User talk:Joseph.moussa

Dating

Coming from a person who has never been on a date once, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on when a person should start dating. To really drive my point home I’m going to use my past experiences to prove my case.

Throughout the conversations that we had in Sunday school class about marriage, I’ve heard the common theme of dating when mature, or start dating after college. Many people that I’ve talked to and many opinions thrown around these days are simple: date when you’re ready to date. This does make some sense. When you’re ready, start dating. When is ready though? Can a 14-year-old be ready to date? Of course a majority of people would say; of course not, a 14-year-old girl or boy is not old enough or mature enough to start dating or even think about the opposite sex in that way. Well, this is a valid point. Why then do we see kids dating at the ages of 12, or even younger than that? Why, when I go to my brother middle school to pick him up I see young couples kissing? Are they sneaking behind their parents’ backs? Well I would say most of them are, but for the ones that are not have justification from their parents. How can a parent justify allowing their son or daughter to date at such a young age? Well, their rational is simple; “dating is harmless.” Dating is harmless. How can dating be harmless? Well, I believe that dating is absolutely harmful.

I am about to explain a theory that most people are not going to either like, or agree with. This is a theory that I strongly believe in because it really reflects what I went through. Let me explain:

Like everyone, I went through those years where I really didn’t care about God. I never read the bible, never prayed before I went to sleep, and never even had a cross to wear around my neck. It was so bad there were days my mom would walk by my room and say: Joseph did you pray? Of course I’d say no because I always hated lying to my mom. Then she insisted on having me pray before I went to sleep. I was so against it I would just sit up and pretend to pray. She actually never knew I did that, of course until know. Most people who are not close to God get scared and offended whenever told to do something to glorify the Lord. Especially if you’re a person who is not close to God at heart, but normally attend church. You get intimidated and scared because you know and understand very well that the way you are going is not going to lead you to paradise. At that time in my life, that was exactly going on in my head when I was at church or in Sunday school, that’s whenever I did go during that time in my life. At this time in my life, around my early sophomore years in high school, my thoughts and feelings about women and relationships were totally different. I was looking for a cute face, and a great personality. There is of course nothing wrong with a cute face a great personality, but I was missing the point of my finding. I had this image of the perfect girl for me, and I wanted to find this girl because everyone was dating. When I say everyone, I mean everyone. People would look at me weird because I would tell them that I’m not going out with anyone (Picture the faces of people when I tell them that I had never had a girl friend or been on a date before!). So of course, trying to fit in, I would look for certain girls, but it was never in me to try to get them to like me in the way I would try to get them to like me so I can get a date. I was always shy; really a nice guy like I am today and I always just loved being friends. Since I really understood the fact that my parents would kill me if I had a girl friend, my motivation wasn’t there, even though I had certain crushes here and there, it never went further past talking and laughing, partly because I couldn’t go that far, and the other part because the girl would never in her wildest dreams go that far with me. But then, a certain girl came by that changed that whole outlook on things.

I don’t want to get into too much detail of who the girl is, but she’s not living in California anymore, and I’m sure this isn’t going over seas. The main points that should be explained was she was a really nice girl that was new to the school, and I was a really nice guy that offered to help her with anything she needed to fit in, or feel comfortable with her short stay in my high school. I, of course being a guy, was always flirting with her, and trying to make her laugh (which I try to do to everyone all the time), and my aim was to get her to like me. I never really talked about religion with her, but she told me that she was a Mormon. This didn’t seem to bother me one bit. Of course this is way before I actually knew the cult hood of this religion, but even so, it didn’t bother me at the time what race she was, or if she believed in God. Not to get too much into detail of the things that happened, I decided one day to ask her out to our high school’s Homecoming dance. So, being the very shy guy I was and still am I wrote her a note asking her if she would go out with me to the dance. With that note I put some chocolate for her to enjoy; she absolutely was crazy about chocolates. The reason I gave the note to her on that specific day I did was because I knew I was going to be out of class for the day. This of course shows my shyness because I didn’t even want to be there when she read the letter! To my disbelief, I had to come back to class to serve the duration of it. I walked in, I looked at her direction, she shot me a smile, and my heart sank. I sat there thinking and hoping she got the note I left on her desk, and I was getting so nervous I had to leave to go use the bathroom. So I left, and while I was getting the pass from my teacher, she called my name and gave me a note. I was about to faint. So I took the note, walked outside and tried to act cool about it. But once I got outside I ripped the note open and read it slowly because I knew that she was going to say things like, thanks for the letter and chocolate and all of the nice things you said about me in the letter. I knew that her answer to my question was coming up but I didn’t even want to go further, but I did. She told me that she would love to go to the dance with me if her grandparents let her. Not paying attention too much to the “if my grandparents let me” part I went to the bathroom and needless to say, I was smiling that whole time in the there. I came back to class, acted cool and collective, and went home with a smile on my face that looked like the Joker himself.

Before I continue with my story let me start explaining why I’m telling this particular one. This point in my life, my faith wasn’t strong at all. I was every now and then praying, and every now and then reading the bible. I never grew my Christian personality at this time, and I was still stuck in my old ways of thinking. So my rational at this point is coming from the worldly rational, not from my spiritual rational. Meaning, I wasn’t thinking like a “Christian”, but thinking like a boy looking for the worldly object and perception of love. Let’s continue.

Throughout the whole time between that day, and the day I found out if she was going for sure, I was in my mind planning out every word I would say, what I’d wear, what I’d do when I saw her, and what I’d do when I tell her goodbye. This I am positive every man does! I was driving myself crazy about this and I was just putting so much hope in her saying that she can go.

Side Point: What I’ve learned, and I’m sure many of you readers have learned, whenever we put so much hope and faith and thought into something that is worldly, God usually crushes that hope and faith because it is not the right hope and faith. God is telling us that these are the things that are bringing us down with the rest of them, and not glorifying the Lord. You will see what I mean later in my story.

So the day finally came when I asked her if she was able to go with me. Of course, it was the day right after I gave her the not because I was thinking about it all the day before. She told me that she didn’t ask them yet, and when the time came she would ask. This was not good because it just gave me more time to think about it, and more time to think about what I wanted to do at the dance, and after. Then I realized, “Hey, I’ve never kissed a girl before!” Then that’s when new thoughts came in. I had this perfect scene of what would happen after the dance. I would take her by the hand, tell her I had a great night, and I would go in for the kiss. Perfect! This plan can’t fail. And how can she not want to kiss me after a great night I was going to give her, or thought up to give her. So I was anticipating this moment for every second, all day and night before news came in on her status of going or not. That is when God started not only shaping my personality, but changing my life.

Weeks past before I ever spoke to her about the dance because I didn’t want to annoy her to death. I finally asked her again, and she told me straight out, the day of the dance she had to meet with family in another city and her grandparents won’t let her skip it. I was devastated. Do you know what devastated means? Devastated! But, being the cool guy I was trying to be, I told her that is was ok and that we can pick another time to go to another dance (not knowing that right before the next dance she would leave back to her country). This crushed all of my hope and faith. It put my whole plan to waste, and it got me so angry at everything. Today, I thank God for not allowing me to go to that dance, not only did it keep me clean and pure until today with my relationships with women, but it taught me a valuable lesson about my faith and hope in God.

Here comes in my core opinion on dating. From that moment on God was starting to change my life, and shape my character. I started to read more of the bible, go to church more, and I started to change the way I thought about certain things. At this point in my life, the bible and God has taught me the true essence of love and marriage and relationships (which I talk about throughout this article). I learned that at that specific time in my life, the experience I just shared, and the way I thought was not the correct way to think. At that particular point I had not value system, or moral stability to base my rational on what a relationship means, and what to base a relationship on. I was then making my assumptions and basing my beliefs on what I saw around me. One thing I’ve learned throughout my experiences living here in California is that the things around us affect us more than we think, or like to think. So I was seeing the things on T.V, paying attention to the things I heard around from people, but I always, even at that time, had that little thing inside of me that told me all of this stuff is bad, wrong, and not pleasing to God. Even so, those things impacted me in a way I did not see or notice at the time. Then God brought me closer to Him then ever before. I started reading the bible and pinpointing certain verses that talk about how a man should treat woman and what marriage consists of. This started to shape my thinking. That and through my many years of interaction with so many women who would talk to me about their relationships (in which I will discuss in another chapter.), helped me form my overall analysis about relationships.

So here is my over all opinion and feelings on dating: I feel that without having that close and intimate relationship with Christ, you should not date at all. This is a very strong statement and opinion, but I believe in my heart that it is very true. The reason young children should not date is easy, they don’t have that thing in their head telling them that whatever they are doing, or think of doing is wrong. They are innocent, even at the high school age, because what they take in is usually what they end up putting in effect. I have, and certainly you readers have, heard of success God stories. Those stories of men and women who were very bad when they were young, and of course, through the grace of God were “born again” and were brought to the Lord and changed their way of acting and thinking. Usually, when we are young, the devil can easy tempt us into doing certain things because not only are we not mentally stable to decide if this is right or wrong, but usually the things that the devil tells us are appealing, and they are things we see adults on T.V doing. Well why am I saying this? We are already older enough right? Well the children of our future need to be taught from an early age that these are the kinds of things that hurt us. But not to get too off the point, let me further explain my stand.

I am not only trying to explain this in contrast to younger children. I am trying to appeal to the high school, college level, and most importantly adult level people. When saying, that you should not even think of getting into a relationship before totally accepting Christ, and not only accepting him as our God and Savior, but also applying His teachings to our lives, and understanding the true essence of a relationship, I am saying the way we think and perceive things before our attitudes change to please the Lord is not right, and is harmful. We never think twice about kissing another person because it’s not going to harm me. This is how we think before we accept Christ, and most of us think the same way now, but we understand that a kiss means more. We then understand that dating at an age when we are in high school, or even college is point less because those kinds of relationships most of the time don’t last. When we become closer to God we have this theory in our minds that we are all meant to be with one person. And of course, I can only be with one person for the rest of my life (even though we are allowed to re-marry if our spouse dies, or we can divorce and re-marry is our spouse committed adultery). When having that way of thinking, which comes during our process of becoming closer to the Lord, we don’t waste our time going through pointless relationships with people who we don’t view as husband or wife material.

I have one very important rule for dating. Never date a person who you cannot see yourself marrying. If you don’t want to marry an Egyptian male or female, don’t just date them for kicks and giggles. This makes a downward spiral of breakups and bitterness that can all be wiped out if we just don’t get involved with them in the first place. Another part to this is something that most people hate to hear. I believe that you should start dating when you are ready to marry. And I don’t mean the Egyptian marriage where you find a girl, immediately engage to her, and then get married. I mean when you see yourself settled, when you see that the Lord is opening opportunities for you, and then you can decide that at this point in your life inviting another person in will help you be a better person.

With the things that I have said here, and the things before and after this, you will see my over all way of thinking about relationships. But the one thing to get from this is simple:

If you are not as close to the Lord as you would like to be, do not put yourself into a situation where you have to make long life changing decisions. Don’t put yourself into a relationship that lacks the spiritual gifts the Lord gives us. Because the Lord said that a Christian and a non-Christian cannot be married. This relationship will not work. In effect, I say, that when you have two people who are close to the Lord, and who think about God on a daily basis, the theme and point to the relationship always comes back to the Lord, and nothing else worldly.