A Guide to Dating for the Post Grad. Or for the Human Being, really.

So you've graduated in one piece (though how long you stay that way is partly dependent on college loans). You have a job or are in grad school, maybe living the dream or maybe working retail (or maybe that's the dream. who am I to judge.)- or maybe you don't have a job at all and are panicking as you read this sentence. Whichever way, you are alive and breathing and even if you don't consider yourself one, other people now see you as (or at the very least make jokes about you being) an adult. Congratulations.

YOU'VE MADE IT.

Just kidding. You actually haven't. Because now you have to find the love of your life, or at least an adequate temporary remedy (or series of them) to attach to yourself to in order to keep your mom, awkward distant relatives and all those pesky suitors/admirers off your back.

And guess what? You don't get to hang out in a dorm lounge with a bunch of people until you hit it off with someone. Gone are the days of scouting out your college's cafeteria for someone attractive who makes eye contact with you then demurely blushes and looks away. If you did that now, you'd just be the creepy alum who never left and preys on undergrads. Gross.

The 90s called. They want their unrealistic expectations for a romantic relationship back.

What's left are slim pickings:  the wonderful world of online dating (DTF? anyone??), the desperately combing through college acquaintances who have stayed in the area for prospective romance, the constant and exhausting task of "putting yourself out there" (because really? what does that even mean?), the blind dates set up through mutual friends, the meeting a rando who looks totally normal and pretty cute and turns out to be an ex porn star... The possibilities are endless. And charged with promise.

So in the midst of this exciting foray stand you. Alone, supremely confident, and poised for action. About to take the dating world by storm. You're ready. Or are you? Let's run through a couple hypothetical scenarios real quick:

1. Someone who you like as a person invites you to his or her house; you hang out and do one of various activities. (OR: You invite someone who you like as a person, etc.)

2. Someone, who you think is kind of cute and maybe has attractive personality qualities, invites you to hang out one-on-one.

3. You are pretty sure this person likes you, but you only like him or her as a friend and maybe he'll get over it or it's just an idle crush, but you still want to hang out because you value him as a person. So you invite said person to hang out.

4. You like someone. You are pretty sure this someone likes you back. You've been reading the signs. And you're hanging out one on one RIGHT NOW OMG OMG.

Keep it together, little guy.

After reading the hypotheticals, which, if any, would you consider a date?

If your answered "yes" to any one of the above, welcome to the 21st century and thanks for being one of the people that makes it CONFUSING TO EXIST, YOU ABSOLUTE JERK. Who, me, bitter? Not even a little. If you answered "yes," then THIS POST IS FOR YOU.

According to a recent survey commissioned by ChristianMingle.com and JDate.com, 69% of singles can't discern whether they're on a date or just hanging out when spending time with a potentially date-able person. The struggle is real.

I know, Robin, I know.

But guess what? It doesn't have to be.

What if collectively we decided that confidence- in ourselves and in other people- is sexy? What if a date was only a date if someone used the word "date" or something equally clear? What if we openly communicated our intentions of liking someone and wanting to spend time getting to know that someone more pointedly? Here are some side effects of this glorious world that I like to imagine is possible:

1.  Less anxiety and more natural interaction in one-on-one hangouts. Maybe you really DID invite more people to the movie but only that one person showed up. So what? Enjoy it. Worried the person you're hanging out with is investing too much in your time together? Don't be. Have fun. Be yourself. One-on-one hangouts with someone you like (and who might reciprocate) are great, and can even be part of a trajectory that leads to dating. But it is not synonymous with dating. And it shouldn't be.
2. More creative date opportunities. Gone would be the days of your run-of-the-mill watching a movie or playing a video game and calling said activity a DATE. A date is an event. A date is something you plan in order to celebrate being in the presence of someone you enjoy. You can still play a video game on a date, obvs. But whatever you do is hopefully something thoughtful and intentional that enables you both to have fun.
3. Eliminating guess work. For those of us who don't sleuth on our downtime (sorry, Veronica Mars), knowing where we are headed in any given situation creates an atmosphere in which we can be ourselves and not shave a couple years off our lives due to stress. None of us want to hang out with someone wondering if he or she's told his or her friends that it's a "date." If the person you're with doesn't know it's a date, it isn't one. The end.
4. More living our lives. Ain't nobody got time to over-analyze all these text messages and mixed signals anyway. Not only our own, but all of our friends who come to us in similar quandaries. Think of the minutes that accumulate to hours that accumulate to days so on and so forth that we would save! 

Pondering the subtext of "K, sounds good" vs. a two week vacation to New Zealand... The choice is yours.

Because life is too short to be wondering whether or not you're on a date. And you know what? It's also too long to be wondering that, too. You've got your whole life to live. Hopefully it's long, and hopefully it's full of incredible adventures and wonderful people who make it worthwhile. You don't need to concentrate on finding one person who can validate you- focus instead on the people who matter to you and who you matter to, too.

Let yourself be loved, and love others as best as you can.

And if you like someone, you're tired of casual one-on-one hangouts, and are feeling brave?

Ask him out. You know, on a date.

This morning my alarm went off far earlier than I would have wanted. When I turned it off and pulled myself out of bed I simply pulled a sweatshirt over my head, a scarf around my neck and jeans over my PJ shorts. I took my retainers off, slept for fifteen more minutes and then Eliza and I were out the door.

When I left her at the ferry building the dark was just getting thinner, the sky was still lazily abed and warm wrapped in its cloud and foggish blanket, and the Bay Bridge still lit up the water with its faraway twinkle lights. On my way back I decided to get off of my bus and walk, and it began to rain.

As I walked I discovered that since the moment I woke up and perhaps before, this deep and pervading shalom had been flowering inside me-- or perhaps it had nothing to do with inside me at all, it may be and probably is entirely dependent on external forces-- and was now settling, completed and content. I'm not sure how long it'll call this its home, but it's certainly welcome for as long as it likes, and when it flits on to something bigger and better I'll be one of those mom-like hosts who always keeps a room ready, lamps trimmed and burning, just in case.

A lovely tightrope that I'd better get used to

Taking up space in this big city doesn't necessarily equate to growing up. It doesn't have to, I mean. But when you live in this house with 26 other people, you cook your own food, you haul your dirty clothes to a laundromat a block away, and you go to a serious internship three times a week for eight hours a day you begin to feel a little older, a little strange when you hear your other friends talk about things like classes and professors.

While other people are taking notes, I'm going to be listening to patients yelling, sobbing, laughing, smiling as they tell me their stories. That sentence could sound very self-important, but I don't mean it to-- I'm saying it because I'm terrified at what I'm going to do, and I'm terrified at that difference. I won't exactly know what to do with it when it comes.

The city doesn't allow you to fold up uncomfortable things and put them away in storage boxes. I am used to having that option. Here, I see those uncomfortable things every day. They ask me for spare change, I sit down to have coffee with them. And as I do I begin to understand that these uncomfortable things are people, and people should never be put away in storage boxes. That's not right, and the places that allow to do that should be ashamed. We should be ashamed. And I am. I've already discovered part of my mission in coming here: to shame who I was into becoming someone better. Dear God, I hope it works.

On the other side of all this, while I am free-falling into the vibrant and boundless newness that is before me, I hope I can keep hold of my parachute. I don't want to lose myself in all of this; I don't want to compromise who I am. Difficult, in a city that lures and shocks and tempts you to completely re-invent. I'm flinching, hoping I don't get in the way of God's delicate sculpting, hoping I can trust that it is indeed delicate, and not a haphazard swinging of a chisel.

If you can spare them, prayers would be appreciated. I'm blessed to get this opportunity, and not only am I ready to make the most of it but I want God to make the most of me in it. This place already feels like home.

DoXXX

I used to be a big fan of doubt-- too big a fan, really. I celebrated it as though it were a condition that was more than impermanent, when really it's meant as a waiting room. James is right. Doubt is poison, if inhaled for too long. I don't want to be double-minded in everything that I do. I want to be sure, to pick a course of action and if the ship sinks then so be it, at least I got off the dock and into the water. Doubt sinks ships before they've even started their maiden voyages. Before you can smash the wine glass against the hull.

I'm going to try to doubt less and do more. I'm tired of living in the waiting room. It smells, probably because it's full of sick people, and I'm one of them.

Time to get better.

Dialogue

I haven't written dialogue in a very long time. And there's a subject I'm curious about so I decided to fabricate a a guy and a girl who happen to be dating and eavesdrop in on their conversation, see if they had anything witty or insightful to say to me. Now I know you people. Trying to read into things and think they're based on real life situations. This one's not, I promise. My chief concern with the topic may be in part due to a real life situation, but the situation itself is entirely fictional.





"I love you." A crackling pause had preceded those heavy words, and she was so surprised that a crackling pause ensued.

"What?" Echoing back to her through the recesses of her cell phone, the question sounded flat, almost suspicious.

"...I..." Timidity saturated his tone. Had she not heard him right? Being several states apart sometimes made phone conversation a little static-y. Sure, that must have been it. "...love you?" But it still flew out of his lips and into the phone like a frightened question. He wished he could snatch it back.

"How do you know?"

"What?"

"How do you know that you love me?"

He thought of several Hollywood movies, Hallmark cards and a few children books. None of those provided him with an answer. He also thought about how he had just sort of said it as a farewell note to end the conversation on, like he did with his parents and close relatives all the time.

"I don't know." He answered truthfully, thinking honesty was best in this situation that was innocently meant but had gotten messy pretty fast. "Do you need reasons to love someone?"

Touche. She didn't have an answer for that one. "I...don't know." Frustration at having to repeat his line tinged her voice. "I think there are different kinds of love." Vaguely, she could remember something like that being taught in some high school youth group class a long time ago. Different words, ancient Greek words, each one tasting unique, foreign and yet familiar on her tongue.

"So?"

"So for some love, you don't need reasons. Love thy neighbor, all that jazz."

"Are you getting Biblical on me?"

"I'm just trying to reason this out in my head." She thought of several Hollywood movies, Hallmark cards and a few children books.

"You're strange, you know that?" He was smiling when he said it, and she could tell. She smiled too. "Anyone else in the world would have just accepted the phrase and been done with it."

"But I want it to mean something."

"I never said it didn't!"

"And I want you to know what it means. And you don't."

"Neither do you."

"I'm not pretending to. I want to figure it out too."

"I just...wanted to say it. I miss you."

"Same here. Although I don't think emotion should prompt saying something that should be a lot more meaningful. Saying 'I miss you' is good enough for me in that case."

"Well if I can't say it when I miss you when can I say it?"

"Don't know. Haven't figured that out yet."

"How about when I'm lying on my deathbed, having just saved your life? Something dramatic like that work?"

"Shut up, jerk." She smiled though. She couldn't believe she'd been brave enough to even bring this up. The knee-jerk "I love you too" would have been much simpler.

"Do you think life is scripted?"

"What-- why?"

"Do you think it is or don't you?"

"Depends on if I believe in determinism or free will, and I waver between the two."

"Well I was just thinking, that if life is scripted," he paused to take a swig from his glass of water-- all this nerve-wracking talk of love was drying his throat-- "I don't think even our writer knows what love is. Otherwise we'd have come to some sort of conclusion by now."

"We haven't been talking about it that long."

"I guess you're right. But I've been thinking about this question a lot ever since we started dating. Maybe even before."

"That's funny. So have I." She didn't like vulnerability. It made her uncomfortable. "I thought I'd have all of this sort of thing figured out."

"What gave you that idea?"

"I don't know! I just wanted to know about all of this before we talked about it. I thought that, after dating someone for long enough, you just sort of...knew."

"I think, when I gave it any thought, I thought that too. But-- I don't know. I think it's better like this."

"Me too. I like having someone else to figure it out with."

Suddenly her dad stuck his head through the door and shot her a bleary-eyed glare. She had forgotten that things existed outside of this conversation. "I'm sure it's a fascinating conversation, but can you talk to him tomorrow? I have an early day tomorrow and I'm not going to get any sleep if this keeps on for much longer."

"Sorry dad! Will do. Night."

"Thanks." His voice held a zombie's growl as he closed the door again. "Night."

"Hey, that was my--"

"I know. I heard. Sorry about making your dad upset like that."

"Don't even worry about it. He won't remember this conversation in the morning."

They both laughed quietly.

A brief silence settled over the phone line as both scrambled for a way to end the dialogue and say good night.

"Well." They both started. "Um."

"I'll go!" He started before they could say something at the same time again. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"I miss you. Is that good?"

"No sarcasm."

"Not sarcastic! Tongue-in-cheek, maybe." He was grinning.

"Alright. If I was there I might wipe that smile off your face."

"If you were here I hope you'd be busy with other things. If you were here we could kiss goodnight instead of awkwardly trying to finish the conversation."

"Don't make me reminisce. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Definitely."

It was a good conversation.





Well, I'm very glad those two lovebirds are happy with it. But it didn't get me any nearer to a conclusion.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da?

"When at last the blackness had passed, Sam looked up and shadows were about him; but for how many minutes or hours the world had gone dragging on he could not tell. He was still in the same place, and still his master lay beside him dead. The mountains had not crumbled nor the earth fallen into ruin.
" 'What shall I do, what shall I do?' he said. 'Did I come all this way with him for nothing?' And then he remembered his own voice speaking words that at the time he did not understand himself, at the beginning of their journey: I have something to do before the end. I must see it through, sir, if you understand."
--Samwise Gamgee in The Two Towers

Spoiler alert!
Anyone who's my friend knows that Frodo isn't dead. Sam just thinks he is. But the first time I read this I didn't know that. The first time Kristen and I read this aloud she didn't know it either, and as I handed the book back to her she had to struggle through tears to finish the last ten pages.

This particular passage comes after a break in the text, a line of blank space like the one that just preceded this paragraph, only far more profound and dramatic. Because Sam has just experienced "black despair" and "night in his heart" and he knows no more. And then, simply,

a space. And we are left to guess "how many minutes or hours the world had gone dragging on"-- except we're not guessing because we know. Because I've been there quite recently, and I don't know when you've been there or how many times but you've been there all the same. And it doesn't matter that none of us are as cool as Sam, or that we don't have a ring to destroy to save the world, or that our best friend in the whole world hasn't died; it's fiction and while we're meant to long for the adventure we're also meant to relate to the characters.

And I couldn't relate more. I'm not even specifically talking about Sam's despair. I'm talking about that realization he has after the blackness has passed. I'm talking about that moment where you get up, and nothing's really better-- your eyes are still red, you're tired as hell and you're running out of kleenex to blow your nose and wipe the mascara off your face-- but you feel a breeze blow through your window, or see the clouds move over to shield the sun. And you're perhaps a bit envious, that life could be going on like that, but at the same time maybe just a little bit-- comforted? That life could be going on like that?

Because you haven't reached that point where you've thought that "this shadow, even darkness, must pass"-- not yet you haven't. But you've seen what has to be done. As Sam says a few lines down," 'Go on? Is that what I've got to do? And leave him?'" It's still a question. "Another lonely journey, and the worst." This is where I get a little bit jealous of Sam, though. Understanding you can't go on but going on anyway is one thing, but Sam has the added bonus of knowing what he's supposed to do. It's a small thing to begrudge him, but I covet it.

That doesn't exactly stop me from saying that I must 'see it through' along with Sam, but I do wish I knew what "it" was. That would be nice. All the same, I have to see that my journey isn't quite as lonely. I have you.

Perhaps, unlike Sam, I did come all this way with him for nothing. But I didn't come all this way for nothing. Forgive me if that doesn't make sense. It makes a world of sense to me.

The End

Weird, to know that someone can lie to himself, and you in the process, for 10 months. 10 months.

I couldn't stop thinking about that concept last night. Nyquil could only keep me at bay for 3 hours max, and then I was right back up, thinking about it again.

Funny how time, seconds ticking on a clock, is so sad and slow and meaningless sometimes.