Basic rules of being single

Your attitude is going to lead you to other people with the same attitude as you. If you’re interested in finding someone and willing to pursue this effort in a relaxed manner (and try to have fun at it) you’ll find someone who has the same set of priorities. If you’re desperate, you’ll be finding other desperate people; if you’re neurotic, you’ll find other neurotic people. The attitude a boy projects tells girls more about him than hours of conversation could.

This is not going to be a conscious process that you go through. You don’t say, “I am going to find an easygoing person.” It just happens. You can’t really control it that well. Sorry.

What you can do is try to change your general attitude about life, though that takes months of work and lots of prayer.

I am something of a worrier, and girls would see all that worry and think that they didn’t really want to have it in their lives.

Don’t try too hard. You have probably heard this one a hundred times over from your friends. But, it’s true. A good friend of mine was so desperate that he pursued the only girl he knew whom he hadn't freaked out -- the clerk at the library. And, they went out, and she taught him a bit more than the Dewey Decimal System. Everybody's clothes stayed on, but he ended up with some industrial-strength regret at the end of it.

Don’t talk about it too much. I had this awful habit of counting up the number of months that had gone by since I had last had a girlfriend. I couldn’t break myself of it. But, I finally was able to count up something else – the number of days I could go without complaining about single. I think I got up to 45. It was liberating.

Be patient. Being Orthodox makes the dating scene much more difficult, and it’s something you’ll have to suffer through cheerfully. There are several reasons for this:

1. We really haven’t figured out the concept of “the youth group” yet. The idea of the parish as a community center with social activities through the week is a distinctly American one. The Protestants, knowing that they could never count on the state to minister to their parishioners (or perhaps hoping that it wouldn’t) took this model of the church community as a means of survival. The Orthodox immigrant groups in the United States, with the exception of the Antiochian Archdiocese, have a memory of being the majority religion in the home country in the past 100 years and enjoying state support. It often seems like our church is waiting for the return of the king.
   
2. The Church in America has an absurdly schizophrenic administrative structure. We’ve got a dozen Orthodox jurisdictions in North America, and coordinating anything between them, much less fun youth activities, is a struggle. The tribal attitudes are waning, slowly, though.
3. We’re a small minority. Even when all the churches in an area organize to put on events, this still means that to get 30 young people in one place, about half of them have to drive an hour or so to get there.

Don’t get bummed over your lack of dates. It only happens once that you find the right person. If you’re the type of girl who gets asked out often, that’s great, but then what are you going to do with all these guys?

When you do get dates, don’t convince yourself that you ought to be having a good time. Just have it, or don’t. Before I met my wife, whenever I’d get a date with a girl, I’d think about all her qualities and try to make myself appreciate her. I was trying too hard to "give the girl a chance."

Check how well you’re sleeping. That was my best guide for whether I was getting along with a girl. If I spend all night tossing and turning about things she said, that's a bad sign. After a date with Miri, I could fall asleep in about 5 minutes, confident that life was unfolding as it should.

Your Conversion

If you came to the Orthodox church as an adult, you might still be in your crazy-convert stage. If so this is going to complicate your efforts to find someone. Are you a crazy convert? Well, try this question to find out…

The Didichae says that people being baptized (adults and children) ought not to be wearing anything for their baptism. It’s your spiritual rebirth, so the Apostles say you should be in your birthday suit.

Did the above statement make you annoyed with your priest for not stripping you nude for your adult baptism? Are you going to make him baptize you again? If you answered yes to either question, that means you’re suffering from New Convert Syndrome. Other signs of this Syndrome are that you’ve cut out a tiny headscarf and tried putting it on your cat (if it’s a girl cat). If you tried baptizing the cat, you need professional help (and a box of Band-Aids).

The crazy convert phase lasts three to five years for most people, and if you’re starting a relationship during it, it’s going to be more challenging. You haven’t learned moderation in your Christian practices. Given how everything is connected for Christians, you’re also going to have a difficult time with moderation in your relationship with your partner. More than a few couples have gotten together while one, or both was still in their crazy-convert phase. They were so excited to have someone share their faith that they never took the time to find out if they actually liked each other, which adds up to a difficult marriage. Take special care to pace yourself.