Dating Chronicles: Ice Queen ❄️

This story takes place over the period of about a year and it starts in the fall of 2016. I've just moved to Louisville and started taking classes at Southern Seminary. Still single at this point, and being a guy, and mostly having guy friends, as a group you notice the young ladies that are also single and attractive in your immediate area.

Some of my friends think they have identified the most attractive girl on campus, but due to missed opportunities, bad timing, or just random chance: I am never with my friends when they see this girl. Naturally, every time they say that they have seen her, I ask if they have talked to her. The answer is always no. I state, very plainly I might add, that whenever they see this girl next, and if I am with them, I will talk to this girl and get to know her.

Now at this point in my life, I'm a bit older, a bit wiser, and I would like to think a bit more comfortable with who I am. If I want to meet and talk with someone, I'll go up and introduce myself and talk to them. By no means do I think that I am God's gift to women. I am simply confident in who I am and if I get rejected, I can let it roll off of my back.

One day, my friends and I are throwing baseball in the J Bowl (a large grassy area at the center of campus), and my friends point to me that the girl is walking by. I wave, ask her name, and we become friends. Simple as that. She is a really cool girl and we have great chemistry. We actually become really good friends, and I hesitate to ask her out because I am not sure if I am willing to risk losing such a cool friend. Not to mention, she is very attractive and every other dude is slobbering all over her to try and get a date with her...and that's not me.

Fast forward a year and we are still friends. We hang out on campus, share in what we are learning in classes, and bond over good music, food, things that make us laugh, and what we want out of life in the future.

One day, I see her on campus, and as friends do I walk up and talk to her. She then asks, "Do you like me?"
Honestly, I was shocked at how forward and blunt she was, so to give myself more time to think I asked for clarification, "What do you mean?"
But she didn't hesitate, "Do you like me?"
So I told her honestly, "I've thought about it, but I didn't know how you were going to respond, so that's why I haven't asked."
She thoughtfully answered, "Well, if you were going to ask me, I think I would say yes."
Quite the turn of events in the past few minutes. Hardly believing if she is joking with me or not, I remember that fortune has always favored the bold, so I asked her, "Will you go on a date with me?"
She smiles, "Yeah, I would really like that."

We set the date to get coffee. We then go our separate ways to study and go about the rest of our day. I'm feeling really great at this point. Came out of nowhere but I girl that I really enjoyed spending time with was now going to be going on a date with me, at her initiative!! I even saw some of my friends that had first identified her a year ago and was with me when I introduced myself to her while throwing baseball. It was a pretty great hour and a half.

She texts me and asks me where I am. Told her I was at the cafe on campus. She asks if I can meet her by the book store. I say of course, and I'm there in a few minutes, and a few minutes later she is saying that she is going to cancel the date because she doesn't think it is going to work between us.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Thankfully, as I said, I'm a bit older and a bit wiser and kept control of my face and emotions. I wanted to say many things about how dumb that was, that she was the one that basically asked me out, how she should have thought about this before bringing it up, and a great deal of many things, but I didn't. I said, "Ok, no worries."

I've learned that when people can change their minds so quickly on something, It's probably a good thing to get some distance from that person if you can. Emotional stability is a valuable commodity, and such a quick change on something like that shows, in my estimation a certain lack of maturity. There may be some that criticize me for being too harsh, saying it was just a date, and she wasn't actually committed to anything. But I would remind you, that she was the one that initiated, she was the one that wanted to be asked on a date, and when a date was set it took her only an hour and a half to change her mind on something that she probably had been thinking about for a while.

When someone leads you on and cuts the chord in such a short amount of time, just let it go and walk away. This former friend did my dirty. It was cold blooded, but I learned from it and I'm better for it now.

Dating Rule #1: Girls are fickle. 

Dating Chronicles: Gelato Girl 🍨

So here I am, single as a dollar bill, and one of my female friends suggests that I should go on a date with her friend.  So I say what any guy or girl would say when a friend is trying to set you up with a friend, "Can I see a picture of her?"

Of course I can ask that!  As much as character, personality, and chemistry is important - you have to be physically attracted to someone!  So this girl is pretty, pretty. That's when my friend drops the knowledge that she is a model my first thought is, "I've always wanted to go out with a model."

After some back and forth from my friend and her friend, I get her phone number, we start texting and I ask if she would like to get together to meet and get to know each other better. She says yes! Through talking with her and our mutual friend we decide to go to downtown Knoxville on Friday and get some gelato at this place called Coolato Gelato.

The day of our date arrives and I am super excited. This girl is pretty and from our limited conversation she seems super cool and we have a lot of shared interests. Anyway, I do the typical pre-date text sometime early in the day to confirm that we are still on for that evening and that I am looking forward to it. Several hours go by and I don't hear anything. Not unusual, but I would be lying if I wasn't a little concerned. When she does text me back she breaks the bad news to me that she is super sick, throwing up, and is going to have to cancel tonight.

I'm disappointed, but at the same time, I'm a nice guy and I am understanding of being sick and not able to go on a date. Throwing up is the worst. It's like an alien is rolling around in your stomach and finally crawls up out of you in a disgusting, smelly projectile! There is no way I would not be up for a date while feeling like that. So I respond the way any nice guy would, I say that I am sorry that she is feeling bad and ask if there is anything that I can get for her or do for her to help her recover and feel better. She says no, but thanks me for the offer.

My brother gets a hold of me that afternoon and asks me if I have any plans. It is after all, Friday night. I let him know that I had a date, but it got cancelled to her being sick and that I would be up for whatever. We decide to go to downtown Knoxville that evening anyway to hangout and grab some food.

That evening, my brother and I are walking down Gay Street in downtown Knoxville. It is a beautiful  night. The weather is perfect and downtown is bustling with all kinds of people. In the distance we see a group of girls walking towards us. Who is leading that group of girls laughing and talking all done up for a fun Friday night out? That's right. The girl I was supposed to get gelato with that night and was supposedly at home throwing up and too sick to go on a date.

I quickly tell my brother that she is the girl who cancelled the date because "she was sick." He asks if we are going to say anything, and I quickly tell him, "I got this."

I walk up to her with a big smile on my face. I was smiling so big that I looked like 1) I had just won the lottery or 2) I was about the embarrass this girl that had lied to me, cancelled a date with me, and couldn't have enough decency to be honest about it. It was the latter. 😁

This is how it went down: "Heyyy! I'm SO glad you're feeling better! You look great for having been throwing up earlier today! I'm happy that you were feeling good enough to come out and hang out with your friends. I hope you have a great rest of the night." And with that my brother and I keep on walking and smiling. She had the look of absolute horror and dread when she saw me. She faked a smile when I was talking to her, but her friends looked super confused.

Needless to say it had the desired effect. She sent me a text criticizing me for embarrassing her in front of her friends and that she can't believe I did that and communicated general sentiments of upset-ness towards me. My brother and I laughed and laughed. I didn't text her back, and we went on to have a great night.

Dating Rule #4: If you're going to end it, be honest and own it. 

Regulars

Saddest thing I have seen in a long time...

I could be classified as a regular at a local coffee shop in Louisville, KY. Good environment, great location, And I have cranked out some papers and reading in that place!

During my high frequency of visits I noticed a couple that also frequented and could come under the same classification of "regulars." They are both still fairly young, in college, late teens or early twenties. They would sit on the same side of a booth, be obnoxiously close and romantic with puppy dog eyes. One time they even held hands while working on there laptops and typing with one hand! Now that's dedication!

But today I showed up to the coffee shop as I normally do and I saw the guy on his laptop working on his computer. A little while later the girl came in and sat at a separate table. I thought maybe she was giving him space because at that point he was on the phone with someone and his laptop books and notebook were taking up the entirety of the two person table where he was sitting. He got off the phone...nothing...

45 minutes go by and neither one makes a move or even acknowledges the other. Maybe the guy is working on a super important project! Heck he could be in high school and studying for a final! That's pretty important, I thought.

All of the sudden the girl got up to leave and packed her things. I not very conspicuously watched and waited to see what would happen.

She gets up out of her chair, looks at the guy with a somber face, he looks up, she waves, he disinterestedly waves back, and then she leaves without saying a word...

Oh my heart hurt for them...more for her because she looked very sad and he looked like he didn't care.

But man...love sucks.

Dating Rule #12: Be prepared to see you ex or someone you used to date out at some of the same places you two would frequent together. You never expect it, but it will happen at some point or another. It's a small world after all.

Things I Wish I Had Said: "I don't believe you."

So I'm visiting a seminary that I have applied to and am considering attending to get my Masters of Divinity in Christian Ministry.  During the visit you meet with the Admissions team and they talk up the school, give you the history, talk about the professors, how awesome they are, how you should come, etc.  I get it.  That is their job, to get people to come to the school.

So during this visit, we get a tour of campus.  The tour was great and the campus was beautiful, and I really like the school.  We arrive at the end of the tour, and like many tour guides, our guide was a current student.  We had just been through two hours and a lunch of a brief history of the seminary and all of these various things that are pulling for us to come to the school and that THIS PLACE is the place where I need to come for my seminary education.

At the end of the tour, the tour guide asked, "Does anyone have any questions?"

Not being shy, I pipe up and ask, "Tell me some things that the seminary is not good at and needs to improve on.  What are some bad things about the seminary?"

The tour guide responded, "Honestly, I can't think of anything."

What I said: "Oh...ok." And left it at that.

What I should have said:  "I don't believe you."

No person, place, institution, government, or business is perfect.  To pretend otherwise is a lie, and of all places that should be first to admit its lack of perfection, it should be an institution where falling short of perfection is ingrained in what it teaches. A salesman should have the integrity to list the flaws and shortcomings or their merchandise.

Life Lesson: If you have to sacrifice honesty in order get someone to buy into something, you are selling the wrong thing.

Dating Chronicles: Ghost 👻

So I meet this girl, we talk for a little while and we are in that "get to know each other" stage.  I decide that the time has come for me to ask this girl out on a date.  I very clearly ask that I would love to get coffee or go out for ice cream sometime.

*Silence*

"Ok this girl is pretty good at getting back to me, and even though she may go a few hours without responding she usually replies within a day or so.  I'm not going to worry about it."

*Silence*

The next day: "Okay, maybe she is having a busy week."

A week goes by...

*Silence*

Well it looks like I have been ghosted.  That sucks because she seemed like a cool girl and just up out of nowhere she doesn't respond to me clearly asking her out on a date.  If that is not a sign that someone is not interested, I don't know what is.  But what can I do about it?  She did not respond to me asking her out on a date and it is consider faux pas to ask someone after the fact, "Hey, I know you ghosted me, but would you mind letting me know why you weren't interested?"  Yeah...that's never gonna happen.  Ghosting is disrespectful and the least a person can do is say, "Hey, I don't think this is going to work out." Or "I'm not feeling it." Or "I'm not interested, but thanks." Something that treats the person like a human being and not like an object.  Anyways, I digress...

No point in continuing to think about it or her because obviously nothing will ever come of it, so I better just move on.  Next song.

A months passes...

Message from this girl: "Soooo...did you lose interest or what's going on?"

I'm thinking, "This girl has some stones to say that after I asked her out on a date." I tell her that I texted her if she wanted to hang out and she never responded.  Apparently she, "Didn't see it" and that she didn't ghost me. In fact she doesn't ghost people in general. She also told me she was still interested, and she would love to go out on a date sometime....😑

So going against my better judgement we go out on a date. I like taking girls on dates because dates are fun, and like I said, she seemed like a cool girl. So, we get ice cream, and we have a good time. We go out again and we get sushi and we have a great time.  I kinda get busy with school and she does some traveling and our communication is sparse but we still chat and joke on a frequent basis.  One day we are texting and I ask her if she would like to go on another date.

*Silence*

Next day: "That's weird. Maybe I'll try calling her."  Call and leave a voicemail.

*Silence*

Next day: "Okay, maybe she is super busy, or driving on a long road trip, or taking a nap, or maybe she lost her phone. Hmmm, she still is posting on Instagram and Snapchat so she didn't lose her phone..."

Wait another day and: "Hey, did you get my voicemail the other day?"

*Silence*

Ghost me once, shame on you.  Ghost me twice, shame on me.

Dating lesson #9: If a girl ghosts you and then comes up with some B.S. excuse to text you and makes another B.S. excuse about how she didn't ghost you...don't respond...ever.

Cancer Sucks

Up until a few years ago, I confess that I did not personally know many people that were affected by cancer.  A few years ago that all changed.

My roommate from college: his mom died of leukemia
Another best friend from college: his mom died of stomach cancer
My pastor that I grew up in church under for 24 years: diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
My mom: diagnosed with breast cancer
My cousin: diagnosed with breast cancer and bone cancer
And just this past week one of my best friends that I've known since 3rd grade: diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia

All of this has happened in the past 2 and half years. I hate cancer and I have no doubt that God hates cancer also because it is a result of the broken world that we live in.

This past week I've been reading Psalm 119.  As hard as it may seem, I am given peace that even when life is hard, God is still good and still fully deserving of all worship and praise.  I hate cancer, but I know that cancer is not the end of the story. I have a God in heaven that loves me and loves all of these people enough to send his Son to die that we may have eternal life.  A life with no suffering, no pain, and no cancer.

Dear God, please come quickly and get rid of all cancer and brokenness, and sin. Amen.

2016: Worst Year Ever?

I know I'm a little late getting in on how 2016 was supposed to be one of the worst years ever.  If I was smarter I would say something about recency bias and something related to psychology.  But I am not a smart man so I will stay a long way away from it. I will say that for my life, a lot of good things happened during 2016.

My nephew was born

I moved to Louisville, KY for seminary

My sister married the man of her dreams

The Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years

And to cap it all off, my brother got engaged to the woman of his dreams.

All in all, 2016 wasn't too bad, and I am thankful for that.