A number of years ago I read a book titled I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It was, to say the least, an interesting book. I respect the author (Josh Harris) very much and admire his convictions. At the time they seemed best. After all, as Christians we are not supposed to run about dating like chickens with our heads cut off. The metaphor may be a little off, but I think you get the picture. Dating for the Christian audience should equal marriage. In a secular environment it is not for marriage but rather for having fun. Fun for a secular audience is usually equivalent to sex, at least according to the Christian bias of the world and its methods. Dating in the secular realm is casual. On the other hand, in the spiritual realm it is all about commitment. Either way, in my book, it's just not cool.
Anyways, it just so happens that at that time I had fallen into the Christian trap. The opening illustration to the book served only to strengthen that strangle that had already taken hold of me. The illustration was about a character about to be married and while waiting for his bride to step up the aisle several girls look to him. They are the girls of his past. In a way it is similar to the film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, only much cleaner. These girls (ghosts) all cry out to him reminding him (haunting him) of his treatment towards them. All the spent caresses, the used up kisses, the dismissed promises, the broken vows, and the wasted words now back - angrier than ever.
So in my mind it seemed only natural to regret every tangible love affair (and intangible as well). Whenever my heart weakened before a girl it had to cave in completely or else it was just not worth it. This was due in part to my own rather passionate nature but also to the idea that I could only fall in love once. It was a flawed plan from the start. Soon I began to regret ever saying the *three magic words and turned them into curse words until I was no longer capable of sharing them (*I love you). I was afraid to look at an attractive girl (let alone touch her) for fear I might like her and yet she not be "the one."
There is a lot of talk going about finding "the one." If you ask me I think it's bogus. Just a bunch of huey! In the grand scheme of things there might be a "the one" scenario, but even then I don't think it very likely at all. I was terrified of what C. S. Lewis spoke of when he commented on religion, "This quasi-religion was all a one-way street: all eros (as Dr. Nygren would say) steaming up, but no agape darting down." Do you understand? It was all a paranoia of being haunted by my own folly. Or, perhaps worse, a paranoia of hurting someone else. This second one was the nobler of the two reasons, only because it was Biblically justified. Yet it was, I'll admit, not the primary reason.
In the back of my mind there was this idealized vision of saying I love you only to my wife. Of kissing (and all the rest of that good stuff) only with my wife. Well, that was just not the case. I did like other girls - yes, even my emotions and attractions had to be suspended until I encountered "the one." So, yes, I did like other girls but then ended repenting of it....right before meeting the next one! Thus George Whyte-Melville wrote, "We always believe our first love is our last, and our last love our first."
It took me some time to understand what Lewis later wrote of (only in the following chapter). "But a desire is turned not to itself but to its object. Not only that, but it owes all its character to its object. Erotic love is not like desire for food, nay, a love for one woman differs from a love for another woman in the very same way and the very same degree as the two women differ from one another. Even our desire for one wine differs in tone from our desire for another. Our intellectual desire (curiosity) to know the true answer to a question is quite different from our desire to find that one answer, rather than another, is true. The form of the desired is in the desire."
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