Sunday 26 September 2010

friendship outside the flock 2

Aha, thank you people for comments on last post, interesting. And ryan I can’t deny a chuckle at your image of the atheist woman luring me back to her eveil lair, ha ha!
To clarify a little. (have to say I’m assuming not too many people who know me will read this..!) Ok, what prompted me to contact women who are not at least overtly Christians? Two factors combined. A certain sense of a lack of obvious opportunities to meet christian women locally, partly through my current church circumstances (not to say I couldn’t meet more with a spot of effort). And a desire to socialise more locally - cos I’m quite socially adventurous and love to meet new people. So actually contacting a few people on secular sites is a way of widening the pool. But contrary to what’s being perceived I think, it’s not out of an urgent desire to be in ‘a relationship‘. it is simply to expand opportunities for the pleasure of engaging in person with attractive people. It’s also, granted, a bit of an exploration, an experiment (w/o that word’s cold connotations). yes I AM interested to see more how people without God necessarily explicitly in their lives find meaning and deep fulfilment. What are their answers, how deeply do they satisfy? and also what they’d make of someone with religious faith. Might one or both our outlooks be challenged, changed? but none of this means I’ve closed the door to meeting and engaging with christian women too..!
BTW I like do discipline myself to blog for a v limited time each day, that’s why this kind of thread is quite episodic.

13 comments:

Bruce said...

ps lisa (christian woman!) lookin forward to meeting you at some point!

Billy said...

Plenty of non christians are fulfilled and make their own meanings. Many christians I have met are also not fulfilled - perhaps that's why they seek something.

Lisa Cuellar said...

hmmmmm. Seems to me you can find out all those answers just as easily with unbelieving MEN as you could with WOMEN :) of course, the sexual tension created with the opposite sex is much more fun-- although you're at the risk of sounding a little too much into your own journey... it's not all about our own journey-- we have to be careful with people. We experiment and explore in science and with rats... not on humans ;) Ok, I know that's all a bit blunt but I can be no other ;)

Lisa Cuellar said...

p.s. Yeah, sorry--was so weird today! I'm off to Germany on Friday...

Lisa Cuellar said...

p.s. Yeah, sorry--was so weird today! I'm off to Germany on Friday...

Billy said...

We experiment and explore in science and with rats... not on humans ;)

Now, that's BS - people "experiment" all the time, whether its chat up lines or basic flirting.

However, a relationship should not be entered into because you want to experiment - it should be entered into because you want to. I am a little concerned Bruce that you may not be fully seeing the other person as a person here but as an "experiment".

Bruce said...

h commenting on previous post.. is that you rob? sounds quite like you..;)

BS - bullshit? it's ok i think i can accept that word;).. tho feel free to stick with BS..

i'd have to underline this is actually all v speculative - haven't even been in touch with particular person who sparked this for days...

also, i'm not in any one post expressing all i think eg lisa i do recognise the other facets you mention including two-sided nature of relationship, of course...
i just don't choose to mention everything in one post, i limit myself to about 15 min on this per day, healthy i think.. :) - ps have great trip to germany later this week!

Lisa Cuellar said...

Billy, I know we experiment in the general sense... but whether we should or not is another matter :) so it's not b.s. ;) Anyway...would be fun to meet u in person sometime to laugh in person.

and yes, bruce..BS stands for bullshit. ;) My dad was from Texas so I picked up some bad habits ;) Thanks...will enjoy Germany.

Billy said...

Lisa, I gave no nention of whether we should or should not

Bruce said...

billy just to say I read some of the tape screw post of stephen law’s a while back. Hope to pick it up where I left off sometime. While it no doubt does portray some aspects of what evangelism can become, as is typical of atheist writing of this sort I’ve read it gives a very distorted picture of christian witness as it’s meant to be and can be practised. Eg you simply have to respect and honour a person’s freedom, intelligence and indeed whole personality, it just won’t ultimately work to try and manipulate someone into the kingdom, your charlatanry (word?) will be unmasked.

Billy said...

Bruce,

It was more the reasons for this "friendship" that I posted the tapescrew link for.

Picking up on what you said (and I dont think he specified which cult it was an attack on) it does unfortunately go on and if your only reason for befriending someone is to convert them (no matter what your motive for doing so is) it is not a real friendship. You should be friends because you like that person and for no other reason.

Lisa Cuellar said...

"Bruce, if you like her, you should go for it - if she sees that you are struggling with things, then that may doom any potential."

Billy...i had to go back to the original comment to remember what was BS. So that's what I think. You make it sound simple here. Just because you're attracted doesn't mean you should go for it..esp. when you look at a relationship. I like a lot of people but that doesn't mean I want to join my life to them. For Christians, dating is not really casual. Friendship is one thing but beyond that--attraction and potentially a relationship--we need to be careful. You know that. And as Bruce and I are Christian, then we have to realize that our faith is central to our lives...not a matter of differences in politics or preferences for decorations-it's the bedrock of all we are. It's not as simple as you make it in that statement. Therefore, it is bullshit.

Billy said...

Lisa,
I still don't see where it is Bullshit. All you offer is your own particular point of view, which I disagree with based on observation of happy "mixed" couples. Do you actually believe that christians will always be going in the same direction spiritually? That's just naive. Going by your comment, it would be better for you all to stay single so you can focus on god alone - anything else would just get in the way and I find that to impractical and bullshit. What if being single stops someone focussing on god? That person may even pray about it and be told they have to go out and look..... see the problem.
Again, if he likes her, hge should do something. If the whole Jesus thing gets in the way, well, that's it, game over. How many short term relationships do you think the average christian goes on before meeting someone acceptable?
From what I understand from your comments, you had a failed relationship with a non believer, but a failed christian relationship is also a failure - the bottom line is that you never know how a relationship will work out and if you look for excuses for something to fail before you get into it, it will fail. You cant enter a relationship with preconcieved ideas as to where it will go either, because it is then one sided and you are constantly judging that person.

Attraction is also more than physical - if there are other qualities he likes, then what's the problem? You appear to be taking a very narrow view of what I am saying