It’s now only 8 days til I leave for the States. Things seem to be progressing nicely and I’m really looking forward to spending some quality time with the boy. I know I won’t know really how I feel until I go there and hang out and see what he’s really like so I’m being realistic that it could all crash and burn. But, actually I’m really just hoping that this is it and I’m going to have this fabulous, exciting life ahead. After the last couple of years I can hardly believe that good things could happen to me, but I know I’m a daughter of a King and that dads like to spoil their daughters sometimes. So, yeah I’m open to what could be ahead. I’m praying and I know others are that I get a peace when I get there and know.
March 11, 2008
March 6, 2008
Still kissing dating goodbye
After my last post on the embarrassing state of relationships and singleness in NZ I felt compelled to write a bit about how it works in the church. I would love to say that thanks to a relationship with Jesus we’ve got it all totally together, but it’s just not true. Unfortunately that book about ‘kissing dating goodbye’ was widely read by Christians in NZ in the 1990s and many took it completely literally, this is probably one reason why I wasn’t that keen on church culture back then actually. I’ve never read the book myself, but I understand that it was written by a guy who was home-schooled and lived at home until his marriage when he was twenty-one so I think I would be taking any of his advice with a great, big packet of salt. In a country where drunken hook ups are the norm with non-Christians, discouraging believers to ditch dating was a very bad thing.
My experiences in my twenties in the Church have been pretty sad and pathetic. I’ve had quite a few guy friends, as I was always a bit of a “one of the boys” kind of girl before I let God work in my life, but I’ve found those friendships to just be a bit confusing and unclear. There is nothing worse than thinking that something romantic might be developing, only to get an announcement that the other party has just met the person of their dreams. In my case I went to their wedding and wished them well, but it’s not the most fun position to be in and I’m pretty sure I’ve misread more than a few cues from guy friends in the past and hurt them too. I’ve tried to change my ways in that regard and since I moved cities I have actually found that I really mostly have girl friends which is so much more fun. Just difficult when you need heavy furniture moved and things repaired.
In the last couple of years I’ve been on a few (small sprinkling really) of dates and enjoyed just having dinner or coffee and getting to know someone. I like it as it feels safe and you can make up your mind about what you think about someone without all the physical stuff or marriage stuff coming into it. Yeah, that’s the big thing with Christians, they start planning the wedding in their head when they first meet someone, which is also very frightening behaviour. I’m sure anyone from the States is reading this and thinking that we’re all very strange here. Well, we probably are! Kiwis do seem to be quite uptight and I’m not quite sure why. I think maybe part of it is that we’re such a small country and you do run into people you know all the time. So you sort of want to be careful who you get close to in case they turn out to be crazy and you keep seeing them every time you go to the supermarket. But it’s a common criticism that Kiwi girls are so unfriendly to guys advances and I think the guys are just too scared to make a move. So nothing happens unless there are considerable amounts of alcohol involved and we are known for our capacity for alcohol consumption so it’s a bad combination.
I’ve had heated debates about some of this with my friend who’s Zimbabwean and her opinion is that it’s only the Christian girls who have any idea in this country on how to act as a woman and how to navigate the whole relationship thing. Hmm, it could be true as we are blessed with some fantastic and inspiring women’s ministries. I know I wouldn’t be the person I am if I hadn’t attended Hillsong Women and sat under Pastor Bobbie’s teaching. NZ is a very confusing place for women - it’s been no big deal to have a woman Primeminister (and whatever your politics she is a fantastic leader) but has the equality filtered through to everyone? Or is the pursuit of equality in the first place the problem? Do we know how to treat men? Do they know how to act anymore? Maybe we need more prominent men’s ministries so the boys know how to treat us girls who’ve been trying to live out the Proverbs 31 women!
March 2, 2008
I kissed dating goodbye
Well, I haven’t (actually I’ve tried to embrace dating as much as possible) but it appears my fellow-countrywomen have. There was a much talked about survey that rated kiwi women as the most promiscuous in the world last year and it seems are media are out to prove it. Unfortunately, it hasn’t taken them long to discover that we’re basically a bunch of easy booze-hags. As a Christian woman who is also celibate, I think this current trend for drunken hook-ups also explains a lot about my life since I moved back to this country. I have hardly ever been asked out and you start to think it’s because there is something fatally wrong with you, but actually it’s just that I don’t go out to bars and get wasted and therefore don’t meet that many men. Well that’s my theory and I’m sticking with it.
I really feel like taking aside every girl in my country and telling them they have a worth, they are of value and they don’t need to degrade themselves like that. Even if they think they are the ones in control and they’re modern women… blah blah blah. Dating has been a recent discovery for me too (it just didn’t really happen for me in my teens and early twenties) and I really enjoy the unpressurised opportunity to get to know someone. And not think about marriage (or sex) at the end of the night. These kiwi girls are missing out!
Here is the article here:
Dating culture is dead – instead, young New Zealand women are regularly getting drunk and cruising around in packs looking for men to have sex with.
Kiwis reveal their sex problems
That’s one of the findings of a TVNZ Sunday investigation into the sexual behaviour of New Zealand women. The programme makers did the story after Kiwi women last year topped the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey as the world’s most promiscuous.
They are reported to have an average of 20 sexual partners, double that of their Australian and British counterparts and almost three times the global average of seven.
TVNZ Sunday correspondent Janet McIntyre said there was anecdotal evidence from the five women on the show that the Durex survey findings were valid.
“There’s a new kind of mating ritual sex is the point of entry into the relationship.”
If the first-up sex wasn’t any good women weren’t prepared to waste their time progressing the relationship.
“There’s no dating culture any more.” In candid interviews about their sexual experiences some of the women who are all in their twenties felt empowered by having sex and wanted to celebrate and enjoy it.
McIntyre said all the women who had experienced one-night stands had been affected by alcohol, a term described by at least one expert in a report as “getting pissed and hooking up”.
Men are also feeling the impact from the new sexual tactics being employed by women.
The Sunday Star-Times’ Being a Bloke survey last year found that 29% of the 5000 men surveyed felt they had been pressured into having sex or had had sex unwillingly.
