My Flattering Friend,
Thank you.
I really appreciate that you have opened up to me about your feelings. I feel honored that you trust me, and you have said some quite flattering things that validate that God is making me a better person than I used to be. But, I can’t date you.
It’s not that I do not find you attractive, it’s not that I don’t enjoy being around you. It’s that I have decided, as a boundary for myself, to not enter into deep vulnerability with those who aren’t mature Christians.
I have very few qualifications in those who I consider to date:
- A mature Christian who can show me grace,
- Someone I enjoy hanging out with,
- Someone whose future excites and energizes me, and
- Someone who is at least two inches shorter than me when she is in heels (if I am going to dance with her much, I would like to be able to easily twirl her without constantly being hit in the elbow by her nose).
I can’t compromise on this one issue. Here is why:
In any relationship, I will mess up. The deeper the relationship, the more dramatically. In a romance, I will need more grace that I believe a human possesses, which is why I can only become involved with those who are tapped into an infinite source of healing and forgiveness and grace. My girlfriend will need a good portion of that supply.
I make large decisions that affect the girls I date. Where to go for the holidays, what job to take or refuse, where to live, how to spend my time and money. If a romance gets serious enough, my girlfriend would even help make these decisions. The person with whom I make decisions needs to understand that I make life decisions by praying to God, and doing what I hear he says. A non-believer or a young Christian isn’t quite there yet, and there is great potential for you being confused, hurt, or resented because we aren’t on the same page with something as basic as ‘how to make decisions.’
In addition, I want to get married. Not right away, but eventually. It isn’t my main goal in dating (this isn’t find-a-spouse), but I would like to have a girlfriend one day become a fiancee and then wife. With such underlying differences as the two I just outlined, you can’t become that. I would be leading on both of us to date you seriously, and you deserve better than to be dated any other way.
I understand this isn’t what you wanted to hear, and that it doesn’t seem fair. I hope you can see that this is something that is very important to me, and is at the core of my being. I want to share that core with someone else who already has it, and you can’t be that person because you don’t have it. If we moved forward, we would both be hurt deeply and, I believe, frivolously. I can’t in good conscience do that to you.
I hope we can still be friends. I do enjoy our conversations and the activities we share together, but I understand if you need some time and space to readjust. I pray for the very best for you, but it isn’t me right now.
Your friend,
A Christian Guy