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Yesterday I commented at length on Mark Driscoll. Trumwill pointed me to Driscolls collection of sermons on YouTube:
While not especially Calvinist, or even uniquely Christian, this strikes me as outstanding advice to women: do NOT chase men, lest you spend the entire relationship doing it; DO make sure you signal your interest; DO require suitors to declare their intentions, enlisting your father's intervention if necessary.
Driscoll's diagnosis of the problem, that Christian men are "wimps" over-feminized my mainline Christianity, is a little more problematic. As I have pointed out myself, it is true that, in its present context, Christianity does not especially select for assertive men, and sexually assertive men in particular. But it is also true that Christian women have not examined, and are seldom encouraged to examine, the extent to which the broader secular culture has, in the name of license, made them prisoners to their most basic biological responses.
Furthermore, I would assert from personal experience that a man (or, at any rate, almost all Christian men) does not initiate romantic overtures with a woman for one of two reasons: either he isn't interested, or he believes that she wouldn't be interested. Driscoll appears to imply that there is some third category of men that ARE interested, KNOW that the woman would respond favorably, and yet STILL need extra "encouragement". I don't really get that frame of mind, and I'm pretty sure that it never applied to me.
3 comments:
I think it's that men know that she is interested or that they are interested and are not sure about the second part. He's indecisive about whether or not he wants to commit or he wants to be absolutely positive she's interested before he sticks his neck out there but his certainty has not met that threshold (a threshold which may or may not be a logistical impossibility because they're so afraid of rejection).
Trumwill: I agree, and the case will determine the outcome of the hold-his-feet-to-the-fire gambit. The gambit itself serves as an IOI that even the most cowardly among us can't escape; if that was the issue, then the man will respond favorably. But if the man is uncertain of his own feelings, then asking his intentions will not make him so, and he will respond unfavorably.
Parenthetically, I can think of a couple or three cases in which I might have characterized myself as uncertain of my feelings. Looking back on them, however, I now think rather that I was certain in the negative, but that the cases were sufficiently close to the threshold for me to believe that something might change. Entertaining this possibility was quite naive on my part.
I would say that even if his response is unfavorable that it is still a positive development. Perhaps more so than a favorable response, if it's the case that the guy is uncertain. The worst-case scenario, in my experience, is one where the guy is wavering and he is a coward. Or maybe "coward" isn't the right word, but if he lacks conviction. The conviction to follow that voice inside of him that says "Not a good idea." It seems to me that it's often the case that waverers are afflicted with this plight. The worst-case of an unfavorable response is that she is temporarily hurt but able to go on with her life. The worst-case of a favorable response (in these circumstances) is that he lets her do all the heavy lifting of the relationship. He lets her continue to chase him. I wish I could say that I've never been that guy, but I have.
Notably, though, the reverse is true as well. I intend to teach my son, in one manner or another, to accept any answer to "Will you go out with me?" except "maybe". I've been that guy, too, and it's always been much worse than if they'd simply responded in the negative.
None of this is to say that there is never room for uncertainty. Sometimes you just don't know. But I think what that has to mean is "Move along. Maybe someday, but not right now." I've never seen someone embrace a relationship with someone laying in waiting. What I have seen, though, is someone going back after some time apart, having resolved whatever it was that made the previous answer something other than the affirmative.
This really ties in to a previous discussion we've had about desperation. If someone is obviously pining for you (or pining for somebody/anybody) and nothing is required in return, it's hard to evaluate worth. Worth to you or worth to anybody.
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