A message to my hilarious, passionate, adorable female
friends:
I like romance. Most girls do. I fought it for a long time.
I made faces at chick flicks, laughed at the sappy songs, scoffed at girls who
were so in love at seventeen. And I still do those things, don’t get me wrong,
but somewhere along the line I accepted that the desire to be loved, the desire
for romance, the desire for unalterable acceptance is natural and perhaps even
worthy of celebration. What I don’t like?
“Thank you John Green/J.K. Rowling/Suzanne Collins for
giving me completely unrealistic expectations of guys forever.”
Why are they unrealistic? What is wrong with having
expectations? What is wrong with desiring someone who will always look out for
you? Someone who isn’t afraid of emotions? Someone who will be bold? Someone
who doesn’t just tolerate your weirdness but actually embraces it? Someone who
is willing to do the hard stuff to make it work? And maybe even sometimes say
or do nice/sweet/romantic things just because he likes you, because he cares
about you?
Part of the reality is that we aren’t facing life and death
adventures that make us face our mortality before we’re 18. We haven’t gone
through the fire with a guy before we even admit we have feelings for him. Most
of us haven’t had the right guy by our side our whole lives before we even
realize he’s there. That’s a little unrealistic. You aren’t gonna fight the
Dark Lord with your two best friends and then marry one of them who just
happens to be the perfect weirdo for you. Sorry to crush your dreams.
But you can have expectations! You can want all those
things! You can have all those things! You can have them and so, so much more
because the King of creation is your defender, your friend, and your rock. He
made you. He created you specifically, with all your little weird quirks, and
he loves you endlessly. He walked through the fire with you, every time, and
he’s standing here with you now. He is your support and your comfort when you
get all anxious about how you hate how much you need people, or how you can’t
seem to feel good enough, or how hard it is to really feel like yourself.
When you stop and realize that you have those things
already? It becomes a little less vital to find a guy who has every little
thing you fell in love with in a fictional character. And the beautiful thing
is, when you’re following God, he’ll bring you alongside other people who are.
The right guy is the one who sees you as someone who is beautiful because you
are created in the image of the Creator. The one who cares about his own
spiritual growth, and pushes you to do the same. The one who knows he can’t
rescue you, but he’ll keep pointing you to the One who can. And he won’t be
perfect. He’ll do weird things that confuse you, he’ll say things that
accidentally hurt your feelings, and sometimes won’t say the romantic things
you expect him to say.
Stop settling my gorgeous friends. You are astounding and
beautiful women of God. You deserve nothing less than the man whose only desire
is to point you back to the Creator.
Redamancy
(n.) The act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full.
