Quote: (08-18-2014 10:46 AM)blacknwhitespade Wrote:
I'm glad at least some Christian churches are waking up to the failures of later marriage/perpetual singlehood and rejecting the "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" philosophy. Motherfucking Joshua Harris.
Actually, I'm not sure if Joshua Harris advocated perpetual singlehood or later marriage. He got married fairly young himself.
I read his books. The first advocated not dating to date, but dating with the singular intent of finding a spouse.
The second was a roadmap for find a spouse.
He also advocated trusting in God's plan for your life, especially in the first book, when he himself was single.
But I think he is all for a quick, early marriage.
I think that his books offer excellent advice for women, but terrible advice for men. It certainly didn't do me any favours.
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Women especially should be encouraged to make finding a husband a top priority during their youthful early/mid-twenties. I don't think it's healthy at all for a woman to be single beyond 27 or so. Perpetual singlehood has also fucked up many a good, well-intentioned Christian man.
I honestly don't think that Christians have articulated a game plan for how people should pursue marriage. I think that they are open to case-by-case love stories, which means, that while marrying your high school sweetheart isn't generally advocated as a game plan, they are open to it being something that does sometimes work out for the odd person.
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Celibacy and no casual dating (or serial dating as they call it in the church) is like watching your (potential) masculinity rot away and it's hard to get out of that rut. I've spent the last three years of my life fighting to get out of those habits, develop my masculinity, meet some women, and finally explore my creative and masculine potential.
The church had lots of advice for me on how to not have sex, not date the wrong person, how to wait for the person that God created for me to marry.
However, at no point did a single person in the Christian look at the awkward kid that I was, recognize my potential, and make the slightest bit of effort to take me under their wing and teach me some alpha traits.
I have no doubt that the right woman might have been ready to marry me at some point in my life, but the church did me no favours in helping me become the man that would be ready to marry her.
I write this in jest, of course. I don't honestly believe that there is "one person you need to marry." But I do believe that I may have met some decent candidates in college if I'd been ready to impress.
It wasn't until I discovered game on my own as 23 years of age that I got any help with developing into the man that I'd been waiting to become my whole life. Of course, the church was no help in that.
I think most people in the church just looked at me and hoped I'd meet a nice, quiet girl. No one ever gave any indication that they say anything more in me that what I appeared to be at the time.
If you look at pastors and church leaders, they aren't generally people without a backbone. Sure, they have to tow the line when if comes to expressing the right beta doctrine, condemning fathers on Father's Day and worshiping mothers on Mother's Day.
But they don't walk around slouching. They dress decently, in respect to the acceptable dress code at their church.
The can command an audience, usually having learned the skills of story telling a public speaking.
The truth is that, despite the rhetoric, the men that are looked up to and run the show even within church circles are reasonably alpha in their behaviour.
But no one in my experience with the church believed that all men should be alpha and that masculinity could be taught. Rather, they seemed to believe that people are just the way that they are and that's the end of it.
Despite being a regular church attender for years and years, well into my adulthood, recently I've been at a bit of a crossroads, because while I very much respect the man that Jesus appears to be, I'm not terribly impressed with what the Christian's doctrinal knowledge has to offer the world.
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If it's not too late, I might still find a great Christian woman, but unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) part of me doesn't give a shit anymore.
Following the church's recommended path for your life will mean that the natural alpha guys will marry beautiful wives and believe that God wanted them to have a beautiful guys and socially awkward guys like me (if they never discover game) well end up either alone or with someone that they aren't really attracted to.
Fortunately, discovering game and having one particularly kind mentor within the game community got me on the right path to beginning the behave like a man, so not many people would describe me as socially awkward now (although they'd definitely say that I'm clearly unorthodox), so I feel lucky.
But now I wonder if there is a place for me in the church at all or even if I want there to be a place for me there.