Remix: 21 Random Thoughts on Love

Hey, let’s jump in the wayback machine and travel to February of 2009, when I – for reasons that do not need to be rehashed, rehearsed or repeated – decided to post some random and sort of bossy thoughts on love.  DISCLAIMERS: Actually, they aren’t random…they were formed in the furnace of 20 years in youth and young adult ministry and so, yes, they’re stated passionately (i.e. bossily). Yes, you can certainly disagree and we’ll still all be friends. Yes, people can and do change, so just because someone makes some mistakes in the fickle days of youth does not mean that they will never win at love. Yes, people can survive the heartbreak of dating the wrong person and sometimes those breakups are what lead us to the right person. However, I’ve watched too many people pack the heartache away in a secret room of their soul and take it along into the next relationship, into parenting, even into their identity with God that I feel strongly that broken relationships should be avoided when possible. Okay – with the groundwork laid, here’s my list:

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1. Hormones are powerful. Very, very powerful. This makes them good for our survival as a race, but not that great for cognitive reasoning.
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2. Because of #1, every guy who thinks he’s found the perfect girl, really ought to get a second opinion.
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3. Girls are just as subject to the power of hormones as are men and should not – under any circumstances – make radical changes in hair color or style while under their influence.*
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4. If a guy OR gal has to acquire NEW friends in order to get someone – anyone – to sign off on the idea of dating Mr/Ms. Right, then trouble’s-a- brewin.
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5. I’m a big believer in being friends first, but I think there MUST – for goodness sake – come a moment when the boy has to belly up to the bar and make an actual date happen. Fancy food, flowers, manners – all these things should be involved. Men need to chase, women need to know that they were worth the chase…it’s the stuff of life and the stories you tell your kids down the road.
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6. Soccer skills, awesome spaghetti sauce, witty repartee, excellent spelling aptitude: these are all wonderful things to admire in a young lady, yes. But when the day is done, a girl wants to know that a man thinks she’s beautiful. And she will know if she is told.
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7. No amount of telling a woman she’s beautiful will compensate for flirting with the waitress during dinner (or – as is the horror story of a friend of mine – openly drooling over the maid of honor at their own wedding. That marriage didn’t last long.)
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8. Relationships fall into two categories: A. Right right now and B. Wrong right now. There aren’t many good, healthy in-between’s.
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9. In my experience, people who suspect they’re in category B do not say their relationship is “wrong” or “a bad idea” or “lousy timing”. They say it’s “complicated.”
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10. I have learned to hate that word “complicated” because it usually means someone is about to get tricked.
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11. Some of the best marriages I know are the ones where the husband and/or wife was not initially attracted to their future spouse, but was willing to work through some “appearance expectations” because he/she found the other person so compelling in so many other, deeper, more lasting ways. Beautiful.
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12. I have been young and now I am old (heh), and I have never yet seen a guy/girl pull off the platonic “best friends” relationship without one of them secretly wishing for something more.
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13. Guys – in general – do not like girls to tell them how to drive or to roll their eyes at their jokes.
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14. Girls – in general – do not like to be compared unfavorably to his mom, ex girlfriends, Jessica Simpson…anyone, really. It’s almost never endearing.
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15. A guy without accountability is like a car without break fluid.
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16. A girl without accountability is – wow…where’d all her friends go? Be wary of a girl with no girlfriends.
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17. Beware these men: one with a quick temper, one recently out of a relationship, one who forgets to call you back.
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18. RUN from these men: one who is violent, one who is enslaved to anything but Jesus and one who cannot stay away from other women. Run, I say, RUN!
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19. Most dating relationships would be improved by each party working to improve his/her own relationship with Jesus by about 15 degrees. How much is fifteen degrees? You’ll know when your relationship improves.
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20. I would love for every single woman to learn to cook one great meal, learn to serve a cause greater than herself, and become the proud owner of a healthy self-esteem. The world needs more women like that.
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21. I would love for every single man to become a protector of the women around him – even if it meant he had to endure some awkward conversations. The world needs more men like that.

Loving True Love,
Bo

*2011 Bo wants to make sure you know that 2009 Bo was kidding on number 3.