Silver Ring Thing Africa

Real friends, Real benefits – part 2

The f-word

So if you really want to live in a way that’s 180 degrees different than the rest of the world, how do you walk this our in your relationships? How do you honour God while keeping your heart and hormones in check?

How do you not only think differently about sex and attract the opposite sex differently – how do you also relate to the opposite sex differently?

Here’s how most Christians do it.

Guy likes girl. Girl likes guy. They go out. Have a great time. Go out again. Become a couple.

And here’s where things start getting really weird. They start treating each other differently. The friendship dies down. They start acting like they think a couple should act – and they take their cues no longer from their faith but from our culture. What does this look like?

They put all their friendships on hold and become the center of each other’s worlds. They go out on youth group trips but are oblivious of anyone else. Church, Bible studies and youth group become just another way they can see each other during the week. They feel like they need to hold hands, kiss, make out – because that’s what couples do right? And the physical suddenly becomes a big deal between two people who previously enjoyed just hanging out.

It’s like suddenly all the things they knew about being a good friend, about being a brother and sister in Christ, about encouraging the other person to grow – things that are part of their ‘regular’ friendship in youth group or at school – don’t apply any more.

Wrong, they still do.

In fact, they’re even more important now because when you continue to relate in those ways, your relationship looks very different than the way most people come together. And when you break up, the relationship also looks a lot different.

Different is good.

Start out as friends. This shouldn’t be at all hard for some of you because a lot of people hang out with their friends anyway. Some people don’t even date, they just go out with friends. But we’re talking about real friends, the kind of friendships that impact your life in a huge way. And before we move on, some of you are going to have to get past the f-word.

“Friends? You’ve got to be kidding!” Some of you may be thinking, “That’s not very romantic.” A lot of guys hate to hear the f-word, especially when it’s thrown at them like this from an object of their affection: “I just want to be friends.” The reason is it’s often a cop-out. It’s the nice way of saying, “I’m really not interested in you.” And if you’re romantically interested in someone then the f-word is like a dagger in your heart.

If the whole “friends” thing sounds too boring for your romantic dreams, you may be suffering from what we call “the Bachelor/Bachelorette Syndrome.”

Find out if you’re a sufferer of this syndrome in our next edition and learn how to overcome the fear of the f-word!

Taken from Sex 180, by Tim Walker and Chip Ingram. [ISBN 0-8010-4529-0]