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I was still celibate at 33, and I don' think that there was anything particularly wrong with me.

My biggest problem was that I listed to too much bad advice. Through my late teens and early twenties, I was deeply committed to a Christian life and involved in evangelical and pentecostal churches. While they would never admit it, those churches advocate a passive approach to relationships. In part, those churches are trying to cool young people's hormones so that they don't have sex before marriage. Given what the Bible clearly says about premarital sex, I don't blame them for this desire even though I disagree with the teaching that it produced. In part, those churches advocate a passive approach to relationships as part of advocating an active spiritual relationship with God. While I'm no longer pursuing that kind of relationship in the way that they taught, I don't blame them for the desire to advocate a relationship with God. Unfortunately for me, the "God will provide" strategy was never going to work in a million years and certainly didn't in 33 years. If anything was "wrong with me," it was that I tried to live the teaching more literally than many others.

Another factor is that I'm just not a good salesman, and dating is at least in part a case of salesmanship. Personally, I think our society has gone entirely too far towards what is "marketable" and away from what is true. I once knew a preacher whose church was too small to pay him and who supported himself as a salesman. He said my problem is the mindset of an engineer versus that of a salesman. If a salesman is rejected ten times, the salesman will go into the eleventh meeting believing that he'll make the sale. He'll say to himself, "I've got a great product. If the past ten calls have failed to produce a sale, the next one is bound to buy." An engineer takes the opposite view. An engineer looks at ten rejections and says, "I've run this experiment ten times. I've produced repeatable, statistically significant results. I know what the answer is. Why am I even here?" Unfortunately, I am an engineer with a strong engineering mindset.

A third factor is that for those of us who don't care for the bar scene, it's hard to meet people. I'm certainly no social butterfly, but I'm not a hermit either. However, I can't remember the last time my normal life brought me in contact with someone who would even be worth dating. Once one leaves college, the opportunities to meet people just aren't there. I met some women in church, but my perspective was always just a little too off-kilter to attract them. Most would say that my ideas were reasonable and thoughtful, but they'd rather date guys who just blindly parroted the "party line."

WFTR
Bill

Pardon me if this has already been posted here, but here's great comment from Chuck Colson. It argues something that has always simmered underneath the abortion and homosexuality debate. If you're straight and have sex outside of marriage, what's gives you the right to tell gays they're wrong? As for abortion, the best answer to prevent many (not all) abortions is to keep sex in marriage.

Changing the Rules

BreakPoint with Charles Colson
June 13, 2003

The Sexual Revolution and Sexual Attitudes

The ruling earlier this week by a Canadian appeals court that legalized same-sex marriages in Canada is only the beginning. In one sense, it’s no surprise: Public acceptance of homosexual behavior has been growing. A majority of Canadians favor the court’s decision. Well, can’t happen here, you say. But indeed it can, if public pressure demands it. And support for homosexual rights is growing in the United States just like Canada.

Between 1973 and 1993, the percentage of Americans saying that homosexual relations were "always wrong" ranged between 66 and 70 percent.

But by 2000, only 54 percent said that these relations were "always wrong." And a 2001 Gallup poll showed the scales have tipped the other way. A majority today —54 percent—characterized homosexuality as an acceptable "alternative lifestyle." And just this year Gallup discovered that 62 percent of Americans believe homosexual relations should be legalized.

While there are several reasons for our changing attitudes, the most important is the legacy of the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies. That phrase brings to mind terms like promiscuity and sexual experimentation. But these are only symptoms. The sexual revolution’s most profound impact wasn’t on our practices but on our attitudes.

Prior to the revolution, sex was not regarded as an end in itself. Rather, it was most often understood as serving two vital goals: procreation and what Christians call the "unitive" purpose, strengthening the bonds of marital love. It was against these ends that the morality or immorality of any practice was measured.

The sexual revolution, however, denied that sex was ordered to some higher and nobler end. Sex became a merely physical and biological act, an expression of our animal—not divine—nature. The old morality was dismissed as "unnatural," and sex became recreation.

In this worldview, the pleasure derived from a consensual sexual act is all the "justification" needed. And by now, even people whose own conduct conforms to the traditional morality have internalized this attitude. Thus, as the polls show us, they are unwilling to deny anyone’s right to recreation. And if sex is merely that, why would you not grant it to gays? There’s no basis to consider homosexual sex or, for that matter, sex outside marriage as wrong.

And because the terms of the debate have changed, gay activists are now winning the political battle, as we can see so clearly in the Canadian decision. Their right to recreation will quite logically be a protected "civil right." The only way to stop this—to defend marriage—is to reject the view of sex that we inherited from the sexual revolution.

It’s our job to teach people that sex is not an end in itself—it is more than recreation. It is an act infused with great moral significance.

Now, I admit it is going to be tough to teach this to people who have come to think of sex on any terms as their civil right—an attitude affirmed in court decisions in the United States as well as Canada—but teach it we must, for the alternative is social chaos.

These kinds of topics just keep cropping up here on Free Republic! LOL

WFTR
Bill

A third factor is that for those of us who don't care for the bar scene, it's hard to meet people. I'm certainly no social butterfly, but I'm not a hermit either. However, I can't remember the last time my normal life brought me in contact with someone who would even be worth dating. Once one leaves college, the opportunities to meet people just aren't there. I met some women in church, but my perspective was always just a little too off-kilter to attract them. Most would say that my ideas were reasonable and thoughtful, but they'd rather date guys who just blindly parroted the "party line."

I don't go to bars, don't leave the house after dark, actually. The most fun I've had is FReeping Gov Gray Davis a couple of times since my divorce. I went back to school and everyone except my professors are young enough to be my children. Yeah it's hard to find someone suitable, especially when the 2 kids at home are a little ornery, not to mention my listening tastes....conservative talk radio and heavy metal. We won't even get into my sense of humor.

Another factor is that I'm just not a good salesman, and dating is at least in part a case of salesmanship. Personally, I think our society has gone entirely too far towards what is "marketable" and away from what is true. I once knew a preacher whose church was too small to pay him and who supported himself as a salesman. He said my problem is the mindset of an engineer versus that of a salesman. If a salesman is rejected ten times, the salesman will go into the eleventh meeting believing that he'll make the sale. He'll say to himself, "I've got a great product. If the past ten calls have failed to produce a sale, the next one is bound to buy." An engineer takes the opposite view. An engineer looks at ten rejections and says, "I've run this experiment ten times. I've produced repeatable, statistically significant results. I know what the answer is. Why am I even here?" Unfortunately, I am an engineer with a strong engineering mindset.

I think that's it with me, I'm a "nuts & volts" type of guy so I definately have an engineer mindset too. The trouble with the sales approach in many things is that a lot of times there is so much fluff that many times you cannot see what is real and that can be dangerous. Then again another reason I'm more of an engineering type is I've been told that "I can't sell water in a desert." B-) B-P

A third factor is that for those of us who don't care for the bar scene, it's hard to meet people. I'm certainly no social butterfly, but I'm not a hermit either. However, I can't remember the last time my normal life brought me in contact with someone who would even be worth dating. Once one leaves college, the opportunities to meet people just aren't there. I met some women in church, but my perspective was always just a little too off-kilter to attract them. Most would say that my ideas were reasonable and thoughtful, but they'd rather date guys who just blindly parroted the "party line."

That's a huge problem, it even surpasses the salesman/engineer one. Bars are a no-no with me. I've seen my buddy pick up, date, and go with a woman he met there and whoa, he has problems like you never believe, it's a long, long story there.

I hate to sound mushy, but I have sensitive side, I know women like that although being too mushy shuts many of them off, but in moderation, it is good to have some empathy. Sometimes I wish things were like 100+ years ago where you go to structure dances and court women, get to know them, and find out of they are right for you. Plus they had games like where eligible men were auctioned off to eligible women where they would have a picnic and such. I remember seeing one episode on "Avonlea" that had that.

It's a shame a lot of things have gotten to fast paced/glitzy/glam in today's world instead of focusing on the simple things.

I know myself, the way I feel, when I do find that someone to marry, at least I can be true to myself. I know on her end, I hope she was the same but I realize we all make mistakes in life and as long as she is faithful to me and I would be to her, well, that would be super.

An engineer takes the opposite view. An engineer looks at ten rejections and says, "I've run this experiment ten times. I've produced repeatable, statistically significant results. I know what the answer is. Why am I even here?"

Yeah. Scientists too.

However, I can't remember the last time my normal life brought me in contact with someone who would even be worth dating. Once one leaves college, the opportunities to meet people just aren't there.

Again, yes. I know what you're writing about.