I’ve been on a lot of dates with a lot of men. If I had to put a number to it, I’ve been asked out roughly 60 times in the last 7 years by about 40 men. That’s a disgusting amount of coffee dates for a lady who doesn’t drink coffee. I don’t say this to brag, but to prove a point: even with those impressive statistics, not one of those dates bloomed into a relationship. Why? Because dating isn’t so simplistic.

I remember we had a question box during our sex-ed class way back in high school

It wasn’t until I began to go on dates that I discovered Christian dating wasn’t as rosy and innocent that it appeared from the outside. Values and morals were confused, purity was optional, strangely intense pressures to e from every direction, and struggles with substance and sexual addictions all suddenly became issues that I had never considered would be points of conflict.

I went to a Christian school, and the extent of our sex-ed was: “don’t have sex”. As long as two people had a relationship with God and were virgins, there was no reasons why they couldn’t get married. If my Christian influences weren’t willing to get real about relationships, where was I going to learn it?

But early in the year, our teachers removed the box because we asked too many questions on sex and they weren’t comfortable answering them. I think that’s pretty standard of how Christians deal with these questions & issues: we pretend they don’t exist.

I didn’t learn healthy boundaries, things to look for in a potential spouse, what masturbation was, or how widespread pornography addiction is, just to name a few.