Chapter 9: Love, Lust, and Lasting Relationships

 

    Let’s introduce this chapter with a thought-provoking question. Is beauty a blessing, or a curse? Or could it be some of each? The answer could be measured in many ways.

    Experience shows that a beautiful person will receive more attention in life, but is it the right sort of attention? Doors seem to open more easily, but will they lead to happiness? Accolades may abound but what’s the catch?

    In so many ways, beauty carries a short-term advantage and a long-term disadvantage. So for you the question must be: How much emphasis should you place on physical beauty as criteria in your search?

    As I moved from the College Group to the Singles Group, years ago, I entered a new community of believers. A few additional years had passed for them, so they’d grown more mature and had entered the season for marriage and families. But a contrast also appeared which frankly amazed me:

    Back in the College Group, the most beautiful women always seemed to be the most eligible; but here in the Singles Group, they had already seen the most rejection. Though only a few years older, most of them had already been married and divorced.

    As I heard their stories, a pattern emerged. This may seem obvious to you, and it seemed clear enough to them in hindsight; but either way, please consider it humbly while there’s hope for you to avoid their fate:

    When a woman is very attractive, she can usually have her pick of men and she’ll often choose the most handsome man from among them. They make such a lovely pair! The birds are singing, the butterflies are flying and the flowers are in bloom. A wonderful chemistry appears and the relationship moves quickly to marriage. Congratulations and gifts pour in from their friends, and everyone thinks of them as a picture book couple.

    But when the wedding is over and the excitement fades, something important begins to change. The novelty of their union is gone. The spell is broken and suddenly they realize they have nothing in common at all!

    Only then will they discover that the ‘love’ they’ve shared was infatuation. It was sadly true for both of them, and now they found themselves married to a stranger.

    Some of those couples responded by seeking the Lord in prayer, and the good news is that some of them made it! But the sad news is that the ones I found in the Singles Group, years later, hadn’t.    

    For some of those couples, a secondary challenge rose which made the first more complicated. After realizing that they’d only married their spouse for their beauty, one or both of them met another person who was even more beautiful. And then another. And another!

    No one has a monopoly on beauty, so they should never have made their decisions on that basis alone. Or perhaps the other person was not as beautiful but they were attractive in an interesting, different way, such as a wonderful smile, sharp tones, clear skin, or pretty hair.

    If their loyalty was based entirely on their partner’s beauty, they found it seriously challenged in the presence of someone who was even more beautiful. This was especially ill-timed since they were just beginning to feel a love-loss from the same realization. It usually didn’t cause them to fall, but it did hasten the process of their disillusionment and gave them less heart for working things out with their spouse.

    The fact that this scenario is common makes it no less tragic. But let’s not be naïve: things are not always so innocent—especially when only one of the partners was beautiful. Here, the beautiful partner (whether the man or the woman) may have been so vain that they set selfish terms for their relationship, confident from experience that their conditions or demands would be met. The other partner, who may have been willing initially, eventually felt belittled, and so the relationship became challenged from that direction as well.

    Some of the women I met in those days, though humbled enough for the moment, were really in that category all along. As soon as they recovered, they did the same to the next person in line. It had become a subtle, underlying mentality. This is a true situation that you should plainly understand so the next person in their line won’t be you (Proverbs 27:15).

    But again, let’s not be naïve: on the other end of that spectrum, ‘beauty’ may be the sincere party, while their partner is the one with the problem. For example, one Friday night long ago, a pretty young girl called her boyfriend in tears. She poured out the terrible news that her grandmother had just died, and she trembled with grief. But on the other end, her boyfriend could only think, “Does this mean we’re not going out tonight?”

    In this example (which happens to be a true one,) the boyfriend only cared that she was there for him, to make him feel good about himself. A guy feels like a million bucks when a beautiful woman is hanging onto his arm! As for her—sadly to say, attractive people may find lots of heartache if they confuse their popularity with genuine care. While everyone seems to like them, it’s less sincere than they may think.

    Now put the woman from our first example in a relationship with the man from our second example. Do we need to describe how shallow that could be, and the slim chance for that relationship to succeed? But it needn’t be that way.

    As a fourth example: some attractive Christian women wish that others would get to know them first as a person, and they’re mildly distressed when men won’t seem to allow them this. They may not complain outright, because that could be a form of vanity in itself, yet we can easily surmise it through their attitudes and words as they try to refocus on the things that matter more. And for the record, that’s what a truly beautiful Christian woman looks like (First Peter 3:3-4).

    In each of our four scenarios, beauty became a problem because it received too much initial emphasis, while the qualities of the heart became lost in its glare. It produced romantic feelings like a roller coaster, with wonderful romantic peaks and dismal, dejected valleys. So between those peaks, something much more stable is needed to steady the course. And we will find that element reflected between Christ and the church:

    “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends.”

(John 15:15)

    A true, underlying friendship is a steadfast bond, whereas romance alone can be fragile and unstable (Proverbs 17:17; Song 5:6-8). Romance could have you full of joy one moment, with your head in the clouds -- but then something as simple as the wrong tone of voice could send you plummeting into the depths of misery, even if that was completely unintended.

    But when romance is undergirded by a solid friendship, it provides the stability that a purely romantic relationship lacks. Hearing the wrong tone of voice would raise a concern for your partner, rather than a fear of your own rejection, and that’s much closer to the way things should be. Friendship is ever-present; romance is like the icing on the cake. And when a couple shares the basic love of friendship, their romantic feelings will be far more enjoyable because they’re completely secure and less fragile.

    So then, is beauty a blessing or a curse? Beauty can be a blessing that a person gives to their spouse if they first share a love from the heart, based on more enduring qualities. When given or received in this manner, beauty can be a blessing indeed. So how much emphasis should you place on beauty as criteria in your search? Again, let’s look to the Lord for the answer:

    In itself, for Him, physical beauty is never a factor. He doesn’t look on the outward appearance, but on the heart (First Samuel 16:7). He neither chooses nor refuses anyone on that basis, and He would recommend the same for us (Second Corinthians 5:16). But He also knows that we’re human and that we will look on the outward appearance (First Samuel 16:7).

    So my advice is that you try to follow God’s leading as much as you can. Focus first on the inner qualities, using God’s own criteria in order to keep your priorities straight (Matthew 6:33). And then, from among the group you find, look for one with some of your more subjective preferences. The better you succeed in this order, the happier you’ll probably be.

    And now some practical applications for the Internet.

    Initially we are all attracted to another person on the basis of their beauty. At first glance, who can tell anything else about them? Therefore we might as well be honest about it from the beginning. Yet your task is to build the relationship on something better—even if a physical attraction remains in the meantime. And this leads to the single greatest advantage that the Internet can offer:

    At the meeting services, introductions are facilitated through reading each other’s profile. We might compare this to a friend who knows you both and tells each of you about the other, then arranges a meeting between you. This provides you with a more balanced outlook from the beginning, so there will be more to your attraction than beauty alone. And the same, initial advantage can be developed further:

    By their very nature, internet meetings occur remotely. This leads to an initial period of acquaintance through email and chat rooms, with personalities as your only real touch point. Under these circumstances the glare of beauty will seem less bright, which allows the inner ‘stars’ of your personalities to be seen. Each of you may express your own heart and mind freely and build an excellent rapport on those terms, before anything else is allowed to follow.

    As your corre­spondence blooms, the next logical step is to initiate phone calls, allowing the ‘stars’ of your personality to shine even more brightly through your voice, humor, etc., while the ‘sun’ of your physical beauty remains below the horizon.

    The entire process takes time and develops at a pace that the two of you can agree on. We might say that it affords you this time through the process itself, which promotes a much wiser beginning. So when you finally do meet your new friend in person, the foundation will be properly set.

    Let’s remember that the initial attraction of beauty may have remained the whole time; yet it has been disciplined through this process and checked in its impulsiveness to make it follow your friendship, as it should. And that will offer the best hope for your relationship in the long run.

    But someone will say, “What about photos? Doesn’t a profile include those?” Yes, most profiles allow photographs as an option and I strongly recommend that you do include at least one. After all, they’ll have to see what you look like some time! But there are three reasons why including your photo will have a manageable impact in this regard:

    First: while photographs may account for an initial interest, they’re like diamonds that don’t sparkle. If anyone looks at them long enough, they’ll begin to see the flaws in them. Soon, that’s all they’ll see. Those pictures will be the only images they have to go by during the initial period, and by themselves they won’t be enough to hold the interest for long.

    Experience is speaking, so trust me in this! Infatuation, if it stands alone, will probably wear off before the relationship reaches the point of actually meeting each other, so a real friendship has a chance to develop if the meantime.

    Second: many of the Internet meeting services have thousands of other profiles which include photographs. Some of those people will be equally beautiful or even more beautiful than you or your friend; and with all of that ‘competition’ around, a ‘blindness’ from the glare of one person’s beauty just won’t have the opportunity to endure. The broader context of ‘competition’ provides checks and balances to prevent that.

    And third: combining the first and second points will hasten the process of fading infatuation, so its influence will be filtered out as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, you still haven’t met your new friend in person. Time is on your side for just long enough to establish a good relationship based on friendship. Since you still haven’t met in person, you’re still in the night and the stars have their chance to shine before dawn arrives.

    And now another brief word about photos. If your family or friends consider you an attractive person, and you think it may attract the wrong sort of attention, here are two suggestions:

    First, you should only place one or two photos of yourself in your profile. And please keep them simple (First Peter 3:3-4). Give your inner stars a chance to shine. This way, if you decide to meet a person you’ve been writing to, a budding friendship and a continued interest may already be formed on the better terms we’ve discussed. And from there, it never hurts to be better looking in person than in your photographs!

    Second suggestion: When you fill out your profile questionnaire, many of the Internet meeting services will ask you to rate your degree of beauty. This will be done through multiple choice questions with categories such as ‘below average,’ ‘average,’ ‘above average,’ or ‘very good looking.’

    Keep in mind that whatever can be categorized can also become a computer search criteria; so if you put that you are ‘above average’ or ‘very good looking,’ you may have a problem with the wrong sort of attention. You may only get the type of person who is too shallow to care about anything else.

    My own suggestion is that modesty would suit you better. Simply put that you are ‘average’ looking, and if anyone thinks you’re more than that, it will be their own conclusion (Proverbs 27:2). But for yourself, a precious inner beauty would come shining through that would set the tone for the sort of relationship you’re really interested in (First Peter 3:3-5).

    By the way, both of those suggestions were based on Nancy. She was much prettier in person than in her photo and I just couldn’t help being impressed with her. I was so surprised that I even questioned her about it afterward. But she only said that she was being honest about things, and thank you, she was flattered. As you can imagine, that made her seem all the more beautiful to me in all the right ways.