just an update/smooth sailing...

so i haven't had much to say lately. the single life has been less of a struggle. now and then i'll come home from a night out with friends and feel some loneliness, or notice a bad behavior pattern creeping up and try to nip it. but no major revelations or drama (can i get some wood to knock on?)

mostly i've been spending a lot of time consoling friends. the end of 2007/the beginning of 2008 has brought a lot of my friends back to being single again. i find myself doing a lot of listening and comforting. maybe this is one of the reasons i'm still single. i'm not bragging, but people seem to think i might know a thing or two. or maybe i'm just a good listener? oh, the irony of the indefinitely single 28 year old being the go-to girl for relationship/breakup advice. ha.

i was supposed to go to a planning meeting last week for the building trip i'm going on to new orleans this summer, but i didn't make it because of crappy weather. i was bummed; vball dude is in charge of the whole thing and i would've gotten to see/interact with him. there'll be more meetings. and the whole trip, of course, in august... plenty of time to get to know him some more.

unfortunately, i've gotten busy with all kinds of random stuff. a weekly volunteering thing at church, an extracurricular work activity, a website design for a friend.... i've let all of that keep me from the whole group prayer thing. lame, i know! but i think it will come back around if it needs to. and in the meantime, i'm praying more, and that's always good.

i think better friendships will equal better marriages

what if all of us single people just hunkered down and committed to our friends and family and roommates? what if we took the focus off of ourselves and put it on each other? would we still feel as lonely and isolated and unstable as we currently often do? would we rush into bad dating relationships so quickly or stay in them as long as we do? i think probably not.

i brought this up with my friend evan the other day and he was right there with me; he agreed that our selfishness as single people is causing us to miss out on so many good things that god wants for us. basically, we're saying to god, i want the intimacy and connection and partnership that come with a spouse! and in return he's saying, i know that, and i want that for you too, but right now i'm providing with all of these other people for intimacy and connection and partnership, and you're ignoring them!

evan and i talked about what we thought might change if each of us had a significant other. he said he thought he'd feel more satisfied (amongst other things), and i said i envisioned myself feeling more stable and connected and anchored. we talked about achieving those feelings now, and we agreed that there's no good reason (save our own stubbornness) why we can't move that direction in our current single state.

i think that in order to get there, i've got to start putting other people first on a regular basis. for example; if my friends are going to watch movies and hang out friday night, and i really don't want to watch movies, well, maybe i need to suck it up and go watch movies just to spend some time with them. most of the time, i'd go look for something else to do with some other group of friends. and sometimes that's ok. but if i keep choosing the activity over the people, i never really commit to anyone. i never say you're important enough to me that i'll do something that i don't really like all that much just to spend time with you.

maybe the intimacy we all desperately long for is right in front of our faces. we just have to work a little harder to find it. die to ourselves a little. be a little more vulnerable with a few of our friends. really let them in, and really show them that we want to know them.

i think those things (sacrifice, service, vulnerability) are at the heart of a good marriage. why can't we start learning them now? good relationships are good relationships. a healthy community is a healthy community, no matter if it's singles or couples or a mix of both.

i'm not bitter....

but...

ok, maybe i am a little bitter. why does dating happen so easily for some people? yes, i know; you generally don't get to see the whole picture. there are details of other people's lives that often remain hidden, or get over- or under-estimated in the retelling. but allow me to... well, to vent for a just a bit.

so seth is dating this girl. he was set up with her by a coworker. he met her one night while out with a coworker and her friends. then, the next week at work, coworker says, hey seth, what did you think of my friend girl_x? and seth says, um, i don't know, she's cool i guess? and coworker says, do you want to take her out? seth replies, um, ok? coworker had already had a similar conversation with girl_x, and she is agreeable to going on a date with seth. coworker gives seth girl_x's number.

fast forward... basically, all he has to do is call her and ask her out. he does. they go. it's great. overnight, stoic seth turns into googly seth. now, don't get me wrong... i am seriously so excited for him. it's great. they've been on 3 dates, and every time i get to hear how well things are going from seth, and how much he thinks he likes her, and how she left her hat in his car so he held it ransom for a goodnight kiss (yeah, i know, you want to puke too, right? right?!). and seriously, seth is an awesome guy and this is great that this is going so well for him. at one point when i was telling him how excited i was for him he laughed and said that he wondered if i was more excited than he was. (i seriously doubt that!) but yeah, i am pumped for him. it's great to see things work out for someone, especially someone as awesome and solid as seth.

but at the same time that i'm excited, it's also tough. seth is 25, almost 26. i'm 28. he hasn't dated much at all; this girl was his first date in six years, i think he said. so, his first date in six years, and it's AWESOME. and he does like next to no work! this girl just falls from the sky, into his lap, and boom! it's awesome. what the crap!?!? yes, i know, they're not married yet; it's only been 3 dates. but i admit it; i'm a little jealous. how many random annoying dates have i gone on? how much work have i put into this? how many books have i read, conversations have i struggled through, and for what? i know, i know, it's the journey. and yeah, i've learned a heck of a lot.

so maybe i am a little bitter. i guess i should i probably go pray and ask god to take that away. i don't like feeling that way, but can you blame me? i'm sorry. i'll be better tomorrow. promise.

when you coast you pay the consquences

do you ever catch yourself coasting? like, coasting through a certain area of your life, knowing that you should be working harder, or changing something (e.g. your behavior), or maybe applying yourself a little more?

i've been coasting along for awhile in the area of girl friendships. i know i've been coasting, and for a while i was almost thinking that it was ok, and that maybe this was just what my life was going to look like for a while and there would be no real consequences.

but, i have to admit that while i've been coasting, i've also been feeling the holy spirit speaking very softly to me. it's been a faint impression of the question 'is this really ok?' it sort of floats in and out of my head. when i start to look at some of my actions over the past few months and at the same time consider both my feelings and my hopes for the future, i start to realize that it all doesn't add up to what i want it to be.

i have lots of guy friends. and i love them! they're great. but i don't want to marry any of them (i think i have pretty legitimate reasons, maybe i'll delve into them in another post). i grew up with an older brother and was a total tomboy for a long time, so i think it's just relatively easy for me to relate to men. it's a little more difficult for me to get into close friendships with girls. i can do it, it just takes more work. i've got some baggage with rejection/abandonment (my mom died when i was 19), plus, over the last few years several of my dearest girlfriends have gotten married and either moved away or had a baby or both.

all that to say i am tired. i am tired of establishing meaningful friendships with women and pouring into them only to have them disappear. it's taken a lot out of me. so i think in order to protect myself, i've coasted along with my guy friends because, well, they're easy. they just don't require the work that girl friendships do. plus you get that whole 'i'm appreciated' feeling. but as you probably know, less work equals less reward. i feel very sisterly toward these guys, and that's great, but there's sadness there, too. at least for me. none of my guy friends are 'mine.' i'll have to let them all go someday. i want them to meet and marry wonderful women. when that happens, i'll fade in importance. i know that and am ok with it, but it's still a little tough at times.

there's a level of comfort i can't get to with my guy friends. i miss that; the comfort that comes when you're really close to your roommate and you can stay up late talking in the hallway or just bum around running errands and doing random stuff and not worry that you're spending too much time together and therefore deterring some guy from pursuing you.

i want to have some good girlfriends again, and i will. especially now that the importance of it is sinking in. i'm realizing that it's important for me not to coast. i need to pursue friendships with women, actively seek them out and spend time with them. it's freaking hard, but i know that when i do, more healing will come (both for me and whoever i become friends with) and i feel less lonely.

plus, i want to be married some day. something tells me that when all of my friends are cracking jokes about how much time i spend with seth or evan or james, it doesn't put out this picture of what a great available single woman i am. and heck, it probably doesn't make them look available to other women, either. and i don't want that. for some reason i keep thinking of the word defraud, and i don't want to defraud anyone, nor do i want to be defrauded.

so ok, less time with my boyfriends (who i still love!) and more time developing good girlfriends. i'll stop coasting, god, because i know you have more for me than palling around with random guys for the rest of my life. and because i know that the rewards are so much greater when i step to your challenges, the things that i know are good and right and true.