The Pursuit of Love | Caitlin Muir

I’ve been talking relationships again with friends. Imagine that.

We were talking about rampant miscommunication between the sexes. How for women, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of reading into things. One of my male buddies recently reminded me that guys really aren’t that complicated. It’s women choosing to read between the lines that mixes things up. Women analyzing things to death and adding interest/drama to simple conversations. While I didn’t agree with him completely (not all of us women are like that, right?), having a man’s perspective on it was refreshing.

Yesterday, two other men weighed in on the male/female relationship quandary. What I thought was interesting was that they pretty much said the same thing. All of them. Maybe there’s something to be said about it.

How to Snag a Man Without Pursuing is a great post by Darrell Vesterfelt on my friend Ally’s blog. Pursuing is something that we as women should leave to the men. It’s not our job to hunt for a husband. The Bible says that “He who finds a wife finds a good thing.” Not “She who uses her wiles to land a man does a good thing.” Our job is to be those good women who good men will want to pursue.
How to Live a Great Love Story by Don Miller was also excellent. The opening lines sum it up for me - Living a great love story doesn’t look like winning the lottery, it looks like training for a marathon. It’s hard work and you have to do the work long before you ever meet Mr. Right, otherwise you’ll be the girl who shows up for the marathon having eaten a gallon of ice cream every night, listening to Taylor Swift songs and watching love stories about vampires. No good man can run with that girl, not for much longer than a mile.

Talk about inspiration and conviction! It’s rare to get that kind of gut-level honest from men about women worth pursuing. Reading it makes me sit up and pay attention…and pass it on to all of my friends.

And if you are a dude – read Don’s post for today. In it he says, “God designed it so a man felt his most powerful while guiding a woman through an amazing love story. Love stories, though, are told through sacrifice, patience and pain.”

Ladies – What do you think of the men’s thoughts? Men – Anything you would add or edit?

Bonni

I think that it is true that most guys aren’t “complicated”, however they are so “uncomplicated” that it makes women read into things. Most of the men that I have encountered are not very good at letting their intentions be known. They go back and forth with their level of communication, be it phone, email or text, and blame any lapse on work or being busy or some other vague reason. They don’t ask you out or make plans till the very last minute so you either become to busy for him because you make other plans or you sit all day by the phone waiting to see if you have a date or not that night. Or they don’t make seeing you a priority in their life and they might see you one day but never really let you know when you will see them again…. So yes women may make things complicated by analyzing things to much but honestly if men were not so blazay about the relationship and actually kept the girl in the loop I bet you there would be a lot less complication in a relationship, just saying

Caitlin

So glad you stopped by Bonni!

I think it’s interesting that you mentioned verbalization. I’ve heard so many guys say that actions speak for them. I’m a fan of bluntness – “I like you. A lot. Let’s go out to dinner.” But from what I hear, that’s not natural for guys.

Which speaks more to you – actions or words?

http://calebmacias.com/ Caleb Macias

When it comes down to it I want my wife to be able to write a book about me. That will take allot of work and sacrifice on my part to be sure. On the flip side though, I want to write a book about my wife. And that starts with dating/courting/whatever you wanna call it. We are called to give 100%… A wise old friend told that after 60 years his motto is “give 100% get 100%”. While it doesn’t always work out that way when we are focused on what we are giving we are grateful for what we’re getting, and if 2 people are participating then there’s no doubt that it would be unstoppable.

Caitlin

That’s a beautiful way to put it, Caleb. I hope you do get a book written about you.

How do you give 100% through the whole dating/courting/whatever process? Doesn’t it look different depending on which one you are doing?

http://calebmacias.com/ Caleb

Well sorta. The principle Jesus laid out of putting yourself last will apply at every stage.

Lots of things will always change. In the beginning a guy can fix a problem with a kiss. Lol, not so much later on.

I think that’s why dating and relationships have become what they are today. We hear it all the time about how much we consume in today’s society. It goes way beyond sodas and cars. The only thing kids are taught to think when it comes to a relationships is “Is she the right one for ME” me me me. Truth is that we could have an outstanding successful relationship with just about anyone on the planet. We’re not thinking about what am I doing to bring someone else joy.

There are to many exactly the same couples and completely opposite couples..with everything in between.

It’s work no matter who you end up with but the best things in life are fought for.

I could write a whole new blog post on here so im just gonna take step off this soap box and leave it at that for now .

Caitlin

If only all problems were simple enough to solve with a kiss!

Laura

I think Bonni’s right: guys aren’t that complicated but we’re anxious to read into things (or not). A guy says to a girl, “Wanna grab coffee?”…if she likes him she thinks “A date?!” if she’s not that into him she thinks, “Aw, he wants to be friends!” What’s amazing and beautiful about that right one is that both people are interested at the same time…meaning the guy is going out of his way to ask the girl out and the girl is excited about it.

On a side note, I think its interesting when single people try to instruct others on dating and/or relationships. While they can have good basic advice, there is an intimacy and knowledge about the other sex that a person can’t understand until they enter the closeness of marriage…and I’m not talking about just the physical. Before I met my husband I thought I knew how men worked. But when I got married my eyes were open to the inner workings of my husband, the part of him that made him tick but that he shielded from all but the closest friend. I think that a person who hasn’t experienced this close knowledge of the other sex needs to be very careful before placing themselves as an authority on relationships.

Caitlin

I don’t think anyone is claiming to be an expert. Just offering their pov on how to deal with their sex.

Laura

Sorry, I think I overstated what I was trying to express. I wasn’t saying that you can’t discuss relationships or offer advice on dating when your single. I was more reacting to the the Don Miller article about writing the perfect love story, making pretty strong statements about love, relationships, and both sexes, when he’s not yet had God complete his love story yet. In fact, he went back and retracted his article because of similar concerns from other people as well. http://donmilleris.com/2011/08/11/how-to-delete-a-good-love-story/

Yes, Christian singles can offer good advice on relationships and dating and need to have healthy discussions about it. I just feel that you need to be careful not to instruct the other sex on what they should/should not do. I also feel that those discussions need to be balanced by the imput of older married people (Titus 2:2-4) who can offer a different kind of insight.
J.C. Derrick

Excellent, excellent post. All of it is right on the money.