Flogging a dead horse with a new whip
A friend jokingly asked me why no one in church has ever hit on him when there are other men that receive the attention of so many women. My answer was more reflex than careful thought.
“Of course got lah! You just very dense mah. People hit you with a brick you also won’t feel it”
.
This is our culture – That it is sometimes more important to say the right thing than tell the truth. And this is something I’m not terribly good at. A colleague once asked me whether I mean what I say. I told her my problem lay in saying what I mean more often than I should. So here I go again - Coming in hard from the left field of uncomfortable ideas and stars falling from eyes on the current stir of Boy meets Girl.
Firstly, positing explanations such as “guys are intimidated”, might not be most helpful.
I’m going to talk a little about the Intimidated Man:
It is far more comfortable to think that our future mate is suffering from a bout of willies instead of shallow bastard-ness. We all agree that the treatment for cold feet is easier – take two dollops of Encouragement and see me in the morning, as opposed to a paradigm shift required for curing shallowness. Too bad it might well be the case of barking up the wrong tree. I’m not ruling out the possibility that some men are intimidated and do need encouragement, I just happen to think that IM is hardly the issue.
I confess my frustrations, that as a man, I tend to place greater emphasis on externalities than I know I should. When I watched the movie Ray, I realized that wishing for blindness is not going to help. Bastard Men, in the words of a good friend “need healing” not encouragement.
Secondly, we have to be careful about finding ourselves in a position of “desperate complacency”. Complacency occurs when we think that we have done everything in our power already (fulfilled the requirements of Proverbs 31, done my QT, serve in ministry etcetera) – if nobody is hitting on me, it must be because of a whole slew of external factors such as IM, God’s Will, God’s Timing, Picky Men, Picky Girls and so on. Desperation seeps in when external factors don’t seem to be changing.
Finally, bitterness is poison. I flinch every time I hear the “Man in the mirror” retort when the issue of Picky Men or Picky Women raises its ugly head. Instead we should forgive the pride and arrogance in the brother or sister who thinks they are worthier than we think they are.
To help those who might have been scattered by my meandering (a nice way of saying those with short attention spans) here are my points
1) Figure out the real problem. Lets be realistic about ourselves while we are at it.
2) Don’t wait for externalities to change. We can do something about ourselves.
3) Desperation is understandable, but we meet it with faith and patience
4) Bitterness is uncool but we meet it with humility and love
Ok, having shot myself in the foot AND stuffed it in my mouth, I’m now going to go shoot myself in the head before the angry mobs crucify me.
