the problem with standards

NOTE: This post is not about a particular woman, but was formed through a collage of conversations over the past five years.

A simple statement made in passing: easily disgarded as "nothing," but carrying the weight of romantic frustration. I am supposed to receive it as a joke...

"So you plan to find someone there that meets your standards?"

I know what she meant by it. She's suggesting that I'm virtually unattainable. There's some truth to that -- I'm not trying to be attained. I'm an old-fashioned guy in that way. But each female friend holding unreciprocated feelings for me has had something snarky to say about my standards. And then they've tried to attain me.

My job has trained me in the subtle arts of emotional manipulation. My senses jump to red alert when I am made to feel guilty for trying to live a holy life. The second move is equally vindictive: she plays the victim to my "judgment" -- for having considered her below my standards. I have never been so cold as to imply this to any woman, yet in a matter of seconds I have been branded a prude and a Pharisee.

Naturally, this is coupled with a compliment: "You look really nice today."

I shouldn't let it bother me, right? I should shrug it off on the inside the way I do on the outside. Why does this get under my skin?

It's a culmination. It's years of being treated like a second-rate minister in the church because I am single. It's listening to much younger men talk about loneliness and rejection like I've never been there, or that they deserve better than their circumstances. It's spending time with Christian women that would rather be entertained by a man than led.

The pressure builds up under the surface of my patience, and a volcano is about to blow. So when she now mocks my pursuit of righteousness -- this, my sister in Christ...

AHHHHHHHHH!!!

The thing is, for all the jockeying and attempts to apprehend me, they've always liked the idea of me better than the implications. They say they trust me, but do not follow. They like that I'm different than other guys, and then ask me to compromise. They expect me to defend my convictions about church and birth control, so that they can convince me that I'm being impractical. This is supposed to woo me?

I know that I ask a lot. It would be so much easier to own the common standards of most church-going men. Few would think less of me. I could cure my periodic loneliness and live a justifiably simple life in the eyes of men.

But if there's a chance...if one woman would resist the American dream for a spiritual adventure, if one woman would be blessed by the family that God allows us to produce and raise, if one woman would encourage my leadership and follow me to uncertain places, if one woman would maintain her own ridiculous standards to wait for me in purity...if one such woman could love me, I would ask her to share this life.