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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: guilt and SO's - (nf)
Message-ID: <743@pucc-h>
Date: Thu, 31-May-84 03:48:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.743
Posted: Thu May 31 03:48:35 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Jun-84 09:07:23 EDT
References: <955@ihuxq.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 55

From Ken Perlow:

> Jeff has told us that he is 28
> years old and desperate for female companionship.  It seems to me
> that his spiritual fulfillment is keeping him from the personal
> fulfillment he seeks.  And I've told him so.  But his desperation
> has got him clinging to his religion all the more.  And something
> is amiss in Jeff's logic:  If Christ is the answer to everything,
> Jeff, why are you asking *US* for help you don't want?

Actually, I'm in a very strange sort of state now.  Sometimes God wants us to
rearrange our priorities.  About 2-1/2 weeks ago, while I was in prayer, I had
a strong impression that God wanted me to give up to Him all the hopes and
dreams I had for finding an SO -- to believe that He knows what was best for
me, and when, and to accept the possibility that perhaps, for the moment and
possibly forever, celibacy is the best for me, for reasons that may not become
clear for years.  I felt pretty destroyed for a few days after that.  I still
feel pretty dead, strange, as I said.  Somehow my desperate desire for an SO
has gone away (perhaps also partly because of coming to see myself as a
real man).  I still want a good supply of the closeness and tenderness that a
woman can give; but somehow my feelings don't seem able to go beyond that very
much.  It's as though I'm cut off from the "normal" sort of people who are (it
seems) very interested in SO's, all the time.  Earlier this evening I happened
to see a couple of friends of mine who have only recently paired up.  Not too
many weeks ago, I would have been consumed with envy.  Now there was just a
little -- sort of like the last feeble flicker of a dying fire.  In a way,
this is a good thing -- far better not to have desperation flowing like a
stream after the snowmelt; relating is simpler now.  On the other hand, I am
not totally devoid of a forlorn hope that perhaps I might find an SO after
all; i.e. there is still low-level desperation, more on the order of quiet
despair.  What needs to happen is for me to face this "dying" of my hopes and
go through it.	This feels similar to various "deaths" I have gone through
before, which have always been followed by "resurrections".  Lord only knows
(literally) what sort of resurrection will follow this death.  Watch this
space to find out (I hope it happens in finite polynomial time).

The above paragraph provides tempting targets whereby those who have not
experienced a relationship with Christ could ridicule me royally.  I would
greatly appreciate it if you would have the sensitivity to recognize that
this is still a somewhat painful, confused, and uncertain area of my life,
and that put-downs are uncalled for.  Also, if any of you Christians can
see that I'm off the beam in some way, please point me the right way.

I'm sure I didn't say that Christ is the answer to everything.	In a sense,
that's true; but I have been gradually learning that it's O.K. to need people
too.  (Christ told us to love one another, and how can that happen if we don't
let others love/help us?)  Anyway, it's obviously foolish not to learn from
the experience and accumulated wisdom of other human beings; else I'm likely
to repeat their mistakes.


-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{allegra|decvax|harpo|ihnp4|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
"...I've got to be where my spirit can run free..."