Recently, all you lovely readers had a chance to submit questions for a single guy to answer. Here we have 6, all of whom will remain anonymous and simply known as Adam #1-6, who agreed to take part in the following interview to give you the guy’s perspective on all things sex, marriage, love and relationships. Enjoy. X
What would make you ask a girl out?
Adam 1: Well, the potential of something big. If there wasn’t just the thought that this was a relationship for the fun of it, beyond boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, with the potential for it to go somewhere.
Like marriage?
1: Yeah. You could just have a relationship that’s great, but it has to have the potential to go somewhere.
Adam 2: Someone who is interested in doing stuff, like travelling or going on holiday. The mundane things you do as a single person but with someone else. Otherwise it’s just kinda like what’s the point in the relationship?
Adam 3: Isn’t that sort of saying that they match your interests?
2: Yeah definitely, just sort of nurturing a genuine doing relationship, like being and doing.
Adam 4: Someone to spend time with, rather than just mucking around – and someone who takes an interest in you and what you do.
Adam 5: Asking someone out isn’t a big deal, we just make it that way. Asking a girl out in non-Christian culture isn’t a big deal – it has no implication beyond that drink. The way we do things in church and in a Christian setting, we read into it more and expect people to expect more, like marriage. I would say that ultimately the question would be do I want to spend time with this person on their own?
Would you want a girl to approach you and ask you out?
2: Yes, because I might like her back.
5: Yes.
1: It would be nice to know if there was interest, that would be a positive, because that’s the paranoia that they’re not interested.
4: As I see it, it’s not a big deal, because you’re asking them out as a friend. You’re not thinking “I have to date this person”.
So there’s stages to dating?
4: Yeah, I wouldn’t just think “I’m going to date them”.
3: Before you have a relationship, you want to build a relationship as a friend with that person. It shows you if you’re compatible and if there’s a good basis there as to whether to take it further.
So we’re saying ‘yes’ to having a girl ask you out, but the expectation might not necessarily be a date?
2: If people want to be honest about their feelings, I’ll be honest back. However plain and raw they lay it out, I’ll lay it out back. If I want to go on a date, I’ll say yes.
So honesty is important?
4: Yeah, but I would be a bit freaked out if someone did that to me. I think I’d be a bit put off, I’d rather take it slowly.
1: It depends on context as to how well you know them.
5: But even if I didn’t like them I’d still rather them talk to me; I don’t want to lead them on or for them to have a bad experience or for them not to move on.
If one of your friends were in love with you, would you want them to tell you?
2: Yes, otherwise it’s like the movies with ‘the thing that never happened’, and it’s honesty again that’s important. If someone acts differently around you, you want to know why, and you don’t want to lead them on. If they’re honest, you won’t screw anyone over.
1: Yeah definitely, but as long as there isn’t an expectation that the other person will say it back.
Okay, so what is a real relationship to you?
2: Trust.
4: It’s putting your trust in another person, so that you’d want to spend the rest of your life with them – or potentially, I guess it’s seeing whether you’re compatible again.
1: There’s multiple aspects, so someone you can trust, someone you can see a future with, but also someone you can have fun with, too. It’s just a person who you can be around regardless of what mood you’re in, it’s someone you are more than happy to be around regardless of what they’re like, and vice versa.
So guys have emotions then?!
2: Guys have emotions, full stop!
5: Just saving the emotions for the right girl!
2: That raises a good point, I think guys should open up more about their emotions. A lot of guys hang out with a lot of girls instead of guys, when actually the deepest relationships are often those best friendships with guys, rather than a lustful night with a girl and thinking that’s the emotion dealt with, when spending time with people of the same gender can deepen relationships.
So do you think friendship helps you to be honest in relationships?
2: Yeah, well it’s got to be, friendships or relationships, that all starts with spending time with and being honest with someone.
5: A real relationship is when you communicate.
3: Yeah, someone you don’t have to pretend with.
So is it all about one thing for guys?
1: Well, sex is an aspect of a relationship, and a good aspect of a relationship – a married relationship – but you build that relationship if you’re a Christian without sex. It’s not about that, the relationship doesn’t have that for a lot of the time.
2: I think the word is intimacy, and that can be anything: physical, spiritual, emotional… It’s deepening the whole connection between two people and that is manifested in different ways. But in the same vein, if you were with someone and you didn’t want to have sex with them that would be an issue. It’s not the be all and end all, but it’s important that a physical attraction is there. It’s not the thing to obsess about, but sex is part of the package.
Do you feel like because you’re friends are having sex, you have to do it too?
4: You can get quite a lot of stick if you don’t go sleeping around, because it’s ‘not normal’.
2: There is a stigma attached to V-Plates, but at the same time there is something distinct and radically different if you choose not to live that way.
So you wouldn’t have a one night stand or something like that?
2: No, I don’t think as a Christian I would.
1: There is a cultural thing. It’s easy to say you don’t have to be like your friends, but when you’re in a culture where it’s okay to do it, it can be difficult to stay in the Christian context where it’s not okay.
Adam 6: I can obviously see the appeal of it, it’s a primal instinct, and you don’t have to deal with anything afterwards. But it takes away from the intimacy of it and the connection, there’s always the idea that you’re losing a part of yourself.
5: But if you think of virginity and purity as something you’re going to lose, then all of the people who do have sex will feel terrible about themselves. You need to think about purity as a state rather than something you lose.
1: It is a state, attainable by not having lost purity in the first place but also by grace – but grace shouldn’t be the option you choose so you can have your way with various lady-folk.
Do you want to wait for sex until marriage?
4: If I felt pressured into having sex with a girl before marriage, I’d get out of it, because it shows she’s clearly not in it for the relationship but just for the sex.
2: But I think there should be that pressure, though. That’s the whole point, it’s why you get married quickly! You want to have that deep intimacy but it’s about resisting it, too.
5: I don’t know whether I would wait if I was pressured, I might cave in.
2: Isn’t sex marriage?
1: Marriage isn’t sex, but sex is marriage.
2: Marriage is 2 becoming one, the connection on every level of intimacy, and that’s why people want to do it because it’s the essence of what we’re doing and it’s the ultimate connection.
1: It’s easy to say that but in the situation it’s easy to put that to the back of your mind. I’m not a virgin, and at the time I knew the theology behind it, but I knew I was wrong which is the important thing.
2: Yeah, there’s a difference between living in sin and sinning. It’s a journey, and it’s about knowing where the wrongs are. It’s like being on heroin, you can’t just come off it, you need to reduce it and ease yourself off and out of that situation.
6: I think I would struggle.
1: It’s two way though, assuming the person you’re with is also under that pressure. If they aren’t, you’re in the wrong relationship.
2: I think it’s something to be sorry for but not to beat yourself up about. When we mess up and have intimate connections in the wrong way, we’re doing what we’re meant to but not pushing it in the right direction. That’s the important thing, understanding what we’re doing.
1: The fact we all struggle with it and even break something in us, just shows how powerful it is but also how dangerous it is. We need to understand how powerful it is.
So do you want to get married? And if so, for the sex, or everything else with it?
2: I mean, if it comes along, it comes along. If it doesn’t happen, so what? I’m not banned from it when I get to 30, or 40, I don’t want to get into a relationship with someone at the wrong time and then marry the wrong person. I want to marry someone for the person, not the status.
4: It’s not something I’m actively looking for, but if it happens it happens.
1: Kind of yes, because sex is part of the covenant. You want the intimacy and the trust of everything, and sex is a big part of that. It’s not the only part, but you need to be looking for the sex as well because it’s a part of marriage.
5: Yeah I do want to get married, for the sex, but for everything else as well.
6: I mean, sex is going to be a large element in it but it’s a partnership too. It’s not necessarily going through the motions, it’s not just all happy at the beginning, its about finding in someone else a lifelong partner, which hopefully ends in death. It’s a bit somber, but it’s supposed to be lifelong.
1: Exactly, assuming the fuzzy feeling at the beginning of a relationship is love is the reason so many marriages end. Love is a choice, after the fuzzy feeling goes away it doesn’t mean you don’t love them, you wake up every morning and you still choose to spend your life with them.
2: You have to deal with them when they’re sick, when they fart! All these little mundane things, you have to be prepared and go beyond the niceties.
1: Yeah, take them at their worst and their best.
6: You’re also going to see them in their sinful state as well, and their dark moments. There’s an element that when you say those vows, whatever has happened to them or wherever they are, you’ve committed to stay with them regardless of what’s going on.
1: I guess it’s just remembering that they see you at their worst but you have to see them at their worst as well.
6: There is an element in Christian culture of a ‘marriage culture’. Like so and so are getting together, “when are you going to get married?” There’s that pressure, and it shouldn’t be there.
So people should just take their time?
6: Yeah, it’s like Paul said, celibacy and singleness is a good thing.
1: In the Bible it says marriage is a blessing, but it doesn’t mean that if you’re not married you’re not blessed. Singleness is a blessing too.
2: Being married isn’t always a blessing, I couldn’t do all I do now if I was married.
Are all guys scared of commitment?
2: No!
1: No.
6: It depends on who it is, you never know their backgrounds.
2: There’s always trepidation about stepping into commitment because of what it is. Especially in a Christian culture, there’s always a presumption that there will be a wedding. It’s intimidating, and we tread carefully towards it. We look forward to it, but we don’t rush.
So does commitment mean marriage, or something else as well?
4: Well if you’re in a relationship you’re committed to them.
2: It should always have a potential for marriage in a Christian context otherwise what’s the point? That’s the whole point of Ephesians 5 and the imagery of the bride. It doesn’t mean every relationship you have will end in marriage, but it’s worth thinking about.
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