex education, so kids can make more educated decisions. He then said, "If I hadn't had access to that information, there's no way I would have stayed sexually pure."

I proceeded to laugh my ass off. As did the ladies. We all saw through him.

As for the ladies...both of them were social work majors. VERY liberal theologically and politically. I knew this because I had tutored them for one of my classes. Nice ladies, but very liberal.

And they saw right through Echo Bravo's attempt to cast himself into something he was not, in attempt to earn their favor.

Needless to say, I know a few guys over the years, who compromised who they were, just to get into the ladies' skirts. Every one of them got married, then divorced not long thereafter.

I guess that's my roundabout way of agreeing with Emily: your faith and personhood are more important than whether anyone else is otherwise romantically interested in you.

Emily said...

Hi single/certain,

I have a nice blog on Wordpress.com and you are more than welcome to come by and visit.

http://www.exchurchmouse.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

sometimes you gotta go where life leads you. good luck, s/c, in taking the leap. you'll be a wonderful asset to the team in august. if you bring back a great story or two about vball guy, even better.

single/certain said...

now just hold on here a minute, you overprotective cyber-friends, you! don't worry, i won't go changin' just to please this dude.

long before i even started playing volleyball, i lived in rome for a year as a missionary. and about two years ago i went to africa for 10 days on a mission trip. don't worry!

thanks for the vote of confidence, ks. i think your attitude sums up how i feel.

i'm not throwing myself at vball dude, nor am i reinventing myself to be what i think he wants. but i am noticing that he is very, very quality. i won't go into it all here, but his life pretty much seems to be about service. i heard from a friend of his that he's currently not working. he saved enough money that he could take some time off. and he's spending that time organizing service projects through our church and through a young professionals' organization. dag, yo! that seems to me like a quality person right there.

so i'm going where the quality is. because not only do i want to attract quality, i want to be more quality.

Anonymous said...

S/C: That's good to know. Actually, what I posted was more for amusement than anything else. I was just showing how guys--when sufficiently loaded with hormones--will tell a gal anything they want to hear in order to get laid.

It's like G. Gordon Liddy--of Watergate fame--once said: "God gave man a brain and a penis, but not enough blood supply for both at the same time." ;)

single/certain said...

ps welcome emily/atc. i hear you about accountable... enough of my friends read this that i def. some accountability :-)

yeah, amir, i chuckled at your story. i have seen both sexes be guilty of doing a 180 to attract attention from the opposite sex. good times.