Modern dating vocabulary words for survival: breadcrumbing, roaching, ghosting, paper clipping, catfishing, kitten fishing, dumping, flea bagging, benching, catching and releasing, cushioning, DTRing, FWBing, gatsbying, zombieing, marleying, microcheating, orbiting, phubbing, situationshiping, slow fading, stashing, submarining, textlationshiping
Dear Reader, Last month I wrote It Takes Truth To Tango following widespread response to my column The Heart of A Man. This column is the continuation of what singles are going through in the virtual dating experience as well as insight on how the rest of the “regular people” can participate in building tribes and networking with singles.
By now, hopefully I have established that there is no end to the singles’ search for information on how to do it these days and no real modern understanding of “out there” by happily married regular people. I know this. The answer is not as simple as a Godly married mentor who has never been to Hell and back. While having a Titus lady has been invaluable in my life, they just don’t know the rules of engagement anymore in the current war zone.
Here is something I can definitely say about being party of one: If it is better to be single than to be married, my definition of singlehood is the building of a life on a foundation of getting more education, learning a skill, writing a book, taking a new job, growing a company, starting a business, and making new friends. Risking a few broken hearts along the way pales in comparison to how abundant the single life can be when properly approached. Of course, none of this is anything without a whole, healed heart that is spiritually rooted in the Lord.
That said, some popular activities I’ve encouraged friends to go after are tennis, crochet, photography, cooking class, or dance lessons. I grew up in a jitterbugging family, so that seemed a bit natural to me.
My two greatest concerns were 1.) Always find a partner whose height optimally prevents armpits from being right at my nose level, lest they be inTOXICating. 2.) Avoid tango dancers at all costs! Heaven forbid you should ever take up the unfortunate skill of the tango where you might accidentally fall in love. God help you. The dance is the closest thing to an unquenched toxic flame for the hopeful heart. You could get severely burned!
First of all, in order to analyze my reasoning behind this, we must take a look at how our culture is obsessed with personality types. In order to work effectively in the corporate world, we are given an email account, followed by a badge, and then a personality test such as the Myers-Briggs which has been rivaled in popularity by the DISC and now the Enneagram. Then, psychological buzzwords such as the malignant narcissist/co-dependent dance crept into the vernacular of everyday conversation. As an empath, you’re sunk in this dog eat dog world!
Today, as if it isn’t enough to have to know the call signs of peoples’ personality traits, now we also have to recognize attachment styles and potentially avoidant behavior types to see if someone might be either dismissive (DA) or fearful (FA). I am here to tell you that I don’t believe for a second an FA would be caught participating in a tango. But the tango is a DA’s dream since it is a simulated lovers’ pursuit that generally portrays the man on a relentless chase without ever catching his prey long enough to bring her home to Mama. Even worse is the Argentine tango if you are a Stage 5 Clinger! You intertwine legs with your partner while dancing, then everybody either changes partners or goes home. What just happened?
Where else can a man and a woman be invited to get into a close embrace without being locked in? It offers intimate tension in lieu of the act itself as well as the expectation of being discarded. You fall in love with Mr. DA Tango Dancer, and risk being love drunk like the old twisty bobcat pretzel hung out to dry. If this is you, then you better hope to God that you are in love with the dance itself and not the dancer! Nevertheless, taking up the tango is still far safer than being actually “out there” in a dysfunctional dating world.
To Be Continued Next Month….
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