(Yes, I know. This is the part where you want to tell me that you just have to put time into it and work a little harder and some people aren't interesting right off the bat and to be patient and that life isn't always convenient and I will smile and nod and say, "Yes, I know. I'm imperfect. I just said about five sentences ago that I'm not good at this. If I were, this post would likely be irrelevant.")
But let's be serious for a moment here - I want the chance to be fair to myself. Because being a single adult outside of college is not nearly so easy as it is in college, and it's not a piece of cake for everyone in school either. Suddenly I don't just have a job, I have a career. I have responsibilities. And I have to have them - I can't sit around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my life to start. My life has started, it just doesn't include any significant other in it. And you know what? I like my life. I love it, actually. I don't regret for a second the way things have turned out for me.
Not that this means I've given up on the idea of meeting some man to sweep me off my feet. I'm not in the least opposed to marriage. I just recognize - unlike some people around me - that if dating was complicated before, it's much more complicated for me now. As a student dating a student, neither person is tied down to a particular path. As a non student, my life is bound by commitments and obligations. Suddenly there are things in my life that make some aspects of dating not just inconvenient but prohibitive and a bit of a waste of time.
Ok, you say. So what? Why are you telling me this?
I'm telling you this because tomorrow I will have the "pleasure" of driving an hour to meet someone I'm being set up with. This individual will also drive close to an hour from the other direction. And were it not for the extreme love and respect I have for the person who has set me up on this experience, I would laugh and say "NO WAY" and have a perfectly good blind date free Saturday.
I suppose this is the place where I should be gracious and kind and stop whining (which I should) and acknowledge the fact that even if this date were across the street I would probably not want to go (which I wouldn't) and that I should have a better attitude about all this (which is definitely true.) I suppose this is also the place where I should acknowledge, again, that this is something I should put more optimistic effort in and not be so picky and to stop hoping that life will convenience itself in my direction.
But then, this is also the place where I should be fair to myself and look back to last year when I was trying desperately to get OUT of Utah for the sake of being in a better single's scene, and remember that not only did the Lord direct me NOT to do that, but also directed me to move to a decently small area away from most people my age and in my situation in life; at which point I told the Lord that if any of this was ever going to work out I was going to need a little bit of help, because it just does. not. make. sense.
But that may have to wait until tomorrow when I've cooled down after spending $10 on gas and two or three hours of my life on something frustrating and put it all behind me.
2 comments:
Is your approach to dating a "purifying" one or a "purging" one? Just curious.
You know. . . I don't know. I think it varies sometimes. In circumstances like this one that leave a bad taste in my mouth from the start I become a pretty fast purger, but in other cases I try very hard to be a purifier with different results. Sometimes it's worked out ok, sometimes I just end up feeling guilty when I don't really like the person but feel like I ought to because so often my gut reaction isn't so great.
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