"So, what I meant to say was...." - Biola's Dating Culture, Take Two.

Last semester, if you had spoken to me in some sliver of free time I had, you may have heard one or two things: One, that I was hired as a writer for my campus' student run magazine The Point and/or two, that I was charged with writing for last Fall's issue a story about my campus' (Biola's) dating culture. Now, that's a tall order for a first time journalist. I am foremost a creative writer so the reigns of journalistic professional writing had to be pulled back pretty hard on my colloquial/formal writing style.
Well, after the story was published, my voice was kind of lost in the mix. As a story, and I say this every time, it did the job; it got my point across; my goal was achieved... though, I wasn't quite satisfied with the end product. I was not there any more. It felt like it was my story simply because it had my name underneath the title, not because you could actually hear me at all.
This isn't necessarily bad, though! Like I said, my original intention came across through the statistics and the quotes.... the many.... many quotes. But, I was left feeling, again, unsatisfied. And so were a lot of my friends. People kept coming up to me and asking my opinion on the matter.
Friends, I'm here to give you one of my first drafts, copy-pasted right from the Word Doc. Not the very first draft, but the final product before the massive editing process. I knew that it would have to be chopped down (I mean, heck, it's like 2000 words beyond my limit - and, yes, that means it's fairly long... sorry bout it), but it was most of my important thoughts organized, somewhat, into a story. Or, even, a retelling of my findings, along with a little Olivia flavor thrown in.
So, here it is. Biola's Dating Culture, as told by Olivia O'Brien, senior Creative Writing Major. (And, if you don't go to Biola and you've stumbled across this post, don't go just yet. I think you might find it just as fascinating from where you are, as you are.)

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The Point Magazine

Biola’s Dating Culture

ASSIMILATE/ CISTERNS

            No matter where you choose to go to college, you’ll most likely have a wide-range of people filling your campus. It’s obvious that we’re all different: we’re human beings, shaped by our stories – our past, our present, and trying to make the desires of our heart a reality for our future.

Now here we are, thrown into what many call the “Biola Bubble,” which encompasses a diversity that seems to beautifully intermingle within its renowned community. Beautiful as it may be, it’s no surprise that such an environment is a breeding ground for subcultures and, indeed, stereotypes. And what’s arguably the most widely talked about subculture for our campus here at Biola? Well here’s a hint: Say the word, and a Freshman within earshot may just freak out and get all fired up, whereas a senior may just sigh and say, “Oh my gosh. I can’t. Don’t even.”

            That’s right. You guessed it. You’re a winner. Go you.

Dating.

But, what’s funny is that even if there is an aversion to discussing the topic at first, it doesn’t take much to get people talking. We hear about the culture, we see the culture and we feel the culture. We also recognize there is definitely a stereotype surrounding it. Whether you think it’s old news or not, it remains inescapably interesting.

Why? Because we still wonder about what the reality is amidst the stereotypes. Yes, we recognize it’s all a big joke; that they’re common quips thrown around in general conversation to poke at our own flaws - humbling ourselves, if you will. But, despite the joke, we’re all still pretty passionate about the subject if we dig a little deeper.

So I dug. And from excavating through enough people, I will admit I wasn’t exactly surprised by what was revealed. That doesn’t mean that these findings weren’t interesting, because, believe me, they were. See, we are a campus of intellectuals, each desiring for certain things in a far more complex manner than we often recognize at first. So, when we’re asked pointed questions, we tend to engage them thoughtfully… and sometimes even surprise ourselves.

What is the purpose of dating, in your opinion?

            Remember that diversity thing I was talking about? Well, when asking about why we date, you can bet that a person’s background is going to influence their answer. Luckily, at an Evangelical Christian University, we have a similar strand that shapes our thought process, so there weren’t many outliers. I mean, we are supposed to think Biblically about everything, right? Whether you were born-again yesterday or right after you exited your mother’s womb, you know Biola’s subcultures are going to be influenced by its over-arching culture – the Jesus Culture. This intermingling of individuality with the commonalities of the body of Christ is where we find ourselves.

            Enter, Dating.

Now we’re thrown for a loop. We’d expect it to be very easy with how “normal’ dating is in our generation. But all of a sudden, we walk onto campus and it’s like uncharted ground. It’s that whole, “The Bible doesn’t lay this out for me step by step so now I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m entirely terrified.”

There are a few things we do know though; the things that the Bible, the very truth we lean and bank our lives on, tells us are yes and no.

What is yes is marriage. Most of the people polled or interviewed said that they deemed the purpose of dating, marriage. Not that if you date someone you are going to marry them, but that, underneath it all, that’s why we date: to find our spouse. This in and of itself puts an enormous amount of pressure on the two parties.

The idea of marriage. It is a beautiful, God-given gift for humanity that we have all been waiting for, even if we don’t think we have. Now, I’m not saying this goes for absolutely everyone, because it doesn’t. But most people would say that they plan on getting married at some point in their lives. It is something that we all expect to happen sooner or later; it’s something we look forward to more than we’ll own to at times.

So when we approach Biola as an institution full of Christ-centered, mostly single individuals, there's a chance that we could go kind of nuts about it. Over and over again I heard students talk about the pressure they feel at Biola to find someone. But we can’t just attribute this pressure to the community; a lot of it really comes from within ourselves.

Why do we desire marriage so much? We can give the answer we know we should give and say that we want to glorify God through the union, to love someone the way Christ loves, and feel that love in return. Build a family, warriors of the kingdom, and live happily ever after. But there’s far more to the equation than that if we dive deep enough into ourselves.

I may sound cynical, but I’m not. Many of us, do, firmly want that for our marriages, but often times we want marriage for other, maybe more selfish reasons. To fix wounds from our past, to fulfill a need in us, to feel loved, wanted, admired, held. In light of all these things, it’s necessary to understand this: that marriage is a gift, not a guarantee.

What is your view of singleness?

When asked this questions, almost everyone gave a positive answer – that singleness is great. That they’re loving their singleness, if they were in it, and if they weren’t single, it was always talked about as a very healthy place to be – a place to grow and learn. But no matter who I was talking to, singleness was always something temporary.

Not only this, but a call to singleness was always something thought of to be very rare and very respectable. It was basically put in the category of “other.” Wonderful for “them,” but not for me.

 Interesting, too, was that marriage was never talked about as a “call.” Or, at least not colloquially. Marriage was assumed, long-term singleness was only for the strongest of us, or those clearly called to celibacy. Hardly a person brought up the idea that singleness is a gift too. And, if they did, it was a temporary gift to be relished in now and useful only for temporal growth. Marriage was always the next step. With this thought process, no wonder we’re internally running around like chickens with our heads chopped off trying to find that future someone.

When given the question: How would you feel if God called you to be single for life? not one person felt satisfied. There was always a drop in tone, a knitting of the brows, and a scrambling for words not to sound like they were really hurt by the idea. Many people tried to refute that idea for their lives right off the bat, trying to prove why God wouldn’t call them to that sort of life. But that wasn’t the point. The point was trying to look at our lives as something malleable for God. We worship and release our lives to the will of the Father, no matter what he calls us to. The point was uprooting a deep issue lying in all of us.

When talking about the idea of singleness with my peers, it was clear that the idea of lifelong singleness was something to be dreaded, whether that was low-key or blatant. Why was it dreaded? Because singleness was synonymous was lonesomeness. If you are single, you are alone. That notion, my friends, is catastrophically unbiblical.

There are plenty of books that lay out the gifts of a single life, but it is most important to know that being single should not be something to fear, whether it’s for a short or long period of time. Christ gave us himself first and then his bride, the body, the church so that we may feel his love tangibly through others. Marriage is not a necessity for learning, growth, or feeling love. You can be spouseless and feel just as whole as the husband and wife.

            It is in light of our disgust for long-term singleness that we catch ourselves in a race to find someone, incredibly complicating our relationships with the opposite sex along the way. When asked about opposite sex friendships, many agreed that there is always a line to be towed. Almost every person I talked to said that, at some point, one person or another is going to start having feelings, so “beware.” Then again, friendships with the opposite sex were highly valued as well, from both a man and woman’s perspective. They both said that they learned so much from the opposite sex because it gave them new perspectives.

            But, there was something about Biola’s dating culture that seemed poisonous to some; that you can’t sit down and talk one on one with a member of the opposite sex without having people talk about it. In a close-knit environment such as Biola, where almost everyone knows someone who knows someone else, word gets around fast. It is this chatter that creates the stigma that makes dating at small, Christian University far different from other colleges.

            Many students that had previously gone to secular institutions admitted that dating wasn’t nearly as big of a deal at their old schools and much of that was due to the large capacity of students. Casual dating was quite normal because there wasn’t much gossip surrounding it; people went on dates, whether it did or didn’t work out, and life went back to normal after the fact. Here, (and I dare say in our churches as well), with such a closeness and bond, we feel a pressure from our peers to have everything work out for us – to look like our lives are put together even if they aren’t. If you ask her out on a date, you know your friends will be talking about it for weeks, be pestering you for updates, be so on top of you about it that, if it didn’t work out the sheer embarrassment alone would break you down. Even if you mention asking her out they’re going to be joking about your Save the Dates.

            It is this kind of buildup that prevents us from what the world would call “normalcy” in dating. It’s not surprising that we have a gossip problem – we’re human beings. We like to talk, especially about romance because we’ve been romanced by romance ever since we watched our first rom-com or delved into our first guilty-pleasure read like Twilight. (I know you’ve read it. Or at least seen it. Don’t pretend like you haven’t.) We’re a detriment to ourselves. Paul knew it and addressed it. We’ve had this problem for centuries.

            We love love. We love marriage. We love families. But because of this love we’ve drawn out an obsession which concentrates itself in this one place we call Biola. So much so that when new people come into Biola they feel they must assimilate – that dating is all of a sudden an important aspect to their lives and if they want to have a compelling conversation with the next person, they should sure hope to have a story to share about their quirky GYRAD or cute Common’s barista. And now they should be looking for a spouse here because there are no Christians outside of Biola to procreate with.

            Diverse as we are, bringing all of our uniqueness to the table, we are still going to be affected by the people around us. Our dating culture results as both an individual and group effort. I could give a potential formula to fix this, but it’s all really easier said than done. Our dating culture is not a math problem (and frankly, if it was, I wouldn’t be the one to solve it – I’m absolutely terrible at math.) We could say, “Just go ask her man. It’s no big deal,” and maybe he’ll get the courage enough to forget what people say and do it. Maybe he won’t. The key is that it’s not just an action, there are feelings involved.

The head and the heart. The dichotomy between the two is where we seem to be at odds with ourselves. You want dating to be simply sitting down and getting to know someone, but you’ve already been crushing on them for weeks, or have seen them from afar and are 97% sure they're a 10/10 Bathsheba. Though we want to just be able to ask someone for coffee, we have already made plans in our mind about the second and third date and what our children would look like. We’re just crazy like that. (Truth be told, this is not all of us. But it's the thought that everyone is really like this that can make us afraid of people, preventing us from even sparking up a conversation. "Will he think I'm interested more than I really am?" "Will she think I'm proposing?" etc.)

Because feelings are involved, knowing that we love to love love and wish to be in love, dating in itself becomes far more complicated than just a, “Oh, ask her out then.” For us, it’s the potential start of a journey that could alter our lives. Not so easy anymore, is it?

What do you think Biola ought to know about dating?

            Like I said: everyone has an opinion on our Dating Culture. And we can all give solutions – respect one another, treat each other as image bearers of God, treat the one your dating as if that person is someone else’s spouse. There were so many wonderful answers to this question. We all want the best for one another when swimming through these murky waters.

Mostly, we all want to do things the right way. But, no matter what route you take (because there probably isn’t one right way to go about dating), we all can recognize that there are feelings involved, which are the most complicating factor of them all. These feelings, our compulsions, our wants, draw us to dating, but at the same time make us fear it all the more. We fear hurt, whether that’s from the guy or girl that can potentially reject us or yet again being the third or fifth wheel in your group of friends.(Which, in my opinion, shouldn't be so bad if you've got the right friends in God-glorifying relationships. You should feel welcome when in their presence. But, alas, I digress.)

Bottom line is, we desire to be known and to know someone else. It’s a beautiful feeling. It’s what Christ has given us and draws us nearer to him – that he knows us to our deepest, yet chooses to love us more than we can fathom. And that crush you have? How wonderful to be known by them, loved by them, and to love them as well. But to be known, and then be rejected or left by them, is enough to keep us at bay.

We all want our dating culture to be easier for us and complain far too often about how it is not, but what we fail to realize is that it’s complicated because we are complicated. (And don't believe the lie that the world's dating methods are "easy." They're filled with just as many, if not even more, snares than we have in ours.) Marriage and Singleness are both incredibly hard, so it’s obvious that when we work in the in-between, it’s going to be pretty hard as well. We may be redeemed by Christ, but we are still dealing with the sinfulness of our flesh and this world. None of it’s going to be really easy.

So, ask them out. Or don’t. Say yes. Or no. Dating is a place where we have been given the liberty to choose, in light of what we know and who we are. It is the grounds from which we come that will make it easier on us and them. Being joyful in light of your true contentment in Christ (and I mean, content with the idea of being single for life if that’s what God has for you), is one step you can take to make the process a bit brighter. Take what you find biblically to influence your actions, and then move forward in your relationships. Edify one another. You know the drill. We are foremost followers of Christ, so let all our relationships be in light of who he is and who he wants us to be. Assimilate to that and satisfaction is guaranteed.

(...Sorry for the extremely cheesy ending. I wasn't sure how to end it yet at this point, so that's my cliché placeholder. My magazine end line was kind of killer. Fitzgerald-esque even. Once the issue is up online I'll be sure to tag it here.)

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Whew! Well, let me just say that as long as this article is, it is still not the whole story. I mean, the official title I gave this was "It's Complicated" which I found myself saying time and time again when my peers would ask me about it. This is not the end of the conversation; There are so many facets to this. I only hope to evoke discussion and maybe open some minds to new and different ideas - ideas that some may had not even considered before.
All in all, I'm just glad to have been a part of this; to have had such weighty conversations with some really awesome individuals and to have learned so very much. My hope now? To learn even more where God leads me next in this ever-evolving topic. And, of course, I'll keep you posted when I do.

Press on, Saints.

Olivia

P.S.
For more enlightening articles on this and other similar topics, I suggest checking out this, this, this and this from desiringgod.org. They've got some real kickers in there, I think. Therefore... go forth!

"Both marriage and singleness demand the most serious and solid biblical insight. These are realities that affect every area of our life and thought. We cannot settle for superficial pep talks. Our lives cry out for significance. And significance comes from seeing ourselves the way God sees us. Including our singleness."

 John Piper