Letter #196: Dating Advice
What have you got to give?
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Dad,
Sometimes people—God help them—ask me for relationship advice. How do I find a spouse, they ask, or even just a friend, who lives up to my high standards? Somebody faithful and God-fearing, somebody who will romance me and make me laugh and take the trash out?
Your story about the Met reminds me of the only worthwhile answer I have to give. Picture your perfect lover, I say, or that high-value group of friends you’re after. What kinds of relationships are they looking for? How do they spend their free time, and what kind of person might enhance it? Now become that kind of person.
Stop looking for the mature, confident, witty, virtuous superhero you’re dreaming about, and do everything currently in your power to become mature, confident, virtuous, and…super. You’ll find it’s actually a lot!
Besides which, while making yourself into the friend you wish to see in the world, you’ll probably have to join a gym, or take a class, or stick around for coffee hour after church. And wouldn’t you know, the sorts of people you bump into doing those sorts of things are just the sorts of people you’ve been looking for. Only now they’re looking for you, too.
In other words, start asking what you bring to the table. And as on the dating scene, so in religious life: stop asking which church is going to bestow upon you that special little good boy hat, and ask instead where and how the people you admire most show up to worship. Then see what happens when you show up too.
All that said, the case of church is special in this one way: there alone the answer to the question “what do you bring to the table?” is, technically, squat. At least, none of your precious offerings, theories, skills, and virtues—impressive as they may be—are so grand that God can’t get by without them.
“God doth not need / Either man’s work or his own gifts,” wrote Milton. And if he doesn’t need you, he must want you—for your own sake, for love’s sake. Which means you only really begin when you lay aside all thought of giving, and getting, anything other than your very soul for God’s own self.
And what’s left for us to give after we lay aside all our baubles and trinkets, our glittering displays of talent? What, besides all that, do we bring to the table? Only neediness and poverty, doubt and desire and wounds. “You take no pleasure in burnt offerings, or I would give them; but the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit.” Which is a good thing, since personally that’s about all I’ve got.
Love,
Spencer
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Nailed it! When I see friends in failed relationships, and listen to them, they often say that their ex was not what they wanted. I wasn’t either to my wife when we first met, but we both realized that we must change and grow together throughout our 50+ year relationship. Thank God, I was not TOO pigheaded, and my wife must be a saint. Those who look for the perfect mate will never find one, but those who look for one who shares values and is willing to do for the other in the relationship (see love; theological virtue) will be the one. Both must take this route, or the relationship will fail. I’ve seen this failure too many times in friends.
Good on you, Klavans both.
That is great advice! I recall one of your father's shows where he talked about the idea of a young man actually thinking about what kind of man he wants to be and then working to be that man. Your dad has been blessed with great wisdom and you apparently have been too.