Thursday, December 23, 2010

Response to a facebook post

Opinion: “A woman's responsibility is to prepare to be found. She was not made to initiate! The man must actively pursue her. In fact, he will enjoy the chase as much as she enjoys being chased! I would argue that there isn't a shortage of good men. Rather, there is an abundance of unprepared, overly eager women!”
1st response: While I agree that women are to be prepared to be found and many of us are not preparing ourselves properly, I think the reality that women outnumber men several times over at most places of worship-- with the exception of sporting arenas-- supports the perception that there are not enough good men out there. Please do not completely excuse men from the equation.
2nd opinion:Kia, I understand what you're saying. I didn't intend to leave the men out. I just wanted to paint a different picture seeing that men are typically bashed all the time by women who are unemotionally prepared to handle them. Also, the mentioning of the outnumbering of women to men is irrelevant and fearful. God is sufficient, and those statistics are wordly.

2nd response

Imagine a college football player in his junior season. He has so much potential but has yet to really get featured. Some pesky injuries have kept him from fully bringing his best playing to this year’s games. At the end of the spring season, with his heart set on hopefully going pro after a successful senior year, would you blame him for being anxious and strategizing for how to achieve success in the upcoming last year. He knows that this dream really only comes once in a lifetime--there is no going back to this stage of his youth, when he is older, to get a second chance. Would you be surprised if he was anxious about the very finite nature of his dream? Let us change scenarios. Now imagine a woman, who dreams longingly of having a family.  She is not married & has no boyfriend.  She has gone to college to be able to work and support herself and is coming up to her 33rd birthday.  She knows that her fertility level will change in 2 short years, and even more so in 5 years. She hears that “advanced maternal age” clock ticking. Is she anxious and probably overly eager? Probably just as much as that football player is about making it pro. Will making her feel like she is just plain wrong, for being eager, solve her anxiety? Likely not.  What does this woman need from others?
    She needs positive affirmation from people in her life to trust in God and to start to call in the blessings of God that she is desiring. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick”. She needs to be encouraged to put her hope in God. And it’s not enough to tell her these things, she has to walk through the process and transform her whole paradigm. 
    She also needs friendboys in her life to not lead her on deceivingly, but to give her clear signals. Sir if you are not interested do not string her along. She will misread your ambiguity because she is half distracted by that dang clock ticking in her head.  
    She also needs to be affirmed to be true to her self. I would imagine that all kinds of people would be offering that football player advice on how to make it to the pros. Just like all kinds of people give advice to single women. Some men say, “don’t be afraid to make the first move; guys like it when women ask them out sometimes”. Other men say, “men should be the hunters and women the hunted”. Some women tell testimonies of their successful marriage to a man that they pursued; even Ruth in the bible basically initiated her relationship with Boaz. So when a woman gets confused about the course to take to exit out of singledom, cut her some slack. Is there only one way to get into a successful relationship? Probably not. A woman needs to be true to herself and not lose her identity en route to just finding any man to raise a family with. But who is to say how she and that Boaz will be united. 
To end i will touch on the idea of preparedness. I don’t think either men or women are ever fully prepared for marriage. In general men do not really understand women and women do not really understand men. Yes, there are steps you can take to help transition more easily into a marriage, but it is still going to be hard work with a lot of learning and deciphering of the other person. 
Women get picked on all the time for being hormonal and wanting babies and being under the pressure of “the clock”; not to mention being the overall subjects of aggravated violence and being often reduced to the sum of their ass-ets. Just because a gentleman feels like men get bashed too much does not, in my opinion, warrant another finger-pointing at women who get the brunt of too much negativity in the universe. Single women need affirmation, protection, understanding, patience, guidance and they need to feel loved.