Insecurely Confident

You’ve probably seen it:  A flaming building, a woman trapped on the second floor and screaming for help.  One fireman more brave than the rest runs into the building as it collapses around him.  He rescues the woman, a beautiful brunette, and you expect them to kiss when something else draws her attention.  She hands the fireman’s jacket back to him absentmindedly and runs toward the astronaut who is walking toward her.  “Nothing beats an astronaut,” the video narrator says. If my description didn’t paint a vivid enough picture, here is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjzGaSQX0iU

So why do I mention a rather silly advertisement?  Both it, a different version in which a lifeguard wrestles a shark to save another model, and one where Neil Patrick Harris loses out to a man in a space suit illustrate a point I hear over and over: Women are attracted to confident men.  While I am not sure I agree that it takes more confidence to go into space than it does to run into a burning building or to wrestle (and punch) a shark, the point is well made.

Webster’s Dictionary defines trust as follows:

1. Trust or faith in a person or thing.

2. A trusting relationship

3. a. That which is confided; a secret  b. A feeling of assurance, especially of self-assurance.

Interestingly enough, in the dictionary I consulted for the above definition, the entry immediately following is “confidence game,” defined as “a swindle in which the victim is defrauded after her or her confidence has been won.”  So often our confidence is a counterfeit. We expend a tremendous amount of energy to appear confident, usually to earn the respect, indeed the confidence, of others.  We play a sort of “confidence game” with those around us and in the process defraud them and ourselves.  Or, perhaps knowing our own shortcomings all too well, we place our confidence in others who aren’t strong enough to keep it or perhaps have no right to it.

That is not to say that confidence, when appropriately placed, is a bad thing but when our confidence is borrowed from other insecure people or our own success it is built on a foundation that will eventually fail. The friends who have been at our side through thick and thin will not always come through.  A brave, well-trained firefighter may rescue a child from a burning building but other brave men have ran into buildings only to be carried out one last time.

Pride and confidence are often difficult to discern from each other.   To expound on the firefighter example, a firefighter may have the legitimate confidence built on training, experience, and specialized equipment but those things will not protect him if his respect for the power of fire is buried under a coat of bravado and he begins to act as if he cannot be burned simply due to his bravery.  Just as courage is not the absence of fear, confidence is not the absence of doubt or apprehension.  It is not coincidence that we are more willing to admit our doubts to those who have earned our confidence-those we trust.

Thus we come full circle to Webster’s definition of confidence: “Trust or faith in a person or thing.”  It is a critical clue in the confidence riddle.  Confidence that is not counterfeit can be founded only on trust.  Furthermore, our trust must be in something or someone that is trustworthy.  If I have confidence that the ladder is safe but it isn’t set up properly, I am going to fall. 

In scripture we see the actions of those whose confidence was rooted in the one who needs not the approval of any man or woman.  Many of them were often afraid.  Some, notably Elijah, Jonah, and David had to run away from things or people they feared.  God wasn’t particularly concerned with their confidence in their own ability.  In fact, Scripture seems to indicate that He got really tired of people taking credit for His work and giving him none.  Don’t get me wrong, He doesn’t need our approval but when we put our confidence, indeed out trust, in Him He may very well use us beyond our natural ability.  How else can you explain a drunkard (Noah) chosen to continue the lineage of man on the earth?  Or a stuttering murderer (Moses) leading God’s chosen people out of slavery?  How about the weakest man of the weakest tribe (Gideon) leading a force of 300 men against an army of thousands and winning?  Or a man who led his people around a fortified city for days before attacking it with trumpets and a shout? (Joshua)  If you prefer New Testament examples, Paul was so qualified that God had to throw him off a horse and make him temporarily blind to begin using him.  Peter denied he even knew Jesus yet spoke boldly when the Spirit descended on him.

So I suppose that the question we may need to ask is If you are lacking confidence, is it perhaps because your own confidence is built on a foundation of your own making?  Perhaps it is worth attracting a woman who wants a man whose confidence comes from a wellspring deeper and fuller than his own heart.

Singular Rejection

I’ve been sitting around the house for several days now fighting a cold and learning a lot about the workings of London’s motorways and The Tube via British documentaries.  I finally decided this evening to challenge myself a bit and visited a rather conservative Christian singles site, hoping for some sage advice.  Unfortunately the first post I read was this one:  http://www.boundless.org/relationships/2013/why-it-is-not-good-to-be-alone  While I agree that it isn’t good to be alone, I take issue with a lot of the assumptions of the writer.  For example, I am bothered by his repeating the notion that single guys live in fantasy worlds playing video games and miss out on gaining maturity because they are single.  I personally hate video games and I know married guys who play them, but that is a minor point.  I’ve seen a certain maturity in many of my married friends that probably didn’t come about until they got married but it is frustrating to be judged yet again for being single, especially based on predominantly false assumptions.

It seems that the most rejection and judgment I feel is a result of my being single.  Sure, there was rejection by my peers in middle and high school and sometimes in college and, unless you are one of the very few, all of us have experienced the rejection of unsuccessfully asking out a woman, but there is something that makes everyone qualified to judge you for being single.

It is kind of funny that my experiences with the Church varied from single-sex bible studies in college and Campus Crusade’s view that the contact between women and men should be minimized unless they were actually in a relationship (or serving on leadership) to the view of most churches today that seems to be somewhere along the lines of “why aren’t you married? and “Why would you need a singles ministry? [grow up]

But I suppose that the reason the post that set me off in the first place is less the unfair points it makes and more a reaction to the continual feedback I get in regards to my singleness.  After all, some of the key points in the post are spot on. “Men are called to take initiative in finding a wife. If called to marriage — and most men are — they should, when mature and ready, leave their childhood home. They should pray to God for a wife, and they should seek one with a balance of wisdom, trust and assertiveness.”

That’s all well and good but for those of us who are still seeking, or those on whom perhaps God has a lot more work to do, what do we get?  Commonly it is rejection:  Rejection from parents whose frustration with our insecurities over dating false starts implies that they don’t think we’ll ever manage to enter into a successful relationship, rejection from people who say we are too picky,  and the rejection from being constantly told to try this or that online dating site.  And if those aren’t enough, there are inevitably, the married friends who want to set you up with their single friends.  (Of course the latter is really a compliment but it never feels that way!) 

In the church it isn’t much better.  A lot of times, single people can get the impression that we are incomplete in the eyes of the church.  Then again, there is the minority view that being single is better, AKA Paul’s writing about staying single to not have divided responsibilities in ministry, that isn’t much more palatable.  It loosely translates to the “Single people have more time to serve,” view.  It may be true but I think that the dangerous assumption most often made is that single people may or may not be happy with their singleness and just as importantly, they may or may not want to remain single. 

And of course, as with this posting, there are those who say that single guys need to mature and grow up so they can get married and have impact.  If I had a dollar for every sermon I’ve heard about guys needing to grow up and “be a man” I’d be rich in a monetary sense as well as nominally.  (Then again,
“Be a man” was my high school’s motto.)  I’ve yet to hear a sermon to women along the lines of “Love isn’t written by Disney,” or perhaps more useful, “If you are looking for your man to fail you, he will.”  Please don’t get me wrong, I have the honor of earning the trust of more than a few amazing women whose hearts have been ripped to shreds by guys who weren’t willing to be men.  I am not asking for a “free pass” for those men but someone needs to teach women in the church to better see through the men who are better at initiating then they are at being trustworthy!

Sadly, as a guy it is easy to feel rejection from the women of the church, too.  Most single women in the church are fed up from guys not taking initiative and that anger, hurt, or frustration can sometimes be misdirected at other single men around them.  I was recently called an idiot for not pursuing a wonderful woman who I had the misfortune of thinking highly of but not being interested in.  Admittedly, this particular friend probably had other, legitimate reasons for calling me an idiot but I mention it since it wouldn’t be the first time that someone tried to tell me my interests!

I am, as I am sometimes wont to do, getting away from the heart of the matter.  Perhaps it is because a discussion of the shortcomings of others or intellectual consideration is much easier than an examination of my own heart.  The reality is that I don’t take feedback regarding my singleness well because it is my biggest source of personal rejection.  Rejection from others is typically a lot less meaningful when we’ve accepted ourselves or know we are accepted by someone whose opinion matter more to us.  In my case, after 15 or so years of bumbling efforts at relationships, something that is all too easy to dwell on my lack of any longstanding dating relationships. I’ve had opportunities to know some amazing women and I am not un-thankful for that.  I am not sorry that I don’t have many failed dating relationships and, at least to my knowledge, I haven’t deeply hurt many women though that process.  That said, and especially now that I am finally at a point in my life when I can’t ignore that I do have a lot to offer, I keep coming back to the feeling that I am single because there is something profoundly wrong with me.  It is for that reason that unwanted feedback from others about how I can fix my singleness feels so much like rejection.  After all, I agree with the poster who writes that, by remaining single, we miss out on maturity, companionship, pleasure, and exhilaration in our lives.  I’d certainly like more of those (except at times, maturity) but if all it takes is initiative from me, I’ve apparently got more than a little improvement to make! That gets a bit overwhelming and the temptation is to throw in the towel before I've even started.  Here comes that feeling of rejection all over again! ...or perhaps it was never entirely up to me and there is some trust involved?