Michele: I would love to introduce my good friend and our guest blogger, Valerie Sun. She is in the faith, hoping and dating trenches with me as a prayer partner, accountability partner and just an all-around BLAST to hang out with. Enjoy!
He's a Christian, Butt...
by Valerie Sun
Something about me that I should probably disclose is that apparently I never grew out of that pre-pubescent stage where as girls we would give our crushes nicknames. This is only to be known to our closest circle of girlfriends, I think in an effort to lend secrecy and fun to our obsession at the time. This affinity to bestow codenames onto my schoolyard crushes has carried full force into adulthood. I nickname many of the guys I go out with…usually stemming from a quirk about them – sometimes positive, but not always. For example, I have gone out with catboy, hip-hop boy, and for the subject of this particular blog, "MAF."
In my never-ending quest to find a datable guy who is Christian, I stumbled upon MAF on match.com. MAF was a 30 year old grad student soon-to-be teacher who lived nearby, professed his Christianity in his profile, was extremely funny, and very cute, too!
I contacted him and we ended up chatting on IM one night. It was clear from the beginning that his faith was real and important to him. But in the oddest first conversation I have EVER had with a guy, red flags went up all over the place. He said that he had a conundrum: he was looking for a Christian “wild girl” – a girl who is Christian and loves God, but not uptight and with a wild side. He explained that although he himself was abstinent, he had dated too many Christian “drones” that would shut down at any kind of intimacy past hand-holding. I mean… I’m all for honesty and being real, but there is also something to be said for saving those type of conversations for once you get to know someone better, not on the first chat! Without going into detail, I told him that I felt I fell somewhere in the middle. I probably should have said goodbye right after that chat. Many women I know would have been duly offended and promptly signed off. I, however, decided to overlook the slightly offensive honesty in the hopes that underneath the apparent inability to distinguish appropriate first conversation subject matter there was that solid Christian, datable guy I was hoping to find.
I ended up going out with MAF four times, three of which were just hanging out at home. After the first date, the subject of my assets came up – specifically, those of the gluteal nature. Not just once, but multiple times…peppered throughout texts, conversations, and IMs. It appeared that due to my uncanny ability to find some wacky guys online, I had unearthed a Christian guy with an ass fetish to boot…which promptly gave him the well deserved nickname MAF – Mr. Ass Fetish. It wasn’t too long before he started asking for a picture of me from the back…seriously. I refused politely, laughing it off at first, and then when he wouldn’t let it drop, I reiterated my feelings on the matter a little more strongly. I didn’t tell him to shove it like I wanted to because I was trying SOOOO hard not to come across as the dreaded “prude” that we Christian women too often and easily get labeled. And, I wanted him to LIKE me.
MAF then left for home for two weeks over the holidays and I never heard from him again. Getting some perspective, I realized how much leeway I had given him just because ostensibly he had all those qualities I desperately wanted and was having such a hard time finding - but with it, I overlooked the fact that with him I felt like I had to prove myself and consequently, didn’t call him on his inappropriate aggression when it came to his attraction to rear ends.
Remembering my value as God’s child in dating can be really hard, and in my zealous attempt to throw everything I knew I needed and wanted out the window because this particular guy shared my faith, I lost that I need to look at the person as a whole, and not just the fact that he goes to church on a regular basis. Any other guy pulling those stunts I would have chalked up as a perv, but because MAF was a Christian, I figured that he might be worth ignoring the creepy behavior. Compromise is necessary for a healthy relationship, but when I ended up compromising also what I knew was right and good, and some of my sense of self-worth along with it, I realized I had cut the guy one too many breaks. And that there is such a thing as too much compromise …it is just a matter of treading that grey area and knowing when you’ve stepped into the red.
Lesson learned…next time a guy asks me for a picture of my ass after one date, I will turn tail and run the other direction – of course, all the while making sure that he doesn’t have a camera in his hand to take a picture of said tail while I run.
