10 years behind in purity culture dating years

I'm 36 (I look great I know). When it comes to dating, I'm more like 26 mentally...

Oh hi, it’s me. I’m Kristina, obviously. In a past life I was a dating blogger. A Christian dating blogger. What even is a Christian dating blogger? It’s as insufferable as it sounds. I wrote articles on how to navigate dating in Church and the mental health issues that came along with that. I was good at it because I was depressed. I wrote jokes about dating because it was my only coping mechanism. I performed these jokes. Naturally, I became a comedian, because that’s what depressed people do. Underneath the jokes was the reality that dating in Church was more like an ongoing experience of trying to make sense of traumatic experiences under the guise of, “this will work out one day, right?”

Alas, I have talked to enough men and women and beyond to know that many of us are in fact still single, and many of us are just now figuring out what it means to date. That’s right. At 36. You may be in your 20’s, or in your 40’s. If you’re like me, you still feel 10 years behind if not more. That's because it truly feels like we’re behind the times trying to catch up. I explained this fun fact to my therapist who asked me where I thought I needed to be. I replied with, “not here.” I didn’t expect this at my age. I was told it would surely look different. I’m 36 and navigating how to engage men in a way that doesn’t focus on strict rules, but rather on comradery, mutual desires, vulnerability, and stability. I am essentially learning how to date in the real world, for the first time. Part of me hates even admitting all this because there are people who attack the vulnerabilities of us single people and project their insecurities onto us. To those people I have one thing to say, you will never be able to take away our freedom or our joy. We feel things, we share them, we live them, and we join together because we know we’re better with one another. We are far from alone.

Alright where was I. I was brought up deep in purity culture. At 25 I was a missionary (lol) and while dating someone 5 years older than me, we weren’t allowed to be in a room with the door closed for fear of what could happen. We acted like we were 16 because we were treated like we were 16. This grown ass man had to keep a door cocked open or else they thought he apparently wouldn’t be able to control his bodily desires to simply just, not pounce on me? Needless to say that ‘relationship’ (dare I call a Christian dating experience that?) didn’t work out.

When I was 29 I was still asked if God had given me a sign of who my husband is— as in, a list. I’m all for dreaming with God or manifesting your visions if that’s your thing. I’m just laughing because here I was at 29 trying to figure out where in the world was Waldo, my future husband, and this list was supposed to determine it. I am as shocked as you that any future dating experience from that moment on also didn’t work out, and here I am now sitting at my desk in Nashville with a list that consists of maybe one thing.

“God let him be normal. More normal than me.”

Alas, I don’t really know what led me to write this other than,

are any of you like me?

Are you out there navigating the world of dating while piecing together what that means for you now that you have a little more money (maybe), a little more self-confidence, and dare I say — your own guidelines? Making choices for yourself and your own safety and enjoyment rather than because someone told you this is the way you have to do it to make it work? Dating is not a big topic of convo in the Bible unless we’re talking trading in some animals for a woman and I would just like to say this to those reading this:

Absolutely no one knows what they’re talking about unless they are 80 years old. I mean that. I trust no one’s advice, especially the married at 19 prior to AI porn being a thing.

Okay maybe trust the people who you know are the real deal, but as a former Christian dating blogger (I’m so sorry) I am obliged to believe, everyone is trying to sell you stuff and Jesus assuredly doesn’t need a sales team so perhaps we are here to enjoy ourselves, our freedom, our thirtees (or whatever age), and get to thrive in the glory that is life in abundance.

Thanks for listening.

Praise,

K