DEAR BOUNDLESS ANSWERS
It has been such a great blessing to me reading this new
column. I'm sure many people will be helped through this
column. Here's my question: As a young woman, a certain young
man has caught my attention. We have become fairly good
friends, but the only problem is that he's too shy to make the
first move. What am I to do when I am interested, but he won't
do anything? Any suggestions?
I'm in college and read this Boundless every week. Please,
keep up the good work. You will never know how much of a
blessing you have been until we reach heaven. Thank you so
much.
REPLY
You say you've become fairly good friends but he's too shy
to make the first move. Do you mean make the first move
toward dating? If he's not too shy to be your friend, why would
he be too shy to state his intentions to date you?
Maybe he's happy just being friends and doesn't want to
date. It's possible, if you're both still students, that he knows
he's not ready to marry in the next 6 months to a year, and
therefore, doesn't want to initiate a romantic relationship yet. Or
it may also be that he's content with your friendship and isn't
romantically attracted to you the way you are to him.
Finally, it's possible your friendship is meeting his needs for
companionship, intimacy and respect, and therefore he doesn't
perceive a need to move the friendship to the next level.
As Debbie
Maken would say, you've got to leave men lonely enough to
need you. Or as Scott
Croft said, don't meet all of a man's "intermediate needs"
lest he never feel the need to marry. The key is to not do so
much as his friend that your friendship could be mistaken for a
dating relationship. It's tempting to slide into a relationship
because it's comfortable, rather than deciding to take the bold
steps necessary to be a couple with a goal of marriage.
Whatever this young man's reasons for not moving beyond
friendship, I'd encourage you to not try and make things
happen. A situation like this requires great wisdom because you
don't want to do anything that sets a precedent for you as the
leader. Biblically, it's a man's role to initiate and a woman's role
to respond. Scott Croft would say pray and wait, and avoid the
temptation to play the grade school game of leaking word to his
friends that you think he's neat.
Sincerely,
Candice Watters
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DEAR BOUNDLESS ANSWERS
I am a single woman of 32 years. There is a saved young
man in our church that I would like to get to know better. Is it
too assertive or unbecoming for me to ask him out for lunch or
something?
I've always believed that it was the man who should initiate
a date, but is that too old-fashioned in today's world?
REPLY
I agree with you that, yes, it's too assertive. I think you
should stick to what you've always believed. There's a lot about
following the Word's way that's old-fashioned in today's
world.
Best,
Candice Watters
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DEAR BOUNDLESS ANSWERS
I really like receiving the weekly newsletters — thanks. I
do have a question. I'm going to be turning 29 this spring and
am not dating anyone, but the "not dating anyone" really doesn't
bother me a whole lot. What does is having children later in life.
Based on the reading I've done, there seems to be a greater risk
of birth defects for women who have children after 35. Should I
be concerned about that?
REPLY
Thanks for writing. You're correct that the risk of birth
defects is higher among women over 35. But the risk is
statistical and it's not 100 percent. Certainly it's no reason to not
have children after 35 — Sarah and Elizabeth are
great examples of having late-in-life babies by faith against all
odds. Lots of women have babies after 35 without complication.
My own mom had my youngest brother when she was 39.
I think the piece of missing information that eludes many
young women in their 20s is how much the difficultly of
conceiving a baby rises as they age. Women are most fertile
between the ages of 18 and 25. Fertility begins a slow decline at
25 that speeds up dramatically at 35. At age 40, a woman's
fertility is only 5 percent of what it was at its peak. Despite all
the magazine headlines about movie stars having babies well
into their 40s, the likelihood of conceiving a first child after age
40 is fairly low. What many of those news stories don't reveal is
the range of expensive and often difficult infertility treatments
that made those pregnancies possible. And as high-tech as
infertility advancements have become, they're still no guarantee
of a baby.
One highly successful educator — a chair at a top-10
university — details years of expensive, failed infertility
treatments, concluding her bitter tale with the following:
You know the advice handed out to our generation was very
problematic. We were told: "Do what men do. Work your tail off
until you're established in your field. Sacrifice what you need to
for your career." But now I think, if you want children, "cloning
the male, competitive model" doesn't work.
I'm forever telling my women students: Don't be afraid of
letting go of a half-built career. We are smart, well-educated
and life is long. Career opportunities can be recaptured. Don't
waste that small window of fertility. Don't live to regret not
having had a
child.1
This isn't a reason to panic, but to prepare. Often women
assume they can spend their 20s pursuing their education and
career and then shift their focus to getting married and
family-building in their 30s. The problem is that for many
women, their best opportunities and offers for marriage occur in
her 20s, overlapping her prime child-bearing years.
Blessings,
Candice Watters
* * *
DEAR BOUNDLESS ANSWERS
I just found out about your magazine, wonderful source for
single Christians.
Okay, so I have a different twist on the question what is a
girl to do if she is interested in a guy. It seems like a lot of the
ladies whose questions were answered in this past newsletter,
already knew the guy somehow and just need to express their
interest, but what if you don't know the guy?
There is a gentleman at my church who I have only seen
twice, and for some reason I am interested in knowing what he
is about. He comes off as a very nice guy. However, I never really
see him to strike up a conversation. I do not have a clue when I
will see him again. The good thing about the situation is that he
happens to be friends with one of my really close friends. She
said she would not mind setting something up so we would have
the opportunity to talk, i.e. a bowling outing with a few friends. I
have been going back and forth trying to figure out if this is a
smart move or should I just pray and wait for God to bump us
into each other again?
REPLY
Thanks for writing. Your friend's offer to set up a group
outing that happens to include both you and the man you've
noticed, sounds helpful. As long as it's truly a group outing (not
a surprise double date), this could be a great way to talk to this
guy without chasing him. Just keep it low key, and as much as
possible don't let your nerves get the best of you!
I wish you well,
Candice Watters
* * *
NOTES
- Sylvia Ann Hewlett. Creating a Life: Professional
Women and the Quest for Children. Copyright ©
2002. Talk Miramax Books. New York, p. 50.
* * *
If you have a question you'd like Candice to consider for
this column, please send it to editor@boundless.org. Please note, all questions
that are selected for "Boundless Answers" may be edited for
clarity and privacy and become the property of Focus on the
Family.
