Modern Romance...

"How do we figure out when to call, when to text, and when to just drop everything, stand outside someone's window, and serenade them with your favorite nineties R&B tune, perhaps 'All My Life' by K-Ci and JoJo?" -Aziz Ansari, Modern Romance

"I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need." -Philippians 4:13

Romance in the 21st century is a complicated thing. HA! Text messages, online dating sites, Tinder, first dates. How do you do romance with all of that?! Luckily, this isn't really about that. That would be too big a question, particularly for someone whose track record with modern romance is particularly unspectacular.

Nope, not today. But I did read Aziz Ansari's book Modern Romance last summer and it was fascinating. First, Aziz, if you ever accidentally stumble around to reading this blog, I think we'd be best friends. So just shoot me a message and I'll get you my digits.

Secondly, you should read this book. It's fascinating! And really well done. The whole premise is that people date differently today than they ever did. Based on sociological studies and countless interviews, they come up with a number of trends that help us understand what makes romance in the 2000's distinctive.

One of his conclusions was particularly interesting to me. Not particularly long ago, the majority of couples were made up of two people living within blocks of one another. That was your sphere of experience. You didn't know much outside your immediate surroundings, especially not well enough to try to create the foundation of a "rest-of-my-life" kind of relationship.

Your options were a little limited, and you found the person with whom you were most compatible and made the best of it. It was a simpler time. I'm jealous.

But the internet and worldwide communication have made it possible to meet people all over the world. The world is our neighborhood. Anyone could be a potential match.

It's kind of like the difference between going to a local barbecue joint and a Cheesecake Factory. At the BBQ shop, you have three options, you pick, you make a mess, and you love it! With Cheesecake Factory, the experience works a little differently.

There are hundreds of options, literally. Whatever you want, they have it. I went there on a date a little over a year ago for the first time and it was overwhelming. It took me five minutes just to find out how many pages the menu had, let alone which page had the Italian and which had the drinks. I think it was thirty minutes before I had limited my choices to five.

Eventually I settled on a selection. And settled is the perfect description, because I wasn't totally satisfied. When our food came out, it was delicious, but I looked across the table and thought, "Mmm, that would've been better." And then I looked around the restaurant and thought the same thing about 15 other plates.

My food was delicious, but it was less delicious because it wasn't something else. By saying yes to one thing, I'd said no to the entire rest of the menu.

Options have the unfortunate consequence of making everything matter a little less. Today we have more options than we've ever had. I went grocery shopping yesterday and there were SIXTEEN options for whole-wheat bread. Isn't it all the same?

But that's a silly example. Others aren't quite as trivial. I've always had a tremendous struggle with commitment, in every facet of life. When I start dating one person, I'm terrified that I may end up missing out on someone better. (P.S. I hate this feeling, and I don't think I'm alone in this unfortunately.)

Or just look at high school and college students who want to do everything. You've seen it. They sign up for every imaginable sport and activity because they love them all and so they won't miss out on anything.

But this has a dangerous underside. Either, we'll choose between options and always wonder what would've happened if we'd chosen the other. Every choice for something will also be a choice not for other things. We'll never be able to appreciate what we have because it's not the possibility of what could have been. It's the "One That Got Away" principle.

Or we'll try to do everything and do nothing well. Breadth without depth leaves us doing a lot of things with half of our hearts. Doing good will completely swallow our ability to do great.

Options have the potential to totally inhibit our ability to live life to its absolute fullest as we compare what we have with what others have or what we could have had. The more choices we have, the less chance we have to be satisfied by those options.

Two thousand years ago, for the majority of the world, the world extended just to the edge of your village or the villages your village traded with. That was your neighborhood. In the wider scope, the world consisted of the Roman Empire, and that was a big world, but few people ever experienced more than a few square miles of it.

Paul was one of those few, however. He set up churches all over the Mediterranean. In the New Testament alone we find letters to seven churches and then a few more to his disciples who he'd been forced to leave behind. He would establish communities of people that were dear to him, and then he'd depart. Not because he didn't love them, but because God was calling him to something bigger.

And I bet that killed him. How could it not? You develop deep relationships, and then move on. I imagine he longed to see his friends all the time. That's probably why, just in his letter to the Philippians, he calls them "beloved" five times in four chapters. He wants them to know how dear they are to him and how deeply he wants to see them again.

But Philippi is not where his journey is supposed to end. It would have been easy for him to resent that he was called to leave these groups of people he loved. But there was something more for him. He had accepted a long time before that saying yes to God's call might mean saying no to other things.

We make lots of choices every day. What clothes to wear? What to eat for lunch? Who to spend it with? It's possible, in the midst of all our options, to constantly wonder what would've come if we'd chosen a different path. As we focus on what we don't have or what we didn't choose, we'll always find the worst in what we have, never the best. If we get lost in the ocean of possibilities, we'll never learn to appreciate the greatness of what we already have.

So may we learn contentment. May we be satisfied by the lives we have and the choices we've made and ask God that those lives would intertwine with God's bigger story. May we learn to let go of what we don't have to fully embrace the fullness of what we do. And may we learn to give thanks in all of it.

forever unfinished...

Oh, and as for modern romance, when someone figures out how to do it well, please pass along the notes.