The Space Between Us

Last evening, some friends and I conversed about women and men and dating and crushing and other related topics.

A lady friend asked “Why don’t the men ask the ladies out?” Now I should preface this by the fact that not all men have this problem. The men you dance with at the club, probably aren’t the ones who are going to be tentative about asking you out. But the rest of us, we have this gnawing fear of rejection. I am afraid that if I ask you out, you will shoot me down. And that will make me wish that I would have never asked you in the first place. PLUS, it will, unless you have no feelings, discourage you from asking the next time. We as humans are programmed to avoid pain if possible. And I as a man, am not going to go out on a limb and risk rejection and pain unless the situation is right.

We also talked about how women often will drop hints to a man they are interested in. Ladies, I will be brutally honest here. I think I am ignorant in this area. A lady who is dropping hints like crazy, may be surprised and/or annoyed to find out that I may not understand those hints. Perhaps you are just a super-nice person. Perhaps you’re just showing that agape love. Or perhaps you’re really trying to say “Hey doofus, I’m interested in you!” But I don’t see that. In all honesty, I don’t know that I will ever pick up on those hints. There will come a time where I will go to a girl and ask her if she is interested in pursuing a long-term relationship with me. I will not ask her because I got the hints. Now she may have been dropping hints, but I may have interpreted them as something else. And they probably will play a role in my decision. But I will ask her because I have prayed and I believe that God is directing me to her. And my hope is that she has been praying as well and that my asking her will be confirmation for her.

And finally, some men, like me, are slow. Not necessarily slow on the uptake, just slow to move. If a tortoise and I both saw the same girl and we both liked her, he would beat me to her. That’s how slow I am. I will analyze a girl from all sorts of angles. I will observe her. Perhaps I will ask questions in attempt to feel her out. I will pray and I will talk to others. Why go to all this trouble? Because I only want to give my heart to one girl. I’ve gotten crap from people who tell me that the more people you date, the better it is, because you have a greater understanding of women and what you want in a wife. That’s crap. The more romantic relationships you’re in, the more critical you are to be of the next relationship you are in. You’re going to be comparing your current flame to all the prior burnt-out flames. And you’re not going to be able to give any girl a fair shake. So to me, it’s not worth it. But there’s probably guys who think differently. I want to devote all my heart and my time to one girl and I want her to be able to know that she is the only girl for me. And so I move with the utmost caution, which means I’m slow. Is that the excuse for the other men? I don’t know, but I know there are some thoughtful men out there who would prefer to wait in the shallow end a bit as opposed to jumping right in the deep end.

And that’s all I have to say about that.