Finding Momentum

Dating 101, continued

I'm continuing an entry detailing new (and always-humbling) insights into myself, life, God, and affection as Sarah and I continue our dating relationship.

On friendship and figuring each other out

What Sarah's helping me realize is that any romantic relationship must be, at its foundation, a great friendship. At the beginning we both assumed we were fantastic friends, which was true in the sense that we'd known each other for a long time and had been involved in similar activities and shared similar worldviews and had mutual friends and similar theologies and had a blast hanging out together. However, I underestimated how much of a "soul-connection" and a chemistry there was to build.

How would you describe chemistry? It's like "clicking" the way you would with your best friend. A friend is someone who knows you, who knows when you're lying, when you're putting on airs or when you're wearing a mask. A friend is someone who you love spending time with, whether it's productive or wasteful. A friend is someone who shows you their humanity and gives you an authentic look at their ugly sides and fears and insecurities. A friend is someone you can be yourself around and know you're accepted for who you are.

Quite frankly, we've had our share of struggles figuring each other out, and that's made us realize that we've got a long ways to go as a friend and as romantic interests. I think we both were frustrated by a lot of Totally Normal friction points. You know, the little stuff that results in conversations which leave neither of us feeling heard or understood. I can be overly rational and logic-driven; she can be overly feelings-centric and impulsive at times. I had trouble adapting to her playful, button-pushing personality and she often felt stifled by my straightlaced by-the-rules philosophy. We come from families with different cultures and generational differences. The list goes on.

We both agree we've got a lot to learn about each other, and it's been hard accepting that fact in light of high expectations. There is that expectation that we're the closest of friends, yet we've had tons of times where she feels like I don't get her. We've been acknowledging that we've really got to give each other a lot of grace and forgiveness in the times when we feel unheard, and we need to be patient. It's been tough, but we know it's worth it.

I'm learning how to be a good friend

I've begun to realize how important it is to be a good friend. As I've mentioned previously, I'm starting to realize how my self-sufficiency negatively impact my friendships and relationship with Sarah. There's a distance that I've maintained with other people, a distance that I easily maintained whenever I got involved with too many activities and gave lame excuses of "I'm too busy" to hang out. Maybe I've got a deep fear of intimacy (maybe, but I don't think it's totally true). Maybe I'm too task-oriented or goals-driven, so much that I have to get involved with 999 different things at the expense of my friendships.

I'd like to change. I'd like to be that friend who knows another at a heart level, who can tell when a friend's lying or hurting without any words. I'd like to kick it with a buddy simply for the sake of kicking it with him, no matter what I'm missing out on. I'd like to be a heck of a lot more transparent with people about my hopes and my fears.

The horrifying depths of emotional intimacy!

I know it means that I really fully open up to Sarah and tell her about my thoughts and insecurities and dreams. It means telling her always what's really on my mind. There's this emotional vulnerability and interdependency that I've never revealed to anybody (except God and my journal) will open up gradually (and when appropriate), with time, to friends and to Sarah.

It's scary, but I know once again it's worth it. It's like I'm slowly able to take a step back and see who I am, warts and all.

But it's actually tons of fun

Seriously. Dating is great. It's loads of fun. I think Sarah's playful side brings mine out as well, and we have a blast from simple things like taking walks (just laughing about random things), to trying out new places to eat (and since our standards are so low, everything's delicious), to playing sports (it's my dream to beat her once in bowling. And tennis). I feel totally at home with her.

One thing I totally like about her is how she reminds me of infinite reservoirs of Grace--every time I tend to get down on myself, she reminds me that I'm not too far away from God's love. And it's because she's grounded in it--she depends on it, like air for breathing. Not only that, but I've been really blown away by Forgiveness. When we wrong each other, we apologize and forgive. And let me tell you that it is the most amazing feeling to be forgiven by somebody you've wronged and it always gives me this sensation that the Father's forgiveness is far weightier and far more significant than I had imagined.

All this to say, it's been a humbling nine months. When I first started dating, I only had a rough idea of what it meant to be working things out to this detail with somebody else. I knew that dating would be awesome and it would be rough. But it wasn't till I actually got up close and wrangled with these issues did I realize how much junk there was to work out in me. Sarah and I have a ways to go, and this process of patiently working things out between us has been tiring, but it has been good.