Some wisdom

I was gonna send this to a friend who has a history of getting connected to men who monopolize her time, energy and attention - only to not want to entertain being with her in a more romantic way.  It's been frustrating for her - and yes, sad - and equally frustrating and sad to witness.  But much like many things I'm realizing at this point in my life, we cause a lot of our own headaches by our own actions. 

 

Our own actions. 

 

The whole idea of allowing and resting seems to deconstruct all this foolishness.  I sense that if we truly lived as if we have a power that is able to raise Jesus from the DEAD living in us, we would find that we have no time to ponder if a certain man's actions means he is or isn't interested in us.  We simply won't care - or the discernment from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit would be so strong that we wouldn't need to question his intentions.  Our knower would simply know if he is or if he's not - and if he is, whether or not he's worth our time.

 

That's the life I want to live.  The life of the spirit. Not of the flesh. Let the dead - this flesh that's daily trying it's best to kill us - bury it's dead.  And let us be about life and living it abundantly - and living it freely - which means, letting the Holy God of all who dwells in us through the Holy Spirit, have His marvelous way.  Man the places He'll lead us - the ways that He'll transform us if we would only live like that!

 

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You know, I had lunch with Zarida on Friday and she mentioned that her daughter, who's at Spelman, told her she met this guy that she really likes but he made it clear that he just wants to be friends. Sarah told Zarida that "She's gonna work on him.." and Zarida told her, don't work on him: "A man knows he's interested in someone within about 3 minutes and he'll do what he needs to to make something happen. Otherwise, you're wasting your time."

When I reflect on your history, my history, and some other women I know who have run into smilar situations, it's not so much that the guy has implicitly said "I just want to be friends" - the mature thing, but the rare thing (Sarah was lucky). However, the gentleman, in many instances, did not make a direct overture of romantic interest. Instead actions were interpreted as being "they might be or they seem to be interested". A guy - when he's truly interested - will not waste time to let you know it because they're competive by nature and they want to sweep in and make sure they get you before someone else does. I think we've spent entirely too much of our time trying to interpret a man's intentions, behavior, etc., toward us when it wasn't at all necessary. They made it pretty clear that they were or were not interested in being romantically connected to us (and I mean, in a committed relationship) by their actions. And if they even made a step towards us through a kiss/make out session/sex and didn't do much after that to make it clear to us and everyone around us that they wanted to be in a legitimate relationship, then it was time to relegate them to friend status at that point (if a frienship was worth salvaging/building), and to never make the mistake again of allowing them to be near us in an intimate way or - which seems to have repeatedly happened with you when there was no physical intimacy - to no longer let them monopolize your time and attention. Why it takes a woman until she's 45 to realize that, I don't know.

As I get older, I do see that it's a good thing to appreciate each relationship for what it is. Friendship is a gift, regardless of how it might start. So, when we quickly realize that's all something is gonna be, let's just enjoy what we give and get through the friendship and keep on moving/living/enjoying life. The man who is marked for us as partners will meet those things that mere friendship cannot, and we'll meet that for him - and we're now at an age where a lot of the junk in between will and should not get in the way for us to realize that we are good matches for each other. I also think that if we can get more savvy about that "3 minute rule" (yeah, sometimes it might take a little more time than that to figure out a man isn't gonna take the tall leap into truly trying to court us - but it also doesn't take weeks or months either) and just receive the men who currently are in our life for who they are and not more than that, our minds and hearts will be more available for receiving the person with whom we can actually build a life.

 

That's just my two cents on the matter. Take it or leave it.