Introspection: Swiping Right

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Swiping Right

Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:7 (CEB)

Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one
You're not the only one

From "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses

One of the pastors of my church has been preaching a series of sermons in which dancing is used as a metaphor for a life of following Jesus.  That said, I recently found myself feeling rather bitter after a church service.  Two years ago, in the summer of 2019, I attended a contra dance for the first time in four and a half years.  I considered my return to dancing a personal victory, for I was putting behind me the pain that had caused me to quit years earlier.  I attended ten more dances, and then, in early 2020, I had to quit dancing once again because of the pandemic.

A couple of months ago, it appeared as though the pandemic was coming to an end, so I hoped that maybe, at some point in the not-too-distant future, I might be able to start dancing again.  Now that there is a new variant of the virus which is even more contagious than the original, I now suspect that dancing will not be a part of my life for a very long time.

As you might already know, for the last few years, I've been working on different aspects of my life - things like gratitude, self-worth, and courage.  After a questionably successful "Year of Worthiness" in 2019 and an aborted "Year of Courage" in 2020, I started thinking of 2021 as my "Year of Unfinished Business."  I've been trying to figure out what steps I should take next in cultivating courage and self-worth.  There is one aspect of my life which has been unfinished business for a long time.  I wrote about it a lot in the early years of this blog, but I've written about it less and less over time.  I'm referring to my romantic life - or rather, my lack thereof.

Back in 2019, I learned that Facebook had released a dating app, and, since I already used Facebook, I decided to download it and create a profile.  After about a week of just looking at the women in my area who were also using the app, I accidentally indicated that I was interested in someone.  One might say that I "swiped right" before I was ready to do so.  I panicked, deleted my dating profile, and then deleted the app.  I had some preaching commitments at the time, so I decided that I would download the app again and start over when my life was less busy.  My preaching gigs came and went, but I did not download the app again.

It was probably this incident more than any other that made me realize that, if I want to get myself unstuck in life, I would need not only a healthy sense of self-worth but also some courage.

One thing I liked about dancing was that it was a fun and low-pressure way to meet women.  I had hoped that, if I kept dancing, maybe I would actually hit it off with someone.  Online dating seems a lot more intimidating.  I keep fearing that I'll get "weeded out" rather quickly.  Quite frankly, sometimes I think that I'm too much of a loser or too much of a mess for anyone to find me desriable.

Early last year, before the pandemic interrupted my "Year of Courage," I did some homework by reading researcher Brené Brown's book Daring Greatly, which is all about worthiness, courage, and vulnerability.  One lesson from this book has stuck with me in the year and a half since I read it.  Dr. Brown found, in the many interviews she had with people, that one thing seemed to differentiate the people who experience love and belonging from the people who struggle to experience such things.  She writes, "Those who feel lovable, who love, and who experience belonging simply believe they are worthy of love and belonging."¹

As I was considering my next steps in my "Year of Unfinished Business," I did some additional homework by reading Donald Miller's memoir Scary Close, which tells of Miller's own journey of vulnerability in the context of an intimate relationship.  From this book, I gleaned a very similar lesson.  Miller observes that the people who are the best at intimate relationships have healthy self-esteem.  They are not arrogant but rather see themselves for who they are - the good and the bad - and they believe that, despite their faults, they actually are good for people.²

If I want to be loved, then I need to believe that I'm worthy of love, and, if I want to pursue an intimate relationship with someone, then I need to believe that I would acutally be good for her.  I need courage to pursue such a relationship, but I also need a stable sense of self-worth.

A number of years ago, I found myself in a friendship with someone who had feelings for me that I did not have for her.  She once told me that I was "a great friend," and at one point she even told me that I was "a blessing."  I don't think I believed her.  Maybe I felt that, because I wasn't interested in her romantically, I wasn't "enough" for her.  Maybe I should have believed what she said about me and trusted that, even though our relationship wouldn't be everything she hoped it would be, I was still good for her in some way.

Ten years ago, I wrote on this blog that, though it was made painfully clear to me in high school that I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, "God's gift to women," I might still be God's gift to someone.  It's time I actually start believing that.  I think I am, for the most part, good for the people in my life.  I'm not perfect, by any means, but plenty of imperfect people have found love.

As I've already noted, I've been trying to figure out my next step in my "year of unfinished business."  A couple of months ago, on an evening when I was feeling lonely, I re-created my dating profile.  I started swiping left until I found myself too interested in someone to swipe left but too nervous to swipe right.  I inactivated my profile once again.

Right now, I think I have only one option when it comes to my next step in my quest for worthiness and courage: I have to reactivate my profile, write some good things about myself on it, and start "swiping right."  It will obviously be an opportunity for me to practice courage, and, depending on how things go, it will be either an opportunity to see that I would indeed be good for someone or an opportunity to not allow romantic rejection to define me.  Hopefully I won't chicken out this time.

Wish me luck!


Notes:

1. Brené Brown.  Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.  2012, Gotham.  p. 11
2. Donald Miller.  Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy.  2014, Thomas Nelson.  p. 127

The image featured in this introspection was created by Santeri Viinamäki, and it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  The creator is in no way affiliated with this blog.  The image was cropped by me, Anthony Snyder.