Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: lrb@hpfcso.hp.com (Larry Bruns) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Anger & Dating for the first time: Message-ID: Date: 2 Sep 90 04:14:23 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA Lines: 110 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Randall - 2 quotes from your posting stood out to me: > thoughts that all that's left out there are psychological misfits; and: > despite the fact that I was a worship team member in a small church, ^^^^^ I waited until age 27 for my first date, although the biggest reason for waiting that long was different than yours: my main reason was my own extremely low self-esteem. (BTW: For this same reason I also waited until age 21 to get a driver's license!) My social life during the years before age 27 consisted solely of my *small* church and the local university hiking club. But these two groups seemed to have nothing in common. There were lots of young singles in the latter group, but as far as I could tell, none were Christians (probably some were, but I would have been too embarrassed to fish this info out). My church was full of warm, loving people, many of whom had become my close friends (and had helped me come out of my loner's shell), but none of them were young singles like myself. They were mostly married couples of my age or older. This may really sound stupid, but I thought that I was *unique* in being a single Christian at my age. I thought that by not dating in high school and college, I had somehow missed my chance in life to meet some wonderful woman and get married. The single biggest change in my social life happened when my father (who was a pastor at another church in a nearby city) became an associate pastor in a very large church in my city. This church had a very active single's group (I had never been to *any* kind of single's group before), and he kept pestering me to try it out. I still vividly remember the first time I went to their Friday night meeting - I looked around in absolute AWE at a room full of 40 or 50 people - all of them Christians, all of them single, and mostly in the age range of early 20's to mid-40's. Incredible! I'm not the *only* one! I eventually became very active in this group. Since most of the friends I made there also were members of that church, I eventually wound up switching to that church. But that took a few years to happen, as I was still very loyal to my small church, being in the choir, on numerous committees (even chairman of some), etc. I eventually found it too hard to be *very* involved with 2 churches at once. I don't want to knock small churches, but because of my experience, I came to conclude that they are *NOT* a good place for a young single to be in, at least not if that person is centering their social life there. (They are a *great* place for families, since the bulk of their membership tends to be families.) I notice you are posting from San Diego. Good! You don't live in a small town. Get out and visit the singles groups in some larger churches. I say this for a variety of reasons: 1) You asked about how to deal w/ anger. The best way is to meet other Christians who have gone or are currently going through anger, and the best place to find that is in a single's group. People who are divorced have usually gone through a lot of anger at God for unanswered prayers. People who have been wanting to get married for years have likewise had to deal w/ anger that their prayers for "that special someone" are unanswered. 2) As for your thoughts about the "misfits" out there, are you sure that your *bigger* fear might not really be that *you* are the misfit? No offense intended here. It's just that that is exactly what I feared about myself before I found out that there were lots of other "misfits" like me (in the Christian single's group), which caused me to re-define the word. I think you would feel much better to find that there are others like you. 3) You imply that you want to get married and settle down. Your chances of meeting the person you want are greater in a large singles group. You will find all kinds of people there. A very few are there *just* to date - they date *everyone* that interests them, then drop out for a year, then pop in again next year to see who is new, and re-start the cycle. Others are not interested in dating at all, and go only for the fun and friendship of other people like themselves. But I think most of them were like myself: primarily there for the fellowship, with meeting that "special person" as a secondary objective. In a large group you will find a good mixture of many types: divorced with kids, divorced without kids, never married, never dated, all ages. One thing that most of them have in common though is that their singleness makes them feel like misfits in society at large and in the church at large. So they feel very much at home in a group of other "misfits". The bonding to other members of the group or to the group as a whole can be very strong. Another thought about the "misfits" out there: There is a natural fear that any 39 year-old single women are all going to be misfits. This follows from the thought that "if they have been dating for 18-21 years and are still not married, something must be awfully wrong with them". There may be some women of whom that is true. But some may have been in the exact same situation as you. Or others may have been so involved with their brother's and sister's families and so shy of strangers that they never made any attempt to meet others, but are just now forcing themself to do that as they realize they are approaching 40. Others may have been too involved in their jobs, or taking care of a sick parent, etc., etc., and are just now emerging from social isolation. Others were in a marriage that was just ripped apart last year due mostly to their ex-husband's midlife crisis. Some may have been dating a non-Christian whom they deeply loved for the last 7 years, praying constantly that they would become a Christian, and unwilling to marry them until that happened. I have known women and/or men in all of these categories, and in each category will be found wonderful women who have faults and virtues (just like any other human being), but do *not* have any serious psychological problems. Hope I have been of some help. Larry Bruns PS - Randall - Re: getting into dating for the first time at a late age: I had many amusing experiences that were due to my being a neophyte who was dating women who had been dating for years. (Amusing in retrospect, now that I know what all those unwritten rules were; but heartbreaking at the time when I had no idea of what was really going on.) Send e-mail if you're interested in hearing - it's starting to get away from the topic of this group.