David and Jonathan's (One-Sided) Friendship

Artwork showing Jonathan giving David a sword. Image source.

I've been reading this really amazing book, "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles," which is a collection of academic papers which discuss children's bibles. One of the papers is called "No Greater Love: Jonathan and His Friendship with David in Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Children's Literature," by Cynthia M. Rogers and Danna Nolan Fewell. This paper makes a lot of excellent points, so let's talk about it.

First of all, if you're not familiar with the story of David and Jonathan, here's an overview (this is from the book of 1 Samuel in the bible): This is about David, as in King David, widely seen as the best king in the bible, and a role model of how to devote your life to God. David as in David and Goliath. We meet David when the prophet Samuel is sent by God to anoint David and proclaim that he will be the next king. At that time, though, David was a nobody, and Saul was the king. Saul had a son named Jonathan. David gets noticed by Saul- David kills Goliath, David plays music for Saul, David is a leader in the army, David marries Saul's daughter Michal. And Jonathan becomes best friends with David. Jonathan gives him a bunch of gifts. Later, when Saul wants to kill David, Jonathan takes David's side and helps him escape. Then David is on the run for a while, and we don't hear much about Jonathan, and eventually Saul and Jonathan are both killed in battle, and David becomes the next king.

(Some people say that David and Jonathan were a gay couple. I personally don't believe that, but I'm glad there are queer Christians exploring that interpretation. I mean, how could there not be, when 2 Samuel 1:26 says, "Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women"? The fanfiction practically writes itself.)

The story of David and Jonathan is one of those bible stories that you commonly see in children's bibles, and it's framed as a nice moral lesson to teach kids about friendship. Be a good friend, like Jonathan. Jonathan was a role model of friendship. That's what we teach little kids about Jonathan.

The "No Greater Love" chapter by Rogers and Fewell makes the point that Jonathan is often treated as a side character, while David is the main character of the story. Jonathan is seen as significant only because of his connection to David and to Saul- he is caught in the middle- but what about Jonathan as a person himself, outside of his friendship with David? I like how this paper examines 1 Samuel 13-14, which contains a story about Saul and Jonathan but not David. Check out this quote (p 141):

But despite the narrator's valiant efforts to push David into the spotlight, Jonathan's exploits in 1 Sam 13-14 challenge the centripetal force of David's personality. Jonathan is the protagonist for a day. Time slows to accommodate his feats and to allow an unobstructed view of the ways in which he relates to political oppressors, to fellow soldiers, to his father, and to God. This brief portrait presents a young leader who fights oppressors because they are oppressors, who (unlike David) doesn't calculate personal gain (cf. 17:24-27, 30), who (unlike David or Saul) doesn't ask his troops to do anything he's not willing to do himself (cf. 22:17-19; 2 Sam 11), who (unlike David or Saul) has earned and can rely upon the support and protection of his followers (cf. 1 Sam 22:7-8; 23:12; 2 Sam 15-17). He is a son whose loyalty to his father also accommodates correction, critique, and confrontation; he is a religious person who values, but does not bank on, divine favor and who, moreover, is not paralyzed by divine silence. The stubborn memory of his heroism casts a critical shadow over David's character and reign, suggesting an ancient community politically divided and theologically mixed.

Love this! Love to see Jonathan as more than just a role model of friendship. More than just a side character to David, the main character.

This chapter of "Text, Image, & Otherness" talks about how maybe Jonathan and David didn't really have a healthy friendship. Yeah, wait a second, in all the children's bible stories that feature Jonathan and David, the story is all about what Jonathan did for David, and nothing about what David did for Jonathan. Well, that's why those children's bibles say that Jonathan is the role model of friendship, and they don't say David is. But, uh, maybe you shouldn't give so much to a friend who doesn't give back? Maybe that could be an important lesson to teach kids too?

Also, there are political dimensions to this, obviously. There was a prophecy that David would be the next king, meanwhile Jonathan here is King Saul's oldest son- typically you would expect that Jonathan would be the next king. I don't remember any children's books I've read that mentioned this. Later, when I got older, I came across the idea that, hey wouldn't Jonathan have expected he would be the next king, and he was giving that up for David? I realized that Jonathan's devotion to David was more of a big deal than I had thought. But, still, I didn't really think Jonathan was "giving up" his chance to be king. God had already said David would be the next king, so there was never any possibility that Jonathan could be king. Right? I mean obviously we all believe God's promises come true, right? Jonathan would have believed that too, right? So Jonathan knew it was a foregone conclusion that David would be king and he himself would not, right? I mean, I was kinda naive back then.

Here, look at this quote from p 135:

Cartoonlike characters have become popular in Bibles and Bible stories developed for very young children. The Beginner's Bible: Timeless Bible Stories strives to be age-friendly with colorful drawings of Jonathan and David (Henley 1993-2005, 188). By 2005 gender inclusiveness dictates that Michal also join the childhood chums (182; fig. 6.5). In this cartoon world, friendship simply happens, enhanced by goodwill and generosity. The relational triad of Michal, Jonathan, and David is devoid of any dynamics that smack of personal or political advancement on the part of David, or personal or political naïveté on the parts of Michal and Jonathan. The little girl Michal never grows up to become David's angry and abandoned wife, and young Jonathan's highly suggestive gifts of armor and clothing are nothing more than thoughtful tokens upon which the friendship is built.

The Read and Learn Bible (American Bible Society 2005) also uses cartoon illustrations to target children ages five to eight. Its chapter from 1 Sam 18-19, entitled "David's Friend," describes Jonathan's role in protecting David, but it keeps central David's character, safety, and reputation. David's social prominence is explained by the comment "God was with David," which may suggest to young readers that popularity is a sign of God's favor, and doing whatever is necessary to befriend the popular is a service to God. Missing is any emphasis on the mutuality and give-and-take of friendship. Rather, the lesson appears to be an endorsement of unidirectional care while questions of reciprocal responsibility, interpersonal relations, complicating circumstances are left unexplored. In a similar vein, The Adventure Bible (Richards) includes an application box entitled "Let's Live It!": "SHOWING FRIENDSHIP: Read about the friendship of David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20:1-42. After reading the story, name three ways that Jonathan showed his friendship with David. Name three ways you can be a friend to someone" (1984, 335).

And I also love this quote from p 137-138:

If the Jonathan and David story is to serve as the model lesson on friendship, we must ask how children's biblical literature constructs both the biblical text and biblical messages about friendship. In a world of peer pressure, bullies, queen bees, wannabees, cliques, clubs, and gangs of all types, what do these renditions of the Jonathan and David story communicate? Are there no limits to loyalty in friendship? Is unquestioning trust always a good thing? Are some friends more deserving of devotion than others? Is popularity a sign of divine favor? Is it appropriate to ignore familial responsibilities, to repress one's own interests and talents, to sacrifice one's physical wellbeing or one's own future for the sake of a friend? Should an attachment to someone else be an individual's defining identity marker? Is true friendship possible only with those who share our theological, political, and social views?

We would be the last to suggest that teaching children to value friendship and to act in friendly ways is misguided. Moreover, as educators, we understand the importance of pitching biblical study at developmentally appropriate levels. Nevertheless, we wonder if this tendency to reduce both the biblical text and the notion of friendship underestimates the moral, social, and political challenges that even young children face (see Coles 1997; Davis 2001; Parker 2003, 2006) and inhibits more mature ways of reading the Bible once they become older. Both verbal ideas and visual images can leave firm imprints in early childhood that are often difficult to augment or change as children become able to handle more complex ideas (Stein 2009).

Yes, this is absolutely right. Children's experiences of navigating friendships are much more complicated than "Jonathan was a good friend because he gave David his robe and his sword; be like Jonathan." Let's not treat children like they're incapable of understanding that friendship is not that simple. And that sometimes people act like they're your friends, but they are using or manipulating you- was David using and manipulating Jonathan?

The thing is... as a child I was presented with this framework where each bible story has a nice moral lesson to teach us- and then when I grew up, I continued to view the bible with that framework. I "knew" that the story of David and Jonathan was a lesson about friendship- children's bibles present only the very basic broad strokes of it, and as an adult you learn more of the details and nuances, but still it's a lesson about friendship. Right? Occasionally someone tells me I shouldn't criticize children's bibles for being oversimplified, because we need to simplify stories for children, but that's not my actual issue- my issue is, do we expect children to eventually grow up and wonder "did David take advantage of Jonathan?" Which is a question you should ask, as an adult reading this story. But to get there, children have to rebel against the interpretation they've heard all their lives. It's not a matter of learning a simplified version, and then later finding out the actual story is more complicated than what you would have been able to understand as a child. We're actually teaching kids something that is not right. The story is NOT a nice model of friendship. That's not what it is. We just pretend it is, because we think the point of bible stories is to teach kids moral lessons. But that's not what the bible is.

When I was evangelical, I really believed that every bible passage has something to teach me, that I can apply to my life. Even the boring passages, like the detailed instructions about how to burn offerings- those passages teach us that God pays attention to details, and it's very important to get those things right, and we should follow God's rules exactly. Yes, really, I really thought every passage had a lesson I could apply to my life. Why did I think that? ... Well, that's a very evangelical belief. We believed that the bible isn't like other pieces of writing. The bible is living and active. The words of the bible are powerful, God-breathed. The word of God does not return void. 

We believed we should sit down every day and read the bible, and those few minutes of reading and praying would make us into better people, make us closer to God, simply because it was exposure to the spiritual power of the bible. (With some caveats like "it won't work if you have the wrong attitude" etc.)

I no longer believe each bible passage has an explicit lesson to teach us. I think we can learn the bible and experience the bible; we can find concepts that have always been true of human nature- good ones like friendship, but also bad ones like politically-motivated manipulation. It's not about "this is what you should do" or "this is what you should not do"... it's living and active. We bring our own experiences and our own cultural ideas to the bible, and we see the characters and stories through those lenses, and find things that are meaningful to us. And so we can't say the conclusions we draw are automatically true since they come from the bible, like evangelicals believe. It's not about "believing the bible" or not "believing the bible", it's not about winning arguments- it's about making it into something meaningful for you.

So I'm glad Rogers and Fewell are pointing out that maybe David and Jonathan's friendship wasn't good for Jonathan. Pointing out all the questions we should be asking when we read this story- was Jonathan too naive? did David use him? should Jonathan have fought for his own claim to the throne? It's not as simple as "Jonathan is a role model of friendship." And children's actual real-world experiences with friendship aren't that simple either.

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Posts about "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles":

"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)
David and Jonathan's (One-Sided) Friendship
Who Cut Samson's Hair? (a post about reading the bible for what it is)
The way we write children's bibles is "an act of bad faith"
Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories
Children's Bibles and "presenting mass slaughter to children" 
Children's Bibles and "turning ambiguity into clear articulations"
Children's Bibles and the Victims of the Flood 
The Problem of Equating the Bible's God with a Real God

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Related:

Michal wasn't here for David's worship, and now neither am I

Why did I think David was the good guy in the story of Abigail?

Bathsheba's Son

Don't Fire Your Friends, Okay?

HR meeting stock photo. Image source.

So there was this tiktok video on how to break up with a friend. I saw this on twitter a while ago (the video is from 2023)- people very much disagreed with it. And, yeah, the twitter people are right, DO NOT DO THIS. This tiktok gives really weird and bad advice.

It's short, I'll just transcribe the whole video here:

Person A: I've noticed you've been withdrawn and haven't wanted to hang out recently. What's going on?

Person B: I've treasured our season of friendship, but we're moving in different directions in life. I don't have a capacity to invest in our friendship any longer.

Person A: Is it something I did? This feels really sudden.

Person B: I get that it might be hard to understand, but I've been reevaluating many areas of my life recently, including my ability to be a good friend to you. I just want to be honest and upfront so I don't disappoint your expectations. I'm sorry if this feels painful and confusing. I wish you all love and success.

I have to blog about this, because it's a really BAD IDEA, and I'm autistic and I can easily imagine that for some autistic people, it's not obvious why this is bad advice. So I want to walk through it and give a thorough explanation... Like, it scares me that this advice is out there in the world and some well-intentioned autistic person is going to come across it and then actually do this to their friends.

Naively, one might think, "I have this friend, Person A, and there's nothing wrong with them, but I just don't really have time to spend with them any more. It's not worth my time to maintain this friendship. And shouldn't I be honest with them about that?" and then do what this video says.

No! Don't do this!

Instead, here's what you should do: You can just not contact them, if you don't want to spend time with them. You don't have to sit them down and give them an explanation. Seriously, it is EXTREMELY NORMAL that someone just doesn't contact one of their friends for a long time because their life circumstances make it inconvenient. Everyone understands this; you don't need to act like it's something you have to explicitly explain to them. Or, if they ask you why you they haven't seen you recently, like the person in the video did, you say, "I've been really busy with [whatever is going on in your life]." That's it! Just "I've been really busy" and then tell them some interesting thing that's been going on in your life.

Don't tell them you made a deliberate decision not to "invest in our friendship" any more!!! That comes across as really hurtful. Frame it as more of a passive thing, like of course you wish you could spend more time with them, but your life is just too busy.

If we're being brutally honest, the truth is that there are other people in your life that you do spend time with- you care about Person A less than you care about these other people. If you really really cared about spending time with Person A, you would rearrange your life to make it happen. The truth is that you prioritize other things higher than your friendship with Person A.

But don't be brutally honest! Don't say "I care about you less than the other people in my life", don't say "I've decided it's not worth my time to maintain a friendship with you." Yeah these things are true, and anybody who thinks about it for a few seconds will be aware that that's the reality behind statements like "I've been too busy"- but you shouldn't actually say it explicitly. That's just mean.

Just go with "I've been really busy." This is the normal social script for telling someone it's not worth your time to hang out with them any more. Even if you haven't actually been that busy, you can still say it!

A lot of the criticism of this tiktok video was along the lines of "this sounds like the language you find in a mass-layoff email from HR." Yeah, it does.

Person B just informs Person A that's they're not going to be friends any more, and when Person A is upset and wants to know the reason, Person B doesn't give a real reason, and just expects Person A to be fine with that. This is really weird. Person A has feelings about it, and Person B simply tells them to just not. Person B is being "honest" and therefore everyone should be okay with this. Uh, that's not how it works. This is really weird.

Let me just say, if you do this, there's no going back. By having this conversation as shown in the tiktok video, you are destroying the friendship. Person A will always remember you as "that weirdo who informed me, out of the blue, that we're not going to be friends any more, even though I didn't do anything wrong, and never gave a reason why, just a bunch of therapy-speak." Let's say you're too busy to spend time with Person A now, but then a year later you want to contact them- ha, no. No, by having this conversation with them, you're destroying that possibility.

Whereas, the normal thing to do, the thing that people will understand and be fine with, is to just not talk to them for a while, maybe years, and then if your life circumstances are such that you decide you want to talk to them again, then you contact them again. And that's fine. I have friends that I haven't talked to in years, and I have no idea what's going on in their lives, but if I was visiting the area where they lived I would be happy to see them and catch up. And that's great. But if you do what the tiktok video says, you are destroying that.

(I guess there is also a chance that you come across so weird, and Person A is so baffled at what to even think, that they'll decide surely what you meant to say was that recently you've just been too busy, that's all. Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll interpret it that way.)

So, in summary: If you don't want to spend time with one of your friends any more, don't frame it like "I decided not to be friends with you any more." Frame it like "my life circumstances are such that I don't really have time right now, but of course I still like you." 

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Related:

I Figured Out What The 1-10 Pain Scale Is Actually About 

Boundaries and Lunch

Welcome to Purity Culture, Today We are Overanalyzing Hugs

A group of people standing in a circle, holding hands and praying. Image source.

Well here's an interesting article: 11 Questions to Ask Before You Hug Him (by Paula Marsteller). And by "interesting" I mean it gives us some fascinating insights into the weird world that is purity culture.

It's an article about the morally-questionable territory of "as a girl, is it okay to hug guys that are your friends, or not?"

Yes, really. These are the sorts of huge moral issues we need to grapple with, in purity culture.

A hug can be as pure—or as impure—as your heart.

That’s probably because there’s nothing inherently sinful about a hug. It’s just that behind our arms, we house a sinful heart that can pervert even something good into something not good.
...
That’s why it’s important to examine your heart before you reach out for that hug.

This is exactly how I thought, too, back when I believed in "purity." I "examined my heart" SO MUCH, about EVERY LITTLE THING related to attraction. It was EXHAUSTING.

Now, I believe it's good and healthy to examine one's emotions and desires and be honest about how you feel. Accept that your desires are fine, and figure out a healthy way to handle them. But what's being described in this article is a completely different thing. When I was in purity culture, I overanalyzed every little feeling I had related to attractive boys, because I believed certain desires were sinful and it would be very very wrong to take any action that was (at least partly) motivated by any of those "sinful" desires. I had to "fight against" my desires, instead of acknowledging them as normal and learning healthy ways to deal with them.

Here's a hypothetical example of how this would have played out, back when I believed in purity: Let's say I'm in a bible study group, and the leader is an attractive boy we will call Ralph. And I really like to look at Ralph and talk to Ralph, and when he looks at me with his big eyes and focuses all his attention on me and talks and laughs at my jokes, it gives me wonderful romantic feelings. (Note: In this hypothetical scenario, I'm single.) So maybe I think, I should arrive at bible study early to see if Ralph needs any help setting up. And I've led bible studies before; I know how a leader might be nervous. I can encourage Ralph, and sometimes he asks me for advice. So then I have to very very carefully analyze all these desires. Yes, it's true that by arriving early, I will be able to help him. But that's not really my main motivation- my main motivation is that I LOVE to talk to him alone because I have a crush on him. But see, I'm not allowed to be doing stuff like that, because in "God's plan," I am only supposed to experience romantic pleasure with the man that God picked for me to marry. Yeah, but since I have experience leading bible study groups, isn't it a good thing that I would volunteer to help the leader? So I shouldn't help him, just because I'm attracted to him? Well that doesn't make sense.

All of it would get so incredibly complicated, back then. Layers and layers of "I want to do A, because of B, and because of C, but C isn't really a good thing to desire, so I need to be very careful that C isn't the 'real reason' I'm motivated to do these things." And all of it was because I truly believed it was wrong for me to ever "act on" my feelings of attraction. And "act on" could include something as simple as looking into his eyes and marveling at how beautiful they were and how good they made me feel. Allowing myself to feel pleasure instead of shutting those thoughts down immediately.

Okay, show of hands: How many of you tried to strategically sit next to an attractive person during prayer time because sometimes the group would all hold hands in a circle while praying?

That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I wasn't allowed to date. (To clarify: The version of god I believed in did not allow me to date. My parents were fine with me dating though.) I wasn't allowed to take active steps to have physical contact with an attractive boy. ("Physical contact" is not a euphemism for sex or anything. I literally mean I wasn't allowed to touch my skin against an attractive boy's skin unless there was some kind of external reason- like we are climbing a steep hill and he is grabbing my hand to pull me up.) So all I could do was scheme like that, trying to engineer situations where the social rules would dictate that I should talk to the boy or touch the boy. And then overanalyze my thoughts and my motivations about ALL OF IT and try to figure out if I was sinning. And then pray that God would make me just not have crushes.

So here we are in this article about deciding whether or not it's okay to hug a boy (in the context of friendship, not dating). Is the writer asexual, like me? Because this is the asexual version of "battling against lust." Or is the writer just really repressed? (Lol that is a fun game to play when you get out of purity culture: Am I asexual, or just really repressed?)

The article is titled "11 Questions to Ask Before You Hug Him", so how about we take a look at some of those questions. Here's the first set:

When You Hug Him:

1. Is there a guy(s) you want to hug more than others? If so, why?
2. What message are you hoping to send him with your hug?
3. Are you purposefully trying to arouse him with your body contact?
4. Do you hug him just as you would any guy? Like you would your dad or brother?
5. Would you be ashamed if people could read your thoughts as you hugged him?
6. Are you hugging him in public or in private? If the latter, what are you trying to hide?
7. If he’s married, would his wife be comfortable with you hugging him like this?

These questions are very weird to me. 1, 4, and 5, I understand. These are about analyzing one's own thoughts and motivations and what feelings you're getting out of the hug and whether or not those feelings are "sinful." But what on earth is going on with questions 2, 3, 6, and 7? These questions seem to assume that hugging someone in a "sinful" way is something that other people would be able to detect.

(Also, back when I was in purity culture, I definitely did not know what "arouse" meant. I would have understood it as "catch his attention" or "inspire him to have a crush on me." Turns out "arouse" means one's genitals are having a tangible physical response. Who knew. But I still have no idea how one can deliberately "arouse" someone by hugging. Especially since this article seems to just be about hugging friends- we're talking about just a quick friendly hug to say "hello", not sitting around cuddling for extended periods of time.)

Also, here's a revolutionary new idea I just thought of: Maybe it's totally fine to enjoy physical touch with one's friends- yes, even friends who share a gender with someone you're attracted to. In purity culture, I always refused when guy friends wanted to give me a hug. Then when I got out of purity culture, I became okay with hugging boys in certain situations- I decided it was okay because I was just being polite and "it doesn't mean anything." But what if it does mean something- would that necessarily be bad? What if I like to press my shoulder against a friend and pat their back for half a second- what if that really makes me feel a loving, friendly connection? It doesn't mean anything romantic, it doesn't threaten my relationship with my husband, but it does give me pleasure and it matters to me. That's totally fine. Enjoying physical touch with a boy doesn't mean I'm attracted to him or interested in "more." That can just be a totally normal part of friendship.

I still don't know how to have a healthy ideology about all this. I often ask my husband increasingly-convoluted questions: "Is it okay if I notice some guy is attractive? Is it okay if I not only notice he's attractive, but choose to keep thinking about him? Is it okay if I hug a guy that I think is attractive? What if I hug a guy as a friend, but also I am attracted to him so I have feelings like oooOOOOooo when I hug him? Should I hug him while ignoring those feelings or is it okay to let myself feel those feelings and enjoy them?" I think my poor husband is tired of trying to explain it.

(And did you notice, that article assumes everyone is straight? How strange and unrealistic. By the way, this kind of thinking makes everything way worse for LGB people who grow up in this culture. If you follow their logic, then if straight people shouldn't have close friends of the opposite gender, then bi people should just never have any friends at all.)

One more thing I want to say about this article. Look at this part:

If his hug makes you feel uncomfortable, depending on the seriousness of the situation, here are some ways to stop it:

1. Leave some space between you as you hug and quickly pull away.
2. When he reaches out to hug you, turn and give him a side hug rather than a front-on hug.
3. When he reaches to hug you, give him your hand instead. It might be awkward for a second, but he’ll get the point.
4. Tell him you’re not comfy hugging him.
5. Tell a trusted authority that you’re not comfy hugging him.

It's good that the writer says you're allowed to not hug a man you don't "feel comfortable" hugging, but I think it should be framed in a different way. I would have said it like this: "You are in charge of your own body, and you have ABSOLUTE, 100% veto power over who is or isn't allowed to hug you. You TOTALLY have the right to refuse a hug, and everyone MUST respect that. All right, that's the basic ground truth we're working from. Let's move on to practical things: Different situations may call for different levels of politeness and directness in asserting your right not to be hugged. Here are some suggestions along those lines."

Because the way it reads now, it sounds like "If you don't want to be hugged, you can try some of these suggestions and see if they work. But, like, if none of them work then, *shrug* oh well. I mean, you tried your best, but people only need to respect your bodily autonomy if you can do the dance of being polite and nice and subtle while still getting your message across."

In summary: The very "purest" girls overanalyze every thought and desire and motivation they have related to attraction. I did that, back then, and I did it because I truly believed it would be a sin to "act on" any desires I had for attractive boys. It was exhausting to always question my motivations and try to stop myself from having completely normal feelings that most people have. But that's what you have to do in purity culture.

Blogaround

An image of a heart with the text "I didn't actually know what love was till I left Christianity." Image source.

1. Actually, Creationists Do Believe in Evolution (posted November 29) "Yes, really. Let’s think about the timeline here. According to Answers in Genesis, Noah’s flood occurred in 2348 BC. The Tower of Babel occurred in 2242 BC."

2. The Love/Life Principles Seminar: (Not) Making Friends and Influencing People. (posted November 30) "We never learned what acceptance really was, nor that it’s quite rude and controlling to treat others like DIY fix-it projects."

3. ‘All right, then …’ (posted November 29) "Tear up the letter. Turn the raft around. And if you can think up anything worse, do that too."

Boundaries in Dating: Loneliness isn't bad

A silhouette showing a person sitting, with an empty chair beside them. Image source.

Chapter 8 of Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships is called "Don't Ruin a Friendship Out of Loneliness", and honestly, I don't really get this chapter. It's about the danger of "romanticizing a friendship" but I don't really understand what the authors mean by "romanticizing a friendship." But there is a lot of really good advice about psychology and healthy relationships in this chapter. Hooray!

First of all: What is "romanticizing a frienship"? It's trying to have a romantic relationship with someone who you should really be "just friends" with. But what I don't understand is why. Would you try to start an unhealthy romantic relationship with a friend because you think "we're so good together, logically we should date" even though you aren't actually attracted to them? (This seems to be the definition implied by the first story in this chapter, about Ellen and Ted, who were really good friends, and everyone told them they should totally date, and they tried for a little bit but "the romantic part of the connection simply did not exist" so they went back to being friends. But the rest of the examples in the chapter seem to be about actually having romantic feelings, not just "we're so good together, we should as least try" and then it's just awkward.) If that's the definition of "romanticizing a friendship" that we're working with, I can't really relate to it- in purity culture, dating was something to avoid as much as possible- I would never "try it out" just because it seemed like it could be good. (Err... well, it's more complicated than that in purity culture, actually. Having romantic feelings isn't necessarily seen as a prerequisite to having a romantic relationship. Maybe God told you you're going to marry that person, and if you're not attracted to them, TOO BAD.)

Or would you develop romantic attraction to a friend just because you're lonely? If that's the definition of "romanticizing a friendship", then isn't this the exact same thing we talked about in chapter 4, which was called "Dating Won't Cure a Lonely Heart"? Why are we talking about it again? It's the same situation. I guess in this case it's not just "getting into bad dating relationships because you're desperate and lonely", but "getting into bad dating relationships with a friend because you're desperate and lonely"... but that seems like pretty much the same problem to me.

So a bit confused about this, and therefore I'm not able to really pull out an overarching theme for this chapter. But let's look at some of the details. Here's an interesting bit:

In a struggling relationship, one person can develop romantic feelings for the other out of his own neediness. This neediness becomes "romanticized," that is, it disguises its true nature in romance. The person feels alive, driven, and motivated to be with the other. Yet the need is generally caused by some emptiness inside.

The authors go on to say that loneliness isn't necessarily bad. Humans need to connect with other humans, and loneliness is how "God has designed us" to feel our need for that connection. But, since loneliness is painful, sometimes it's easier to deny it, in which case those emotions manifest in other ways:

As a result, lonely people may not feel like lonely people should, which is lonely. However, they may feel other things instead, such as irritation, depression, addictive drives, and romantic cravings. There are often far more acceptable and tolerable. The problem is, however, that acting on these "false" feelings does not meet the real needs for compassion, care, and comfort.

Hmm, now this has me wondering: could loneliness disguise itself as spiritual hunger? What if someone is lonely because they don't have close enough connections with other people, but they see their problem as "I need to get closer to God", and work on that in the way that evangelicals do, which is by being alone and praying, being alone and reading the bible, etc. (Which, I've said before, is pretty weird, because God is everywhere, right? God is impossible to avoid. Why do "spending time with God" and "getting closer to God" mean only those very specific, individual, religious acitivities?) Coming from a Christian culture where the answer to EVERY emotional problem is "you need to pray more", I can totally see how feeling a need for human connection could be misinterpreted as "needing God", which, as I said, means you need to spend more time alone doing spiritual-looking things. (I, however, believe that you can "get closer to God" by forming deep friendships with other people. People bear God's image. That's kind of how it works.)

Next, there's a section about "Often, those who romanticize their friends have a history of not being able to safely and deeply connect to the same sex." And I am very confused about what they're trying to say in this section. I know they're working from the assumption that everyone is straight, but... does that mean they're using "same sex" as shorthand for "the set of people where you find your closest, deepest platonic friends" and "opposite sex" as "the set of people where you find romantic partners"? Are they assuming that one's best platonic friends are supposed to be the same sex? But that assumption doesn't make sense- isn't this whole chapter about how you can have good, deep, healthy friendships with members of the opposite sex, with no romance involved? It doesn't seem like they could make that claim and then also believe that your best friends have to be the same sex as you. Maybe they're trying to say that if you don't have good, healthy friendships, then you're more likely to get into bad romantic relationships out of loneliness, which they've said previously in this book, and really makes sense and is something everyone should learn about. But I don't see how that relates to not connecting with the same sex. Even if we assume everyone is straight, I still don't get how it relates.

But the next part is really good:

Related to this is the problem of thinking that romance is the highest form of friendship. Many people who are "into" romance (watch out for anyone who tells you that!) feel that friendship is a grade lower than romance. Thus, they will attempt to develop romantic feelings with someone that they are friends with, believing they are taking the friendship to a better and deeper level. ...

Romantic relationships are not better than friendships. They are different and meet different needs. Do not get caught in the idea that you are missing out by keeping your friend as "only" your friend.

YES. YES. And also, go tell that to all the church people who think that married people are at a higher level (morally, spiritually, in terms of maturity, whatever) than single people.

Next, it talks about relationships where one person is the "rescuer" or "caretaker", and how this is romanticized. For example, "the man who has been wounded by so many women" and "the woman who believes that her love can repair that hurt man." "Boundaries in Dating" says this kind of relationship is not healthy, because if you're acting like a parent and child, well eventually that child needs to grow up.

I think it's really interesting that they talk about this, because yes definitely that is an unhealthy dynamic, and people need to know about it. But, isn't the parent-child romantic relationship sort of what complementarianism is about? The man is supposed to protect the woman, provide for her, earn most of the money, etc. Many bloggers have talked about how complementarianism "infantalizes" women. And yeah, as "Boundaries in Dating" says, that's not a good thing.

The last thing I'd like to show y'all is this table that compares "healthy romance" and "romanticized friendship." Like I said, I don't really get what "romanticized friendship" is supposed to mean, but the heading that would make sense on this table is "unhealthy romantic relationship driven by neediness."

Healthy Romance	Romanticized Friendship
Desire is based on first being rooted in love elsewhere.	Desire is based on empty neediness for the other person.
Other's freedom is valued.	Other's freedom is a problem.
Relationship draws in friends.	Relationship shuts others out.
Conflicts work out okay.	Conflicts threaten the relationship.
Mutual feelings.	One person feels romantic, the other doesn't.
Friendship and romantic feelings coexist.	All-friend or all-romantic feelings; can't be both at the same time.

Yes. This is really really important, and it's a way of conceptualizing relationships that I've never thought about before. Err, I guess I've heard people talk about how this or that dynamic is unhealthy, but I've never thought about how to generalize it and lay it out so clearly like this.

I wish I had learned this stuff about healthy and unhealthy relationships before. I don't know if it's because Asperger's makes me generally oblivious to the rules of social interaction, or if it's because our culture in general doesn't do a good job of teaching what's healthy and unhealthy. Maybe both. Oh yeah, and purity culture. In purity culture, if God told you to date this person, and you keep the purity rules, then your relationship is good and right. If not, then it's terrible. None of this stuff about dependence, and romantic feelings that come from loneliness, and needing to be able to connect with friends so you don't try to get those needs met in unhealthy ways.

I won't do my whole "but for real, how is this a Christian book?" rant this week. I'll just tell you the stats: This chapter is 12 pages long. The word "God" appears 8 times. There is 1 bible verse.

In summary: I'm still not sure about the overall theme of this chapter, but it does have a lot of really really healthy advice. I wish I knew this stuff about relationships and loneliness and dependency and friendship a long time ago.

-------------------

A blog series reviewing the book Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships (introduction post is here)

Previous post: This psychology stuff is all new to me

Next post: Definitely Not Complementarian

Seriously, stop accusing us of "how close can we get to the line"

Image source.

Julie Rodgers was recently interviewed in Rachel Held Evans's post, Ask a (Celibate) Gay Christian, and had a lot of very important things to say, particularly about being single, dealing with loneliness, and how the church needs to support single people.

Though she believes that God does not allow same-sex sexual relationships, Rodgers says people need intimacy:

Regardless, I do not believe He wants me to be alone. We’re wired for intimacy, and while we can live without sex, we cannot live without intimacy. The more we celebrate sustained, non-sexual, sacrificial relationships in our society, the less people will feel like the only way to experience love and intimacy is in the context of a marriage or a sexual relationship. It would also be helpful if Christians would resist the urge to hit the “panic” button whenever gay people experience deep affection for those of the same sex. As a young person, I was so concerned about the “risk” of relationships turning sexual that I erred on the side of suppression and isolation (which leads to destructive explosions). It was so life-giving to exhale and move away from a fear-based approach, choosing instead to be more concerned about the risks of isolation. That has enabled me to actually remain chaste for years because my needs for intimacy are met through rich relationships with both men and women, which didn’t happen when I was disconnected out of fear. We were made for relationships, and we can work out what it means to be healthy, whole, Christ-honoring men and women in the context of relationship.

I also recommend reading the post she linked in that paragraph, The Freedom to Love.

This view strikes me as so surprising, and also really healthy and practical.

She's so right about Christian culture's fear of relationships turning sexual. I've experienced the fear and warnings because of purity culture, and LGBT Christians probably experience it to an even greater degree.

Image source.

Once I was at a Christian conference where LGBT issues were discussed, and I thought they handled it pretty well, talking about the different bible passages, how there are different interpretations and it's not so clear, and hearing real stories from real LGBT people, emphasizing how badly the church has handled this issue and how we need to focus on LOVING people. It was all really great until near the end, when we came back to one particular bible passage and one of the leaders explained actually because of this or that Greek word, Paul meant that all gay marriage is off-limits. It was presented as "some of these passages aren't so clear, maybe they have multiple interpretations, but here's the RIGHT ANSWER." And after that, the whole tone of the session changed. Everyone (not really everyone, I know there were people there who didn't agree) participated in the discussions with the assumption that the bible says gay marriage is wrong. I think the problem was so many evangelical Christians just want to know "the right answer" rather than respect the fact that different people have different opinions and that's okay.

But anyway, at this conference, at one point there was a panel taking questions from the audience. One question was, okay, so gay people can't have sex, but what about having a close friendship- maybe even at the level of a "covenant"- and not having sex? And the leaders on the panel answered, "eh, no, it's sounds too much like 'let's find out exactly where the line is so we can get as close to it as possible.'"

You know "the line"?

The line. A highly important concept in purity culture. Okay, so we can't have sex. But what exactly can one do with one's boyfriend or girlfriend? Can we kiss? Hold hands? And every time you ask this question in your youth group, the leaders will answer, "Whoa, hold on, hold on. This sounds like a case of trying to find exactly where the line is so you can get as close to it as possible without sinning. No no. Don't try to find the line, just work on following Jesus."

Which of course annoyed me to no end because dang, I just want a straight answer. This is a very practical question! And I've heard all kinds of mixed messages- you've got people who advocate "saving your first kiss" for marriage/engagement, you've got warnings that ANY AND ALL physical contact with a member of the opposite sex (oh btw everyone is straight) can lead to sex, but on the other hand I see couples at church holding hands, or giving each other a quick kiss... so what's the deal? (Are they just so overwhelmed by temptation that they've "compromised" and decided that little romantic gestures are okay?)

No one ever said, yes, it is okay and normal for couples to do X, Y, and Z.

(And I'm straight. This must be even more ridiculously confusing for Christians who are not.)

We're not trying to be as bad as possible without hitting "the line." We're trying to actually understand what the rules are, and what freedom God gives us. And when that question gets answered with "no no no, you shouldn't be trying to FIND the line," the message it sends is "probably everything you think of as romantically or sexually pleasurable is NOT OKAY." And also, if you go too close to "the line" then there will be all kinds of temptation and you'll end up crossing "the line" anyway.

It's all very hazy, but you should probably feel really guilty about it.

My experiences with "the line" are that of a straight teenager/ college student. For adult gay or lesbian Christians who believe they must be celibate, it's a very different thing. Let's get back to what Julie Rodgers said: "As a young person, I was so concerned about the 'risk' of relationships turning sexual that I erred on the side of suppression and isolation (which leads to destructive explosions). It was so life-giving to exhale and move away from a fear-based approach, choosing instead to be more concerned about the risks of isolation."

You see that? "The risks of isolation." Staying as far away from "the line" as possible is ACTUALLY A BAD AND UNHEALTHY THING.

Is there a rooftop I can shout this from?

She's so right. Especially for single adults. People need love, friendship, and intimacy from other people. Those are needs, not locations on the slippery slope toward having sex. God-given blessings, not harmful influences that will push us too close to "the line."

From now on, if you believe in the existence of "the line" but don't believe people should try to find it, kindly shut up about it. You've turned "the line" into a big blur of fear and guilt, and that is not the freedom God wants God's children to live in.