So I was reading this: http://darcysheartstirrings.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-teachings-of-emotional-purity-and.html
and when I posted it on my Facebook, I made a little note thanking my parents for giving me freedom as a young girl, to date. It was more that I sort of just did it even though they probably would have preferred me not to, but when it happened, they didn't try to restrict me terribly. They allowed me to make my own decisions. My mom and I had heart-to-hearts about dating dudes. Hell, I've recorded most of that history right here, in this old piece of shit--I mean, this blog is OLD. Jesus. So if anyone wanted to know what dating was like for me when I was 13, it's right here.
It sucked, it was probably a bad idea, but it was very important for me to do. I regret how I treated some people in my pursuits of romantic relationships, but I do not regret having been in them. I learned so much about myself and about others through those relationships. My relationship history did prove a lot of my fears true, but when I think about it, I may have feared certain things about myself because of purity culture. I liked guys. I liked guys a lot and often and when I liked them, I pursued them. I was not supposed to that.
When I fell for a guy, and once I heard "If you couldn't see yourself marrying him, he's not worth your time!" I felt serious pressure to evaluate the guys I wanted to date in this way.
At 13-years-old.
I was fucking thirteen.
And thinking about marrying my boyfriend.
I wasn't the only one thinking like this.
And the other kids thinking this way were probably not just influenced by the ideas of courtship and purity. Any overly idealistic kid may have let this cross their mind, however, that was likely why it came up to me. I was heartbroken when that boyfriend of mine broke up with me, because I thought he was "the one". A cousin of mine had told me of her friends who had began dating in middle school and married and I thought we could do this. I was also reading the Twilight series obsessively at the time, so that also fucked with my brain too (that deserves an entire post of its own but I don't think I'm going to revisit that particular life embarrassment yet). HOWEVER. These things conveniently made our relationship seem to fit the potential mold of "lifelong" relationships thus far.
There were other issues too, but. I thought that was an okay thing. I thought that, if he would just get a little cozier with Jesus, and if I kept on praying and if he found time to talk to me, we could make it last all the way into our adulthood. The problem with this relationship is that we scarcely communicated regardless.
And then there was the issues of my electronic infidelity. With another guy from my school, who had been my best friend, who I had developed a crush on and dated and then subsequently half-broke-up with after a conversation with my dad over the three different kinds of love (agape, the platonic thing, eros, etc.). So that was the one time my parents tried to fill me with the ideals (outside of our church) of saving your emotional/romantic energy for "later"--but they encouraged me to keep being friends with guys. Be friends. They didn't tell me (all the time) that guys were just after "one thing" or whatnot, though conversations in the future did mention this ("because I was a teenage guy", hell yeah, you were, Dad. hahaaaaaa. You'd have to know him as well as I do to know how much of a "teenage guy" he was), but the primary idea, was be friends with dudes. Try to know them as people. Expend romantic energy later when it was healthier and you were more developed to do so.
MY PARENTS ACTUALLY GAVE ME GOOD ADVICE!
But I was a dumbass kid so I didn't listen but they didn't try to stop me when it happened! They just tried to guide me. They didn't force me to give any details of my life, but they were there when I approached them and asked them for their help. I knew they had ideals for my life. But they didn't impose anything on me.
I know my dad was sad that I didn't wear the fancy ring he bought after watching the film "Courageous", but our world hadn't worked that way since I'd begun dating.
My last two (including my current) relationships, the guys met my parents. They had conversations with them and became familiar with my family and I became familiar with theirs. My parents like both of these guys. But we started dating before I could "take them home" for approval--one of them lived in Canada, so that would have been impossible, as well!
My current relationship is so wonderful and so full of future possibilities, and now, being 18, going into college, I'm not really thinking of getting married soon but I want to have a lasting relationship with him. I want this to continue. We have the most incredible connection, this amazing understanding of each other and patience and love and acceptance and all of these wonderful things and we connect in every single way that matters--save for one thing that I can also discuss in another post (it's associated with the church and marriage ideas, and it's not fun and I may actually write that one up) that I personally don't have any issue with.
It took me a while to approach this relationship healthily. We had nearly four months of an anxiety-fueling death-trap thing relationship before we took a two-week break and made it work from there. This was a hard year for both of us and we dealt with many similar (and vastly different) things, but we were there for each other, holding each other's hands as we grew and grew. And he's helped me (i.e. helped me accept) grow[ing] up so much. Without him, I'd be all over the place and I probably wouldn't accept myself as much as I do now. It's not that he gave me that ability, but the way he makes me a better person, a more self-assured person, is very significant, and I'm okay with that being a part of our relationship; it doesn't make either of us less autonomous as individuals. Regardless.
the point here is, dating has been a mess for me, but it's been an important mess, and God, if I'd repressed myself more than I had back in middle school (because I definitely did repress myself to an extent), I'd be so fucked now.
So that's the story.
Maybe one day I'll write something more to-the-point about this, but I think this is a decent start.
and when I posted it on my Facebook, I made a little note thanking my parents for giving me freedom as a young girl, to date. It was more that I sort of just did it even though they probably would have preferred me not to, but when it happened, they didn't try to restrict me terribly. They allowed me to make my own decisions. My mom and I had heart-to-hearts about dating dudes. Hell, I've recorded most of that history right here, in this old piece of shit--I mean, this blog is OLD. Jesus. So if anyone wanted to know what dating was like for me when I was 13, it's right here.
It sucked, it was probably a bad idea, but it was very important for me to do. I regret how I treated some people in my pursuits of romantic relationships, but I do not regret having been in them. I learned so much about myself and about others through those relationships. My relationship history did prove a lot of my fears true, but when I think about it, I may have feared certain things about myself because of purity culture. I liked guys. I liked guys a lot and often and when I liked them, I pursued them. I was not supposed to that.
When I fell for a guy, and once I heard "If you couldn't see yourself marrying him, he's not worth your time!" I felt serious pressure to evaluate the guys I wanted to date in this way.
At 13-years-old.
I was fucking thirteen.
And thinking about marrying my boyfriend.
I wasn't the only one thinking like this.
And the other kids thinking this way were probably not just influenced by the ideas of courtship and purity. Any overly idealistic kid may have let this cross their mind, however, that was likely why it came up to me. I was heartbroken when that boyfriend of mine broke up with me, because I thought he was "the one". A cousin of mine had told me of her friends who had began dating in middle school and married and I thought we could do this. I was also reading the Twilight series obsessively at the time, so that also fucked with my brain too (that deserves an entire post of its own but I don't think I'm going to revisit that particular life embarrassment yet). HOWEVER. These things conveniently made our relationship seem to fit the potential mold of "lifelong" relationships thus far.
There were other issues too, but. I thought that was an okay thing. I thought that, if he would just get a little cozier with Jesus, and if I kept on praying and if he found time to talk to me, we could make it last all the way into our adulthood. The problem with this relationship is that we scarcely communicated regardless.
And then there was the issues of my electronic infidelity. With another guy from my school, who had been my best friend, who I had developed a crush on and dated and then subsequently half-broke-up with after a conversation with my dad over the three different kinds of love (agape, the platonic thing, eros, etc.). So that was the one time my parents tried to fill me with the ideals (outside of our church) of saving your emotional/romantic energy for "later"--but they encouraged me to keep being friends with guys. Be friends. They didn't tell me (all the time) that guys were just after "one thing" or whatnot, though conversations in the future did mention this ("because I was a teenage guy", hell yeah, you were, Dad. hahaaaaaa. You'd have to know him as well as I do to know how much of a "teenage guy" he was), but the primary idea, was be friends with dudes. Try to know them as people. Expend romantic energy later when it was healthier and you were more developed to do so.
MY PARENTS ACTUALLY GAVE ME GOOD ADVICE!
But I was a dumbass kid so I didn't listen but they didn't try to stop me when it happened! They just tried to guide me. They didn't force me to give any details of my life, but they were there when I approached them and asked them for their help. I knew they had ideals for my life. But they didn't impose anything on me.
I know my dad was sad that I didn't wear the fancy ring he bought after watching the film "Courageous", but our world hadn't worked that way since I'd begun dating.
My last two (including my current) relationships, the guys met my parents. They had conversations with them and became familiar with my family and I became familiar with theirs. My parents like both of these guys. But we started dating before I could "take them home" for approval--one of them lived in Canada, so that would have been impossible, as well!
My current relationship is so wonderful and so full of future possibilities, and now, being 18, going into college, I'm not really thinking of getting married soon but I want to have a lasting relationship with him. I want this to continue. We have the most incredible connection, this amazing understanding of each other and patience and love and acceptance and all of these wonderful things and we connect in every single way that matters--save for one thing that I can also discuss in another post (it's associated with the church and marriage ideas, and it's not fun and I may actually write that one up) that I personally don't have any issue with.
It took me a while to approach this relationship healthily. We had nearly four months of an anxiety-fueling death-trap thing relationship before we took a two-week break and made it work from there. This was a hard year for both of us and we dealt with many similar (and vastly different) things, but we were there for each other, holding each other's hands as we grew and grew. And he's helped me (i.e. helped me accept) grow[ing] up so much. Without him, I'd be all over the place and I probably wouldn't accept myself as much as I do now. It's not that he gave me that ability, but the way he makes me a better person, a more self-assured person, is very significant, and I'm okay with that being a part of our relationship; it doesn't make either of us less autonomous as individuals. Regardless.
the point here is, dating has been a mess for me, but it's been an important mess, and God, if I'd repressed myself more than I had back in middle school (because I definitely did repress myself to an extent), I'd be so fucked now.
So that's the story.
Maybe one day I'll write something more to-the-point about this, but I think this is a decent start.
