My ledger premiered this past Friday on my Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/lauren.catching/p/DcCPZfMAeQd
It’s a new series leading up to my debut romance novel – Love You, Always Forever – a time bending romance set in the 1990s. It’s the start of a new era for me, where we venture into my own love life, tallying old and new, fiction and nonfiction stories that have helped me along the way. They introduce you to how the book shaped the way I write about love and how I experience relationships. While I posted the cheeky story on Instagram, now let’s unveil what it revealed to me about my growth in relationships, conflict, and even in speaking up in a confusing situation.
Lauren’s Opinion: England
Disclaimer: This is an opinion.
The best analysis in life starts with an opinion. Science has taught me that – hypothesis, testing, then outcome. Sometimes the experiment goes gravely wrong. I misjudged ingredients. I misjudged the formula. The sample size was too large – or too small. And sometimes, the outcome explodes in my face.
That’s how all this started – a retrospective opinion of a British man invading – YES INVADING – my quiet pool time. While my love ledger is cheeky (British pun, shall I? Indubitably kind sir), this dives deeper.
It forced me to recognize that my philosophy about relationships and even relational dynamics had drastically altered. I was happy that even though I did get rejected, I handled myself in a way that reflected my ultimate values. Values are easy to hold when they have no cost, but once cost is involved, choosing them is a sacrificial matter.
Now maybe that feels dramatic because I hardly knew him. But what if I just waited, allowing the dynamic to continue, getting to know him, living in ambiguity? Which by the way – I would never do. A month of poolside glances, chats, and him aligning his schedule was enough in my opinion. For me, I would either stop or go on a date. That Friday he appeared was the final hinge point for me.
The other factor in retrospect – if this wasn’t romantic and he was simply aligning his schedule to mine to gawk at me at the pool was concerning. Does it automatically mean creepy? No.
But it now disturbed me on several levels. I felt moderately objectified, especially after another man in the complex told me he couldn’t blame the guy as I was significant “eye candy”.
SIR. KIND SIR – FINDEST THY MORALS POST HASTE.
So what is my dating philosophy?
I think we, as a society, struggle to allow ourselves to form negative opinions of anyone. I have found more and more that I don’t have to know someone’s intentions to see their behavior is problematic. I have information – no matter how absurd – to allow myself to form conclusions after a month. Why does society not like this?
Because society has trained us to be “unbothered”.
Unbothered is not even in my vocabulary. I don’t think our emotions should rule us. But I also believe God created our emotions to guide us toward His boundaries. And the boundary with this man now felt blurry and gray and intertwined with a peep show.
I also would not perform disinterest. I would not go back to rewrite events.
I liked this guy – he charmed me the first time we ever spoke. In fact, I thought it was obvious we would potentially not just go on a date but actually date. It wasn’t just chemistry either. I felt comfortable talking to him and felt it was easy, particularly the subtext.
So while rejection can hurt, I felt completely blindsided and misled. But I am happy that I chose information instead of fantasy of what if’s and maybes. Information received back was painful but ended the ambiguity I had felt. While I said England wasted his own time – which he did in my opinion – he also saved me time in the process. I wouldn’t keep investing into the dynamic.
With the gossip surrounding the situation, it made me feel as though that privacy I craved for that relationship to potentially bloom got cut off the minute I made it private. It also made me feel as though there was an explanation hanging in the balance but it wasn’t offered to me privately.
So then, I formed new conclusions – none of which were flattering. It left me with the question:
Why is it being “unbothered” is equated with maturity?
He didn’t behave maturely, so why would I not tell him his immature and even seemingly selfish actions impacted me? We cannot know what he was thinking or why.
But society has ingrained in us – not just women but in dating – that the most unbothered, the person who cares least, the person who remains without emotion is considered mature. It’s never seen as conflict avoidant. It’s never viewed from the lens of the person who shows no emotion; that they struggle to resolve small relational issues. A rejection is a very small relational issue in this case. So the inability to give information that formed coherent resolution revealed England’s immaturity.
And just as society had ingrained –
“don’t let them know they got to you” or
“don’t let him know you cared” or
“don’t give away your power”, “your peace”…
If power is what is to be garnered, the other person only holds power when you’re actively participating. That’s the irony of that ridiculous advice. Once the dynamic is over and the boundary is laid, there’s no power in the other person hands whatsoever unless you start participating again. If you’re tailoring your behavior to make sure anyone sees you’re unaffected, then you’re essentially handing over your power anyway!
Would England know I was upset by the private message I sent to him?
100%.
I couldn’t agree with his message AT ALL in fact! I couldn’t say I understood and wish him well. Not because I was wounded or hurt but because I did not agree, did not understand, and felt it was confusing through and through.
So yeah, I won’t write 50,000 sonnets declaring war for him in the future but he will not go away thinking his behavior was acceptable. While he was allowed to reject me, I was allowed to say his handling of what happened was dishonorable.
That is the key to real power – it anchors itself in God’s truth. I hand people over to God when their behavior is unacceptable.
And these scripts we’ve heard and memorized have taught us that anything besides effortless graciousness even when we’re hurt or confused is socially unacceptable.
Does closure have to be socially acceptable and follow the “No worries! Wish you best too!”?
Actions need coherence. I don’t make peace with people whose actions declare war.
That’s the final issue of culture perpetuating remaining “unbothered” – it preserves false peace when real peace is anchored in speaking truth with respect.
To reclaim agency, we must remember that a fear of judgement of others can lead to appeasement versus desiring and speaking up for clarity in a confusing situation.
What is the dating takeway?
I encourage you to be able to share something’s impact with another, even if that person fails to respond. And the fruitbowl remains ironic and symbolic – Matthew 7 tells us we will know them “By their fruit”.
It’s the idea that we can only test so far until the pattern of their actions speak loudly for us, regardless of their unspoken intentions. I particularly hate when people rationalize, “Everyone is going through something so we need to give them more grace.”
Grace isn’t license to treat us poorly or continue having access to us. We should be able to determine and control our actions while simultaneously being able to point out contradictions in character.
It’s less about portraying myself as some victim this guy rejected – but to touch on the aspects of dating culture I find to be antiquated and even damaging. Being unbothered is a damaging perspective.
So reader – if you made it this far – I give you permission to conduct your own experiments. Allow yourself to collect data, form opinions, and test your theories.
In this case, the outcome was illogical – all the evidence and testing by his pattern of behavior showed interest. Could I have misinterpreted the degree of interest? Yes. But I certainly – because we are neighbors – needed some sort of reconciliation between his behavior and his answer.
Thank you, Governor, for your time in the sun…
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…..
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But what is this again?
England has now been spotted again among American waters. What will come of this incoherent war? Nothing that has any logical or tactical explanation, I assure you.
And that is the POINT of why I chose England as my premiere Love Ledger entry. There was something so peculiar afterward of having to reinterpret behavior that “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” (Proverbs 26:11), I had a hunch England would surely return to the scene of his crime. He wouldn’t be missing in action forever. This means that people can also reject you and not change their behavior whatsoever, leaving you to hold the impact of their immature actions.
It leads me to my final hypothesis:
How someone behaves in such a minor relational repair so early on reveals how able and willing they are to resolve conflict.
And my final question to you:
What is society telling you about the dating culture that you don’t want to challenge to appear “unbothered”?
I imagine if I had never reached out to England and offered my number that it would’ve continued. It would’ve been harder down the line if we had continued flirting and just hanging out by the pool for weeks on end. So in every way, England did me a huge favor.