Dealbreaker: The Super Religious Guy
Posted by: Jocelyn Nubel | Filed in: Relationships
10:00AM, Monday July 14th 2008
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First date. He comes to my apartment for a boxed wine party a deux, his enthusiasm for Franzia leading me to believe this is the exact person I should be dating. And he’s cute. He’s real cute. Over the course of the evening I find out that he’s smart. He’s a self-proclaimed “literature guy.” He’s funny. He reaches over and pushes aside the hair that’s fallen in my eyes while I’m laughing. I like him. And then he says, “There’s something I need to tell you...”
Ahh! Enter the inevitable dealbreaker. (My, don’t you look familiar!) When he then confesses that he “can’t have sex right now,” I breathe a huge (and embarrassingly audible) sigh of relief. I’m thinking, “No big deal! He’s just a hermaphrodite or something! I’ll learn to love it.” But when I ask why, I find out that no, it’s not something simple like a combo of boy and girl parts down there, it’s much more complicated than that. This guy can’t have sex because, well, he’s very religious.
Then we made out, because apparently recognizing that God is coming between you and your date is a total turn-on.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against those with faith. Sometimes, I wish I had a little more of it myself. But right now, at this juncture in my life, religion isn’t something I can relate to, and because it was such a big part of this guy’s life, I had a strong feeling I wasn’t going to be able to relate to him.
But I’m weak, and looking at his big blue eyes, I heard myself say, “This isn’t a dealbreaker at all!” And then we made out, because apparently recognizing that God is coming between you and your date is a total turn-on.
But awhile later, when the wine-in-a-bag-in-a-box buzz really kicked in, I started to panic and ask A LOT of questions. I found out that if we continued to date, we’d run into some problems. Some examples being:
- He was hoping to one day open up a center of sorts. This was a center I’d likely picket.
- He was opposed to a pill I take regularly, and I ain’t about to pop pills in a dark alley somewhere.
- He didn’t think my best gay had the right to marry. Um, nobody tells my best friend he can’t do what he feels.
It became clear very quickly that there were real, weighty issues at hand, and he and I happened to disagree on every single one of them. In retrospect, I should have recognized the fact that this budding relationship could never go anywhere—hell, it couldn’t even go past third base—but instead, I found myself thinking that if I was as open-minded as I liked to believe, I should be accepting of this guy for who he is. So I continued to see him and, surprisingly, it was fun, albeit a little strange from time to time, but it was interesting. I was curious to see where this would go.
I wish my story ended there, a happy little tale with a “united across religious boundaries"-type message. But it doesn’t. Instead, a few weeks later, this God-loving guy preemptively dumped me, chalking it up to “having to be true to himself.” To make matters worse, he then started dating my best friend’s sister, whom he happened to meet at MY APARTMENT.
So, what’s the moral of this story? I think it goes back to recognizing when someone’s not a good fit for you. I’ll be honest, I didn’t sleep well when he stayed over at my place. Maybe that was due to the fact that I was sexually frustrated. Or maybe, maybe it was my instinct recognizing the huge red flags—hell, these weren’t flags these were FLARES being shot off into the night— signaling that something just wasn’t right. And by GOD, I’ll never overlook that feeling again.
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amelia mendez
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:15 am:
It really sucks when good looks go to waste. I’d rather he’d drop the g-word (as in girlfriend) than the G-word (god), or even worse, the J-word (when not in vain).
At least if its a girlfriend there is a chance of saving him… but a relationship with mythological figures I am not willing to deal with.
LovesIt
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:26 am:
Is the problem really his religion or his particular beliefs? I’m a Christian but I don’t agree with all his beliefs.... and I doubt you mean to generalize all religious people as non-dateable. At least, I hope you’re not being that myopic!
Side note, I would not find the non-religious guy to be a dealbreaker unless he was a) hateful to religion and/or b) atheist.
Annika Harris
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:26 am:
I once had a guy tell me he was a god-fearing man. Whatever that means. And then he proceeded to tell me that hopefully when I get older, I too will find faith. We dated for five months and there were definitely other red flags, like being so hung up on sex is dirty that he had to say dirty movies, instead of porn.
Amelia
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:29 am:
@LovesIt I think the problem wasn’t that he was religious, but that his religious beliefs didn’t really vibe with her beliefs—the not having sex, the not believing in birth control, etc.
Amelia
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:30 am:
@Annika Harris That reminds me of the Sex and the City episode where Miranda dates the Catholic guy who has so much Catholic guilt or whatever that he has to take a shower after sex.
LovesIt
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:35 am:
@Amelia. That’s what I’m hoping.... but the title of the post is pretty misleading.
Jocelyn Nubel
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:56 am:
@LovesIt. Amelia’s right on. It wasn’t the fact that he was religious—it was his politics/moral viewpoints that went along with his religious beliefs, and how completely opposite they were of mine that threw me. I didn’t generalize; I asked him point blank (thanks Franzia!) what his take was on all sorts of explosive topics. Needless to say, things got awkward, fast.
SueJane
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 11:04 am:
You should consider yourself lucky it ended quickly. All those creepy holy rollers invariably end up being the ones with the huge stack of freako german poop porn under their beds.
Oh - and @ LovesIt - so writing off religious people as undatable is “myopic”, but writing off atheists is A-OK? I doubt you mean to imply that, right? At least, I hope you’re not being that much of a hypocrite.
LovesIt
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 11:19 am:
@SueJane. Not hypocritical at all. I would argue that a commitment to atheism specifically is almost always incompatible with a commitment to religious faith and therefore is very unlikely to work out (and I’m speaking from my experience here, not to everyone’s experience). It’s just too polar opposite and too incompatible at the core.
As stated, I have no problem with so called “non-religious” guys. Also as stated, to others, the title of this post is very misleading, hence my initial reply.
kk
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 05:16 pm:
Yet another dealbreaker I can completely relate to, box-o-wine and all.
Meg
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 06:07 pm:
Been there. I feel the same way!
FeelingFlirty
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 06:34 pm:
I think differences in religious beliefs are no different than people with different sexual interests, or people with different intellectual differences. We’re all born with an inner knowing that says, “this doesn’t feel right.”
Too often when we’re horny we don’t listen to it. If you’d left the guy on the first date, you’d have felt much better about the whole situation.
Jocelyn Nubel
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 09:57 pm:
@kk, @pour some sugar: While I do find some comfort in our solidarity, I can’t help but wonder WHY WE SO OFTEN IGNORE THE UH-OH FEELING! Am officially raising my standards, effective immediately. Do the same, do the same!
Elle
[report]wrote on July 14 2008 @ 10:25 pm:
I think that when one person has strong religious beliefs and the other doesn’t that the relationship is headed for doomsville. I dated someone who was Jewish, but who didn’t practice on a regular basis and he had some very strong viewpoints about the kind of woman he would marry, meaning she had to either be Jewish or convert. I was never baptized and don’t feel the inclination to do so ever and I wasn’t about to change who I was just to fit into someone’s mold of what they wanted. We broke up and I found my husband, who is also un-baptized, which I’m grateful for because I tend to think that religion gets in the way, especially when it comes to the whole marriage/having kids part of your relationship.
ameliamendez
[report]wrote on July 16 2008 @ 08:29 am:
@lovesit @elle
Yeah. I’ll take an agnostic… or maybe “jewish or culture” but not really a believer. Doesn’t have to be a proclaimed atheist… it shouldn’t even come to question what he is because it shouldn’t be a part of his life.
I need a guy that lives life for what it is now… while he is alive. He has to believe in what is here on Earth and not mix it up with some mythology.
As I said before, if life and humanity and a girlfriend all fall lower in rank some dude in the sky it just won’t work.
ZZZ3
[report]wrote on July 18 2008 @ 06:43 am:
In dreams and in life, nothing is impossible.
(fortune cookie of the day)
How much are you willing to give? Take?
This can be a slippery slope.
Religion and open hearts , from what I have witnessed, do not always go hand “in” hand.
I hear anything is possible. But I have not yet been experienced.
Having faith in spirit is the only meaningful rejoicing for me.
Can we ever begin to accept each other for who we are? Sometimes I doubt it.
My advice? If you really are into them, quit trying to understand"stop making sense”, just be there with them. Listen.
There are plenty of lessons to be learned here…
..that is just my triple nickel.
ZacharieDaquiriDoc
[report]wrote on July 24 2008 @ 09:37 am:
I just watched Robert Anton Wilson’s “Maybe Logic”.
This is only relevant here because of my reprogramming of perspective. Reading Cosmic Trigger now..pretty intense. Very Aliester Crowley meets Timothy Leary meets Henry Miller.