Inspired by Chanel’s recent post on legacy, we can’t get this Nichole Nordeman song out of our heads. It doesn’t have much to do with dating, but it sure is a catchy trip down memory lane. Old school Christian music. Anyone? Anyone?
I spent this past weekend sweating for 36 hours in the 105-degree heat of Washington, D.C. As many of you know, I don’t sweat as a rule…better yet it’s an act of public policy. I feel about perspiration the way conservatives feel about America’s health care reform—I’m anti to the point of throwing a tea party. However, I willingly suffered the heat this weekend in honor of my first Graham family reunion. Note Exhibit A to the right: photographic evidence of me sweating with my Aunt Rose.
For two days my father’s folks gathered in our nation’s capital to reconnect, relax and remember the history we share. Watermelon and baked macaroni and cheese were involved. It was glorious. And as I looked around at my relatives—all of my aunts and uncles and their children and their children’s children—I couldn’t help but think about I Kissed Dating Hello and our discussions here about relationships.
I’ve been fairly hopeless lately, making it hard to share with you all the hope we have in Christ for a future filled with love (romantic or otherwise) given where my heart’s been. Life can be tough and when you add relational stressors to the mix, the sense of defeat can be suffocating. Like some of you, my parents divorced when I was young and though my relationship status is going strong, I am plagued by an ever-present suspicion that their fracture may have broken my chance of ever developing a healthy, happy relationship. It makes dating difficult when you’re already counting the loss before it’s happened.
But this weekend I had an aha moment, that snapped me awake from the bad dream I’ve been living. Surrounded by my family, full of happy people ready to hug or do the electric slide at a moment’s notice, I realized I am a part of a legacy of love. Despite my parents’ situation, marriages in my family do last—most for 30 years or more. And while that’s no guarantee my eventual nuptials will lead to a lifetime of relational security, it sure as hell increases my odds. And it reminded me that I should always live my life in the context of the larger legacy I am a part of, in the bigger story God is telling.
So what about you? What’s your story? What kind of relational legacy are you a part of and in turn possibly living out for future generations?
-CHANEL
Best. Life Advice. Ever.
Sometimes, life’s little dilemmas are just too much to handle. But what’s a person to do? Well, if you’re smart, you’ll ask singer-songwriter Rachel Zylstra. She’ll give advice on life, relationships, fashion and more, sometimes (almost all the time) in song form at Advice Music. Email your question to advice@rachelzylstra.com.
(Oh, yeah. You can email us, too. We might not sing, but word on the street is we’re pretty savvy about the dating and relationship stuff.)
Too middle-classy to date?
Are pilates classes keeping women single and sexless? Post-weekend brunch, one of my good friends declared she was no longer working out after reading a New York Times article that hinted at intense fitness being a barrier to women’s sex appeal. With 20-mile a week running schedules, regular Pilates classes and Jillian Michaels’ workout videos, women are increasingly hopping on the fitness bandwagon to get healthy and stay in shape. And while being healthy is certainly sexy, being boyish is not. In other words, we should take care to get into the shape of Christina Hendricks as Joan in “Mad Men,” not Hilary Swank after “Million Dollar Baby.” Always looking for an excuse to eat another cupcake, I had to read the article myself and share it with you fine folks. The idea came from an op-ed in the New York Times by Camille Paglia about the middle class lifestyle and its impact on the libido of women. And while I’m less interested in getting into the bourgeois bedrooms of middle class America or advocating for a Viagra for women, I do think some of Paglia’s comments on the sexes are worth hearing. She writes, ”[…] Visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. There’s no mystery left. […] Furthermore, thanks to a bourgeois white culture that values efficient bodies over voluptuous ones, American actresses have desexualized themselves, confusing sterile athleticism with female power. Their current Pilates-honed look is taut and tense — a boy’s thin limbs and narrow hips combined with amplified breasts. Contrast that with Latino and African-American taste, which runs toward the healthy silhouette of the bootylicious Beyoncé.” What do you think? Should women cancel their gym memberships and get comfortable with their curves? Are shapely women more attractive than the super fit? Leave us a comment below or send us an email with your thoughts. -CHANEL
Happy Friday, everyone! The women of IKDH have been a traveling band lately: California, Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate NY…and all the moving around (as well as a heads up from a reader on this article) got us thinking about the geography of dating.
Editorial aside:
K: Sarah, you know what else got me thinking about this?
S: That guy from the Lake Champlain ferry…
K: He was more than small-town cute. I’d go the distance for that.
S: Preach.
Anyway, a few months ago a friend brought up a guy she was dating—he apparently had a system of rating his relative affections. The man in question lived in Brooklyn, so if he was only willing to travel the distance covered by our fair borough he’d say that he “Brooklyn-liked her.” The scale of “like” was measured against other various points in the city. According to him, there were downtown levels of like, Midtown levels, and finally the far-removed stretches of upper Manhattan—that sort of affection was serious business.
We can get behind that argument to a degree. Certain sites like eHarmony force you to choose a geographic area of “within a ___ mile radius.” The lowest radius is 30 miles—meaning it’s more likely you’ll be matched with someone from Philadelphia or Connecticut, rather than someone from good ol’ Brooklyn, USA. Since most of us can’t be bothered to go anywhere that’s more than a 15 minute train ride (about 4-5 stops), riding Amtrak or the LIRR represents a significant investment of time, money and sleep deprivation.
It works this way in friendship too, by the way. One of our favorite people in the world didn’t live in Brooklyn and would frequently haul himself to our neighborhood in order to spend time with us. We all get a little misty because we now realize that relative to where he lived, he BROOKLYN loved us. And now he lives here. Which begs the question: when you really love someone, do you pack up and go there?
This same sentiment is reflected in the above article discussing cross-borough relationships. What say you? Does distance or time on a train factor into your willingness to continue seeing a person? If you don’t live in the city, but have tried to date someone a long (or moderate) drive away, how did that impact the relationship? Blow it up in the comments.
-KRISTEN + SARAH
How About We
How About We is the latest site to join the ranks of free dating services. We like this one just because it sounds fun. So often first dates default to the standard dinner and drinks when there are far more interesting options available. Why not take a trapeze class together? Your pride is the only thing at stake and let’s be honest, pride is sooo played out. ;)
If anyone decides to give it a shot, please let us know how it goes!
-SARAH
Long-Term Relationships Get Even Longer
Invest in some chapstick and pucker those lips because according to USA Today, you may have to kiss dating hello a little longer than expected. In a recent article “Dating for a Decade,” Sharon Jayson writes about the increasing number of years couples are waiting to settle into marriage.
The primary reasons she cites as deterrents from early marriage are all the usual suspects:
What do you think? Have you noticed a shift in the age your Christian peers are getting married? What are some of the reasons in favor of waiting? What are some reasons it might be better to marry sooner rather than later? Leave us a comment below or send us an email with your thoughts.
A few months ago, I chatted with a friend of mine about the logistics of women asking men out. Turns out, we hadn’t the slightest clue of where to begin. Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems to me that when a girl asks a guy out, it feels like a big deal simply because she’s flipping standard social norms. Further complicating things? Kristen and Chanel will happily testify that I’m terrible at flirting when I actually like a guy. And by terrible, I don’t mean shameless. I mean bad. Rather than defaulting to my standard sassy self, I get quiet. Odds are solid that if the guy noticed anything, it would simply be that I’d developed a sudden interest in staring at my feet.
Anyway…
Sue and I spent most of our time trying to figure out how to downplay the act of asking, while still being clear about my interest. At least that’s what we started out discussing before things went rapidly downhill.
SUSAN: Wooohoooo. I smell a spring/fall wedding.
SARAH: Hahahahah. Totes. I envision something simple and understated. So maybe ask him out and propose all in the same breath?
SUSAN: At least mention it to him.
SARAH: Right. A simple “Oh just a heads up, I see myself having babies with you” should suffice.
SUSAN: In between ordering drinks and dinner…fit it in.
My tendency to find ironic conversations like this hilarious, may have something to do with why I’m single. Maybe. Who’s really to say. In reality, I wasn’t particularly vested in the outcome. I was curious about a guy, and wondered if that curiosity merited making a move.
My guy friends who weighed in on the subject generally agreed that while they wouldn’t mind being asked out by a girl, they’d likely feel more comfortable if she simply expressed her interest and left the asking to them. Ultimately, I decided to sit tight and see what would happen without me trying to make something happen. Turns out? A whole lot of nothing. He didn’t pick up on the come-hither glances I was throwing his way, and my interest eventually waned. Nevertheless, I still wanted to throw the question out to the men of the internet - do you want to be pursued or would you rather be the pursuer? Feel free to explain your reasoning.
-SARAH
