The Temptation to Date Nonmembers

Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob,

because they be replenished from the east,

and are soothsayers like the Philistines,

and they please themselves in the children of strangers.  

(Isaiah 2:6)

     Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because. . .they please themselves in the children of strangers - “Strangers” is an Old Testament word for peoples who were uncircumcised, meaning they had not entered the Abrahamic covenant.  In our day, it means people who are strangers to the gospel. That can mean nonmembers or inactive people.

     Samson is a classic example of a person who pleased himself in the children of strangers.  “And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines” (Judges 14:1).  A Philistine woman! (*tsk, tsk, tsk*)  “And he came up, and told his father and mother, and said I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.  Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?  And Samson said unto his father, ‘Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well’”  (Judges 14:2-3, emphasis added). 

     You can see that Samson’s parents wanted him to marry someone from among “the daughters of thy brethren”, which meant Israelites of the covenant.  Samson’s choice in women displeased his parents.  You can bet the Lord felt displeased the same way.  Furthermore, I’ll bet the waiting spirits who were supposed to be his children were also displeased at the prospect of being born outside the covenant.  Samson was only pleasing himself.  (And if you read Judges 14-16 you’ll see all the problems that pleasing himself caused him.  He ultimately lost his strength and even his eyes!)

     One reason we tend to date to please ourselves is we want to find someone who likes us back, no matter who they are.  That is the hardest part of finding someone to date, isn’t it?  It feels like it is so hit-and-miss that we begin to think, “beggars cannot be choosers”.  We’re so anxious for that emotional ‘zing’ that we don’t care who gives it to us.  But the thing we have to remember is there are attitudes and beliefs and prejudices and traditions attached to whomever we date, and sooner or later we will find out what those are.  And in dating nonmembers or inactive members we are less likely to be happy with what we find.  We may find that we can’t change their incorrect attitudes and prejudices and traditions, no matter how much we try.  And even worse, we may find ourselves being affected by them and compromising our standards.  If Samson, a guy whose name is synonymous with “strength”, ended up caring more about keeping Delilah happy than about staying strong, are any of us safe?

     So dating to please ourselves is dangerous, but should we date to please others?  No way, that would be just as bad, because you can’t please everyone.  “So then what!?” you’re probably asking.  There’s a simple priority list you can follow:

     1) Date to please the Lord.  Look for a member with high standards who can take     you to the temple.

     2) Date to please yourself.

(If you put “pleasing the Lord” above “pleasing yourself”, you won’t have to worry about pleasing your parents, because if you please the Lord, then your parents should automatically be pleased!)

     There’s another application I see in the phrase “they please themselves in the children of strangers”, and that is by thinking of the word “strangers” as simply meaning “someone you don’t know”.  If your ward is anything like mine was when I was growing up, then you don’t appreciate the members of the opposite sex you see week after week after week in church.  It’s what I call the “Familiarity-breeds-contempt” Syndrome.  Everyone tends to dismiss the prospects near at hand, right?  Everyone likes to meet the other youth in the stake, and the wider the area encompassed in a youth activity, the better everybody likes it.  Right?  Yes?  Welllll, perhaps Isaiah may be suggesting the youth not look so far afield for possibilities.  Before you say “Eeeeww!  Date that disgusting Bobby Lickbooger??!”  or “Eeeew!!  Date that stuck-up Lindsay Toomuchgossip?”, I’m not even suggesting that you date them, especially if they annoy you right now.  I just want you to realize that people change quite easily during their teenage years when they are still trying to decide what type of person they will be.  Teenagers try on personalities and personal styles almost as easily as clothes trying to figure out what they are most comfortable with and what gets the most favorable reaction from people, so the odds are that at some point Bobby Lickbooger will suddenly transform into Bobby the Handsomeprince and Lindsay Toomuchgossip will morph into Lindsay the Beautifulmaiden.  I’ve seen it happen!  Then your problem will be vying for their notice.  If you’ve been dissing them at first, just how are you going to get their attention after their startling transformation?  Isaiah could be suggesting you start thinking ahead a little bit.  At the very least make friends with the people you already know so that when they change for the better, you’ll be ready.  (Kinda sneaky, huh?)  

The Temptation to Be Ashamed of Your Dating Standards

Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed:

neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame:

     for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth,

     and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 

(Isaiah 54:4)

     Here’s what I wrote in my journal when I was fourteen about what happened to me after one of my classes:

Today in Science, before the bell rang, the subject came up again how I couldn’t date til I was sixteen, ect[sic]. This one boy didn’t know that so he asked me if that was right.  I told him it was and he asked if I was going to get a date right when I turned sixteen.  I said no, I wasn’t that desperate.  He asked (to the great amusement of the whole group) whether I thought guys were gonna come after me.

     I remember he said it in a very contemptuous manner, as if to imply that no one wanted to date me now, and no one would want to date me later either.  And everyone in the class was gathered around and seemed to be listening.  Talk about humiliation!  It still makes me cringe to remember that experience.  After writing in my journal that day about what happened, I went on to prophesy in my journal that someday guys would run after me.  (I had to find SOME way of consoling my wounded self-respect, you see)  And later, down at the bottom of the page I wrote the dates that was fulfilled.  I had nothing to fear, and in the end I was not ashamed. 

     This is not the only way that we are saved from shame.  The more careful we have been to keep our hands to ourselves in our relationships, the less shame and regret we will feel about what we have done when we have moved on to another one.  (I get into this more in depth in the next chapter about chastity.)

The Temptation to Date Too Early

And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley,

shall be a fading flower,

and as the hasty fruit before the summer;

which when he that looketh upon it seeth,

while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. 

(Isaiah 28:4) 

     That verse right there is particularly applicable to dating, because it describes exactly what happens if you start dating too early (defined by our prophets as younger than sixteen) - you get “picked” by someone immediately (just like the first fruit of the season) and “eaten”.  

     Right now you’re saying, “And this is a bad thing?”  Well, for one thing, it means you will have a difficult time getting out of a relationship if you happen to discover someone better who just left their “ugly duckling” stage and entered their “swan” stage and who fascinates you.  For another thing, the kind of people who want to “eat you up” too early are not the kind of people who obey the rest of prophets’ counsel about dating, which means you would be very wise to avoid dating them period.  Most importantly, dating at a too-early age puts you at risk of using the sacred power of procreation outside of marriage, which is one of the THREE WORST SINS you can commit.   Spencer W. Kimball said, “Chastity is of great value.  Chastity and virtue are ‘most dear and precious above all things’ (Moroni 9:9), more valuable than rubies or diamonds, than herds and flocks, than gold and silver, or than automobiles and land.”1  So don’t be a hasty fruit!Now, here’s a tip.  Usually the very last people to become “swans” are the sweetest people, because they’ve had aaaaall that time to develop personality.  If you’re smart, you’ll befriend these before they start drawing the crowds.  I met a girl who was still in her “pre-swan” days her first year at college, but when I heard her introduce herself to everybody in Relief Society meeting I instantly knew I wanted to be her friend; that’s how sparkling her personality was.  It was like lightning and diamonds.  The guy who marries her someday is going to have to be someone extra EXTRA special. 

The Temptation to Think That Not Being Able to Get Dates Means the Lord is Mad at You

6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,

and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused,

     saith thy God.

7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee;

          but with great mercies will I gather thee.

(Isaiah 54:6-7)

     Guys, you are allowed to change that sixth verse so that it says, “For the LORD hath called thee as a man forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a husband of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.”  Anything to help you apply it to yourself. 

     [T]he LORD hath called thee - Is it a call to experience certain things in your life?  Yes.  We all agreed to go through troubles and we knew we would face temptations that we would have to resist.  Even now I wonder what I had been thinking in the pre-mortal life when I agreed to have certain experiences in my dating career, but then I think, “Wait a sec.  I didn’t have a body then.  I had no idea what it was like to try to date people and not be able to do it.”   

     [W]hen thou wast refused - I have to say that being refused (though not very fun) is necessary for our growth.  Being refused taught me how indispensable kindness is in dating.  When someone refused me a date or a dance unkindly, I would think, “That is not the way to treat people” and I’d try really hard not to do that to anyone ever.  When someone kindly refused me a date or a dance, though disappointed, I was ever so grateful for their kindness, and I would file their method away in my memory for future reference. 

     Being kindly refused also gradually taught me that except for the sake of keeping my standards, there was hardly any justifiable excuse for refusing anyone dates or dances. I learned that if others were rejecting me without knowing how wonderful I was, I should not reject people, because I didn’t know how wonderful they were.  If I hadn’t had this strategy, I wouldn’t be married right now.  When my future husband asked me to go on our first date, I wasn’t excited about the idea, but I thought, “Eh, I’ll go.  If I don’t have fun with him, I won’t go on a date with him again.”

     Being refused also taught me how wonderful it is to be accepted.

     It was actually a lack of dates during my second year at BYU that led my roommate and I to a brilliant breakthrough that solved all our problems.  We were talking it over between the two of us and it hit us both that we had been going about dating all wrong.  Our trouble was that we defined “date” in a very narrow sense - “guy asks girl out for an evening activity”.  This didn’t happen much to us.  So we changed how we defined “date” so that it meant “interaction with a guy in a way such that deeper knowledge of his character and personality is gained”.  Put simply, conversation = date.  This made it extremely easy for us to date, because we were always talking to guys and finding out what they were like.  

     The fascinating result of our definition change was that we started to be a lot more alert during our conversations with guys.  We noticed the little things about them that indicated to us what kind of person they were.  We analyzed lots of things, such as the quality of stories they would tell, what jokes they would make, what they would laugh at, what their attitudes about standards and rules were, and more.  We noticed how they spoke of their parents and their siblings.  We watched to see what they found contemptible and what they considered great.  We made it a point to notice what kind of music they had playing in their dorm rooms during visiting hours, how they participated in church, whether they bore their testimonies or not, and most of all, if they were valiant.  You see, we were absolutely determined to marry guys with high standards, who would treat us right, who would be faithful, and who were seeking after everything virtuous, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy.  Girls who want that must notice which guys are good and which guys aren’t good enough.  Guys who want that must also be alert about the girls they are interested in.

     Now, it is common knowledge that girls and guys are different.  My definition “conversation = date” reflects the way most girls think.  Guys, on the other hand, seem to operate on the premise that “doing something together = date”.  This is perfectly fine, because you can learn just as much about a person by watching how they act when you are doing something together as you can learn from talking to a person. 

     It was after we changed our definition of “date” to reflect the eternal perspective that we experienced the Lord’s everlasting kindness and mercy with an increase of dates.  (Plus it was satisfying to be able to say, “Man!  I went on three dates today!” and then watch people’s jaws drop to their shoestrings.)

     Another way we experience the Lord’s kindness and mercy is when we get His help in becoming someone others would like to date.  While we’re looking for someone “good enough” we have to become “good enough” for another good person.

The Temptation to Want a Boyfriend/Girlfriend

Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy;

neither fear ye their fear,

nor be afraid.

(Isaiah 8:12)

     In Isaiah’s day it was a custom in the world to make political confederacies and treaties with other countries so that if your country got threatened by a bigger, meaner one, then you’d have another country to back you up. 

     In our day it is the custom in the world to make emotional confederacies with someone of the opposite sex.  Girls call their confederate their “boyfriend”, and boys call their confederate their “girlfriend”.  Isaiah seems to say here that we shouldn’t try to get a boyfriend or girlfriend.  (Shocking, huh?)

     When I was a teenager, I used to look around me at school at all the boys and girls who had paired off together and I would yearn to have a boyfriend.  Why did I want one?  First, because I wanted to see what it was like.  Second, I was afraid that not having one meant that I was not attractive enough and charming enough to captivate some boy.  Third, I also tended to want a boyfriend when I met a guy that I really liked and I wanted him to be “mine” so that all other girls would have to stay away from him.  I was afraid that I wasn’t able to keep rivals away.  (You can see that I wanted to be like everyone else.)

     If I had known about the above verse of Isaiah back then and applied it to myself, I would have known to put those fears to rest.  “neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid” says Isaiah.  What does the world fear?  The world fears missing out on a new experience, not being good enough, and not being able to fend off rivals.  But we’re not supposed to fear what the world fears.  Instead, we worry about pleasing the Lord so that He will be our confederate.  With the Lord on your side, you’ll know what new experiences you should avoid and which you should embrace.  With the Lord on your side you’ll know that if you concern yourself with becoming good enough for Him, becoming good enough for someone righteous will take care of itself.  With the Lord on your side, rivalry is not an issue or even a worry.  And with the Lord on your side, you’ll be comfortable with being different.

     Now, if the idea of never having a boyfriend or girlfriend is too much for you to accept, let me share with you my favorite dating institution which I think is better and safer than having a boyfriend or girlfriend.  I came up with this dating institution with the help of the same roommate who helped me redefine “date”.  The dating institution we invented was the harem.  Yes, harem.  We redefined “harem” too by applying to it our modified definition of dating, with the grand result being what I like to call The Harem Method of Dating, which is highly efficient.  Here’s how it works.  Imagine a pyramid, preferably as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza.  On the highest level you have a Favorite, who you absolutely adore physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.  You can’t help but treat your Favorite as anything other than your Favorite, and they are your best buddy.  On the level below your Favorite, you have a few others who you like a lot, but not as much as your Favorite.  They’re also good buddies with whom it is fun to hang out.  Then, below them, you have a bunch that are just buddies but to whom you aren’t physically attracted.  On the lowest level, you have the people whom you find quite attractive, but aren’t good for much except for having crushes on.  You keep them around to shovel the elephant poop. 

     How does a person go about collecting this exotic dating resource?  By working hard to meet new people... which is a little easier if you do it with a friend.  When my roommate and I intended to meet someone new, we would put ourselves in “extreme extrovert” mode, we would go down to dinner, we’d choose a likely victim.. er.. prospect sitting all by his lonesome self, and we’d sit down by him and before he knew what had happened, we had made friends with him.  If the guy was sufficiently friendly and was able to keep up a certain level of sparkling conversation, we would add him to our harems, sometimes with great ceremony and to-do.  Occasionally, just to see what kind of reaction we’d get, we would tell guys that we liked them and that they were the newest addition to our harems.  All of them were quite taken aback by this, but then we would explain harems to them just like I have explained it to you, and afterward they would have this expression on their face that seemed to say that they were pleased that they had been added.  It’s like they took it as a compliment or something.  I found I had more fun adding to and maintaining my harem than I could possibly have had with a boyfriend.  (I had a few boyfriends in high school, but I don’t remember the experiences I had with them with anything near the fondness that I have for my harem that I had amassed by my fourth year at BYU, so I know whereof I speak.)

     You maintain your harem by doing fun things with them and by talking to them.  Harems can be hard or easy to maintain, depending on how much time and energy you are willing to spend.   If you are willing to spend a lot of time and energy, you can have a pretty large harem.  If you don’t have much time to spend talking or doing things with people in your harem, odds are it won’t be very big. 

     There’s just one thing that you have to remember when you have a harem and that is that you can’t give any one of them tokens of physical affection, not even your Favorite.  The minute you do, it’ll scare off the rest of your harem, because they’ll consider it a sign that you are now “taken”, and you’ll have a hard time gathering them back up again, because then they will think you’re being a “player”.  If you are really good, you can find other effective ways of signaling whom your Favorite is, without having to resort to physical displays of affection.  I know I did.

     An advantage of a harem is that you’ll have a large pool of close friends of the opposite sex who you can call if you want to go out and do something fun; they are much more likely to accept.  Another advantage is that you’ll have the ability to change your Favorite without the emotional trauma of “breaking up”.

The Temptation to Avoid Consulting the Lord About the People Who You Date 

Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker,

Ask me of things to come concerning my sons,

and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.

(Isaiah 45:11)

     Guys, you can read this as “ask me of things to come concerning my daughters”.

     I did this a lot when I was in college.  I would meet guys from time to time that I would become interested in and then I’d ask the Lord about them.  NO, I did not ask if they were the one I should marry.  I’d ask for opportunities to get to know them better.  And many times the Lord would give me those opportunities.  Other times, the Lord refused my request.

For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken

and grieved in spirit,

and a wife of youth,

when thou wast refused, saith thy God. 

(Isaiah 54: 6)

 

     Another way we get “refused” is when we ask the Lord if we can date someone and then all of a sudden that person disappears from our lives.  That’s what happens when the Lord says “No, you can’t date them.”  I have a lot of experience with those kinds of refusals.  I’d meet some guy who I thought was really cool, and I’d get to know him a little bit.  And after a while I would get really interested in him, so I’d ask the Lord if He could arrange for me to go on an “official” date with him.  As soon as I’d ask that, I’d discover that some aspect of my schedule would change or some aspect of his schedule would change and then I wouldn’t see him anymore.   It was really depressing to get ‘no’s like that over and over and over again.  I worried a lot that my taste in guys was wrong.  It seemed to happen so often that after a while I stopped asking if I could go on an “official” date with guys I thought were cool, and instead asked if I could be good friends with them.  When I asked that, I usually got a ‘yes’, because guys were no longer yanked out of my life. 

     As you are reading about this, you may think that there is no point in asking the Lord about people you are interested in if the Lord would go so far as to yank them out of your life so that you never get to see them.  At first I thought the same way, but after a while I realized that the dating game was fraught with enough perils that any help the Lord gives us is worth those refusals. 

     So what have we learned from Isaiah about dating? 

1) Don’t date to please only yourself.  Date people who would please the Lord, who could take you to the temple. 

2) First make friends with the youth in your own ward with an eye towards future dating possibilities.  Then make friends with the youth in your own stake with an eye towards future dating possibilities.   

3) We’ll have nothing to be ashamed of if we stick to our dating standards.

4) Don’t date too early!  Don’t be a hasty fruit!

5) Not getting to date as much as you want does NOT mean that the Lord is mad at you.

6) You don’t need to enter into a “confederacy” in order to have a fulfilling dating life

7) Seek guidance from the Lord about who you date. 

Notes

1 The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, edited by Edward L. Kimball, Bookcraft Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, 1982,  p. 265.