unkaglen:

marriagemindedmovement asked: Hey! <3 your blog! So, I really have a heart for marriage, and want to date with the intent of getting married, but it seems I only get asked out by guys who aren’t Christians, or are Christian but expect sex, or we are unequally yoked. I desire a God-honoring relationship, but it seems that the non-Christian guys have no problem approaching me for dates, while the guys I’m actually interested in for godly husband potential sit idly by in church! What’s a girl to do? Stay single, approach them, what?

Unka Glen answered: Unfortunately, I hear this a lot. There are only two possibilities out there, one is that the Christian men of this generation have all suddenly become extremely wimpy, or we’ve perhaps given the men of this generation some very confusing and often conflicting information about Christian dating.

I think you can safely bet on the second of the two.

Just as an example, I recently got a message from a young man in college who had a few more years to go, and was looking to ask a girl out, but couldn’t, because he hadn’t graduated yet, and didn’t have any money coming in. He had been told that it was wrong to date someone when he wasn’t ready to be married, and he figured he wasn’t financially ready right that second to get married, so…

Well you see the problem. As you suggest, you can just step in and ask these confused guys out yourself, and there’s nothing in the world wrong with that, but in many ways it still leaves the dude kinda clueless on his end of things. This is a time to get creative, and your ol’ Unka Glen has an idea on how to get this thing done.

Get together with the ladies in your church, fellowship group, singles group, you name it, and you simply create a handout on what you think is good, Godly, and acceptable in this dating arena. I’ll get you started, but feel free to add or re-word any of it, to make it fit your own circumstances and your own personal taste.  

The ladies of this church, in order to avoid further confusion, have come up with a handy guide for asking us out:

1. Stop waiting for the perfect time, perfect circumstance, or magic words. Stop waiting for us to signal to you that we’re interested. Just say “would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime?” If you don’t like coffee, substitute ice cream.
2. Coffee time is not a date, it’s just getting to know each other, if you get to know me and want to ask me out, say so. 
3. You can ask more than one of us to have coffee with you, as we said, it isn’t dating, and we aren’t exclusive.
4. When you do eventually ask us out, be clear that this is a date, and then the usual behavior applies: bring flowers/candy, etc., hold open doors, pull out chairs, ask us about ourselves, say we look nice, and walk us to the door. Maybe you’ll get a nice kiss on the cheek, and that’s plenty enough for a first date.
5. Speaking of physical things, we won’t be having intercourse with you until we’re married. Period. This is NOT because we lack sexual passion, in fact, put a ring on it and see how passionate a real woman of God can be …if you think you can handle it.
6. Speaking of marriage, you need to be serious about this relationship, and serious about eventually getting married, even if you aren’t not ready (financially or otherwise) to be married in this exact moment. 
7. We are inclined to pray about decisions that effect this relationship, and you’re gonna be patient with that. And you’ll want to be doing some praying of your own as well.
8. At some point we need to be exclusive in this dating thing, and it would be nice if you mentioned that first.
9. You need to set an example, spiritually speaking. You need to set the pace. Maybe lead us in prayer before we go out on a date. Maybe send over a little quiet time devotional you’ve put together for the two of us. That sort of thing.
10. You don’t have to be smooth, or look like a celebrity, just show us your heart, be a gentleman, and have some confidence.