I want to ruffle his hair; undo his top button. Or something.
Now, now, reader, don’t get excited. This is not because of any repressed sexual desire. It’s not because I can’t take my hands off him. It’s just a desperate wish to add a little excitement to this otherwise pretty boring date.
The man sitting opposite me is… pleasant. But the tragedy is I can find no other adjectives to describe him.
This is dating by numbers. He has done everything right. His shoes are polished, he is tall and smartly-dressed. He smiles, nodding in agreement at just the right moment. He has taken me to a pleasant bar along a pleasant river. He pleasantly pays for my pleasant dinner. Outside, the sun sets – pleasantly. Later, he will call me when I get home to check I arrived safely. How nice. How proper. How pleasant. Pleasant, pleasant, pleasant.
I’m out with pleasantguy in a bid to get over atheistboy (who, against many of your wishes, I did end up meeting a couple of times and unfortunately he was as dreamy in real life as I had feared he would be).
Conversation with atheistboy flowed – darting effortlessly from here to there; twisting and turning in a spiral of spontaneity. With him, I occasionally laughed until I cried. With atheistboy the world felt bigger; my brain expanded towards the unexpected. Dates with him were… exciting.
But the God thing loomed; the elephant in the room. So I went back to the drawing board of online dating and decided I would give pleasantguy, a believer-like-me, a chance.
So here I am on this pleasant date with a Christian guy. I predict where our conversation will lead. We talk about the future – sizing each other up as future-husband-question-mark and future-wife-question-mark. We talk about university and our favourite TV shows; our families. And we talk about what denomination we’re part of – each of us silently weighing up whether the other’s theology is sound. We occasionally laugh – not belly laughs, but polite, chaste titters.
And this has pretty much been the way most of the Christian dates I have ever been on have gone. Even the usual post-date will-he-won’t-he nervousness and excitement is often cut short. Because before you’ve pondered whether a second date is likely, he will have emailed you or text you a very earnest and detailed explanation of why, having prayed about it, he does not wish to take things further. He will tell you just how hard a decision it was for him and wish you well in your future search. He hopes that you will be friends, knowing full well that CHRISTIAN MEN CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITH WOMEN. And then it’s too late for you to reply with a flippant ‘I didn’t really fancy you either’ text, because that would appear bitter. Darn you and your speedy texting, Christianguy!
So what is it about Christian men? Why are they so buttoned-up and proper? Why do they live in the future rather than the present? Why are their jokes so polite? Why aren’t they tear-inducingly funny? Why is their hair so neat? Why do they listen to Shania Twain?
And what is it about me that has this urge to shake them? I tell myself I want a good, Christian man.
But maybe sometimes good just ain’t good enough.
Any exciting Christian guys out there want to prove me wrong? Unpredictable, mind-stretching banter and all-round exciting chat welcome in the comment box below…