Dating in the 21st Century

The rules about dating in our culture have changed over the years, and technology has made the whole dating experience a little more complicated. Shelby Abbott says some of the current rules about dating need to be reconsidered. If he ghosts you and he doesn't respond at all, you dodged a bullet.

But if he does respond and then he comes and asks you out face to face, he's teachable. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. How can young people today navigate the sometimes choppy waters of relationships and dating? We've got some wise counsel for you today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. So, I've got two questions to start off with, okay?

You ready? You know what? This happens every time. I'm always scared when Bob says I've got a question. Here's question number one, and listeners just need to know, we do not do show prep where we talk about... We certainly don't. It might be a good idea every once in a while, Bob. No, I like the spontaneity.

I know you do. So, if you could have a do-over on your dating years, would you take that or not? Yes. My dating years with Anne or my dating years before Anne? Your total dating years.

Oh, definitely a do-over. So, I've talked to parents for years, and I've asked the question, raise your hand if you would like your kids to have the same dating experience as they go through their teens as you had. Oh, what a great question. And you get like, you know, maybe one hand in the back of the room. And then the next question is, so is there anything you can do to help them have a better one? And we start the parenting process with that. And you are a wise man.

I can't wait to see what you're going to say about this today. My dating experience before Anne was so bad that when I tried to date Anne, her dad barred me. He was my baseball coach. He knew my sort of history. Talk about a tool. I was the definition of a tool, which we're going to talk about here in a second.

And here's the second question before we get into tool time. Oh, there's another one. The second question is, do you think that young people going through the dating years today are having an easier time or a harder time with that phenomenon than you had? Yours was not good.

You'd like a do-over. Do you think young people today have an easier or a harder time? I think now it's way more confusing. Social media has changed the game. So we messed up when we went through it, and now it's harder.

So what conclusion should we be able to draw about how this is working for teenagers? That's why I'm glad we have the expert. We have somebody that can make this sensible. The reason we keep referring to this as tool time and talking about tools is because Shelby Abbott is joining us. Shelby, welcome. Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to be here. Explain to everybody why we call you a tool. Well, I wanted to come up with a clever title for the book. You certainly did. And I am a tool is a phrase that is used to communicate ineptness in some form or fashion, so I thought it would be clever to name the book.

I am a tool to help with your dating life. And the pause in between those two is quite important. You get a little bit of laughter and then people go, oh, okay, I get it. The subtitle's in real tiny terms.

Yeah, I can barely read that. Shelby is on staff with CREW and working with high school college-age students across the country as a speaker, as a writer, as an emcee. You've done stand-up comedy, is that right?

Yeah. In 2010, maybe, I decided to do a comedy show for Christian college students at different campuses who were involved with CREW in order to train them and motivate them in the art of evangelism. I figured if certain agendas could be pushed via humor, because humor has the ability to tear down walls, I thought if I can breach the subject of evangelism, which is so difficult sometimes, and put a humorous spin on things, it would help people at the very least to have a heart for wanting to share their faith. And so I did it for like four years. That's a little intimidating to say.

I think I'll go be a stand-up comedian to college students. Yeah, it's not fun. I got beat up on stage quite a bit. Oh, give us like a line.

Give us something. Well, I don't know if it's appropriate. Well, I used to joke a lot about kind of just the nuance of what it means to be a college student and like how things are difficult and hard, but just kind of putting a mirror up in front of people's faces through the medium of humor is one of those things that makes people want to at least listen to you. Like one of my opening lines was college is truly one of the most amazing times in a person's life.

At no other point in time can you sleep until 1130 a.m., get up, put on sweatpants, walk out into public to go get food, get it, bring it back to your room, eat it while you binge watch Netflix and still be considered a normal, hardworking contributor to society. So I would open with that. That's good.

And then they go, OK, this guy gets me. Because, yeah, I can relate. Can you relate to what we shared about dating experience? Would you say I'd do it the same way again if I could? I would make I would make a lot of different choices.

So I'd say no, that I wouldn't want that for my kids. But there were some areas where I did make some good decisions. I'm short. I'm five foot six. And so when you're short in high school, girls don't care about you at all.

And it's one of those things where I didn't date anyone in high school because no girl really thought I was manly enough. Tell listeners there was there was one time when, like, girls needed a walk back to their dorm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was that's a hard story.

Thanks for bringing that up. But I'll leave with this. Girls used to say I was cute, which on the surface sounds like a good thing. But it's actually not when they're talking about me specifically. It wasn't like cute, like, oh, my gosh, he's so cute. Like, you're like a little puppy. You're just so cute. Like a little kid brother.

Yeah. And I wouldn't like that very much. And so this one time this girl came up to me and she was like, Shelby, you are so cute. And I'd had enough. So I smacked her like hand away from my face and I pointed right at her head. And I was like, listen, I don't want to be cute anymore.

I want to be desirable. And she literally laughed at me, turned around and walked away. And I never I never spoke to that girl. So, well, yeah, with being short, it was one of those things that I felt like was difficult. But God protected me in those times where I probably would have been making a lot of the same poor decisions that my friends were in high school. I didn't become a Christian until college. And so I think it was one of those things that God ordained in my life. Because when I got to college, I became a Christian and then I started dating quite a bit in college.

I was very insecure because of my height. In fact, the story you're referring to, Bob, earlier was there was this girl named Katie who I liked. I was a sophomore. She was a freshman. And we were hanging out one night at the beginning of the semester.

She was just starting to get involved with crew. I was interested in her. So I would try to do as much as I could to kind of pair off with her and talk and that kind of stuff.

We were over this apartment for the evening playing games, hanging out, eating snacks and stuff like that. And I was hanging close to Katie and sitting next to her on a couch. And one of my other friends was sitting on the other side of Katie.

Her name was Ann. And I was kind of waiting, lingering to see when she would want to go home so I could walk her back and get some more time with her on her way back to her dorm. And so sure enough, the time came and Ann said, hey, Katie and I are going to walk back.

Is there any man that would want to walk us back to the dorms? And I quickly volunteered and I said, I'll do it. And then Ann looked at Katie, the girl I liked, and said, does he count? And I know that she wasn't trying to be malicious or mean. She wasn't trying to be like evil or even try to make a jab at me. But I would make a lot of jokes about myself by being short because I would try to beat people to the punch and prove to them that I could be smarter than them or more more funny than they could in their attempt to try to cut me down. And so no doubt she was thinking, well, he makes fun of himself about this a lot.

I could probably say this. What she didn't know is that does he count line would stick with me for years, years and years and years, not only as like a guy who girls would want to date, but as a friend, as a child of God, in ministry, as a spouse. Does he count? That question kind of echoes in your head over and over and over again. Do I have worth or value?

Do I matter? Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's one of those things that college students in general where you're living, whether you're single or you're with someone, you ask yourself that question, do I count? And we have an enemy of our soul, Satan, who replaced those offenses and those lies over and over in our heads to make us feel insecure.

Yeah. And you start to believe that. And then you live with that insecurity in a way that not only affects your brain, but it affects your decision making. It affects how you communicate with people. It affects what you choose to do in ministry.

It affects how you are as a student, all that kind of stuff. So when did you deal with the lie? How did you get through it?

Yeah. Well, there's this thing in crew that we talk about a lot called walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I really, I'd heard that a lot, but it wasn't really until the end of my junior year that I finally started to understand what it meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit to allow Him to work in and through me so that I would not believe the lies that would constantly come at me, not only internally, but also externally from the world. Living in an environment with people who looked at the heart, who didn't always judge by the outward appearance. So getting in a good Christian community of people, namely in crew, I really felt known and I felt cared about.

And I feel like I always have wrestled with that throughout my whole life, but I would overcompensate by trying to be the center of attention or funny or whatever. And eventually, this one person I respected called me on that kind of stuff and said, Hey, you realize there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Do you know what I'm saying? And I was like, Yeah. And he goes, No, no. Do you actually know what I'm saying? And I had to wrestle with the question. No, I don't think I know what Romans A1 is saying.

I don't know what that's saying. And so, I think honestly, maybe a few years into being on staff with crew. And that's kind of sad to say that, that I was a full time missionary for a few years before I moved past some of the stuff that you struggle with as an adolescent. But I've always been a late bloomer.

I think so many people struggle with that, not only in adolescence, but we carry it into our adult lives. Just a few weeks ago, I was sharing a church about some of those lies I continually battled growing up. And then as an adult, as a young mom, as a young wife, where I would look at myself in the mirror and say things like, You're dumb, you're fat, you're ugly, you're not worth anything. It had become such a pattern that I wasn't even aware of the lie that I was continually speaking to myself. And so at church a few weeks ago, I had people write down the lies that they're continually replaying in their heads. And they came up and we had crosses on both sides of our stage, and people dumped the lies. And when church was done and people had left and gone home, I sat, it makes me cry thinking about it, and read the lies. And it was appalling to me of the territory that Satan is taking in our own hearts and our minds of the things that we believe that aren't true. Because God is always cheering for us. He sees the best. He sees that look at you, you know, look at you and look how I've made you. And yet the things that I read on those papers where you don't belong, you're worthless, your life doesn't count.

One person said you should take your life because you don't matter. And so many people are walking around with those hidden lies without communicating it, and they believe it. And I love that you're bringing this up because I think it's a battle that we all face and that we need victory in. Yeah, and even going back to what you were asking before, Bob, of like, is it harder now, the layers of digital existence that are out there right now when it comes to relationships, which are always awkward and messy and sweaty and weird anyway, now you have this more of an opportunity to put distance between you and another person, not only on social media, but texting in general becomes a replacement for actual communication. Is that the fundamental mega shift that has occurred over the last two decades in how young people engage in relationships, technology and the digital world? Is that what's the biggest difference?

Yeah, I'd say that's the biggest difference. I think that one of the tendencies of an older generation is to blame technology and say this is what the problem is. And I don't think technology is the problem. I think it's what technology has forced to the surface in our lives. Fear, apathy, loneliness, all that kind of stuff, which existed in the early dating years anyway. It's just pushing it to the forefront. So now you don't have to go through the awkwardness of asking a girl out and the girl doesn't have to go through the awkwardness of saying no, you could just type it into a text message while that kind of relieves the initial stages of anxiety and awkwardness.

It trades one thing for another. It ends up being a way of communicating that says I'm going to deal with stuff in our relationship in the easiest way possible, in a way that now glosses over the realities of life. Because you need friction, you need awkwardness, you need to be able to look someone in the eye and go this is the real me.

Because you're going to have a real relationship with somebody. And if all you know how to do is kind of passively, safely text one another, although I did text my wife. I was upstairs and she was downstairs this morning and I texted her because I heard her shouting at Alexa. She was shouting at Alexa about something. So I texted her and said it sounds like you and Alexa are not in a good place.

Are you okay? But the point you're making I think is a significant one. In fact, I've seen the statistics that say teen pregnancy is down.

That's a good thing. Loneliness and depression are way up. And it's because kids aren't spending time together. They're in their bedrooms living out life on Snapchat and Instagram. That's where it's all being lived out today.

Yeah, it is. And I read this one teen author who wrote, her name is Jacquel Crow. She wrote about, she said if you think about it, speaking to adults, when you had to deal with bullying in school when you were there, you dealt with it from eight to three. Now, the way that things exist and how everybody's lives are lived out socially online, you can get bullied 24 hours a day. You can get comments made about you, any picture that you post, people will post negative things about those things. And so consequently, people are feeling I got to put my best foot forward. I got to perform. I got to look certain ways.

I have to say the right things because if I don't, I will be mocked and ridiculed and it will happen not in the confines of the school. It can happen in the comfort of my bedroom looking at my phone. And so that's scary. It's scary as a parent too. To hear that, it's very scary as a parent to know how do I help my kids?

How do I help them not go through that? I would think that a young person today who was conscious of this and said, you know, I'm going to live differently. I'm going to try to have relationships in real life.

I'm going to try to have it face to face, not just digitally. I would think their peers would be like, you're just weird. Yeah. I mean, there's an element of that.

I think you have to move past that by living a life that is authentically committed to the lordship of Jesus Christ. And when you do, no matter how quote unquote weird you might seem because you don't use your phone in the way that other people do, people will eventually look at that and go, there's just something remarkably attractive about that. I always like to tell the students that I talk to that social media, texting, your phones should never be a substitute for relationships. They should be a springboard for relationships into something deeper because I'm not anti-texting. I'm not anti-social media at all in any way. But if those things become a substitute for authentic relationships with friends, with the opposite sex, whatever, that's when your problem starts to arise. And that's what's happening when it comes to Gen Zers and millennials. But you can use social media, you can use your phone, text messaging, all that kind of stuff to deepen your relationships. The way that it helps you instantly communicate with people is a great thing.

It's a really great thing. Let me ask this. Is dating a dinosaur? Is that still a term that we can use?

I would say no. You don't call it dating. I don't anymore because it's such a foreign concept.

When they think about dating now, they think, oh, that's something my parents did. I don't go out on a date with someone. I ask, do you want to hang out sometime? Casually. And what do you want to do?

You can come over to my place and we can watch a movie or we can watch Netflix or we can maybe hang out with a few other people. That kind of a deal. Now, there's plenty of people who would say that they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, which is in my definition as semantics, it's dating.

That's what it is. They may not be going out on dates that way, but there's just a lack of intentionality in a way that there used to be, even when I was in college, which was in the late 90s. And to that point, I would think a young man who was hanging out with a young woman and said to her, you know, I want to be purposeful and I want us to use texting as a way to communicate, but I don't want our relationship to be a text relationship.

I want it to be a real relationship. I think you would weed out the wheat from the chaff pretty quick in how a young woman responds. Young women of character would go, I'm attracted to that.

Yeah, it's a diamond right there. And young women who aren't attracted to that, those are the ones you ought to let go anyway. And you flip it around and if a young woman says to a young man, look, I want to have real relationships, not just text relationships, so I'm just letting you know. A guy who is worth something will step up to that, and a guy who's not will go the passive route and say, well, I just want girls I can text and, you know, we can hang out with. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I always tell girls, if a guy texts you and doesn't ask you out face to face, text him back and say, have the guts to come to my face and ask me out to my eyeballs. And then I say, if he ghosts you and he doesn't respond at all, you dodged a bullet. But if he does respond and then he comes and asks you out face to face, he's teachable. So it's a win-win, right?

It really is. Like, why not raise the bar? Why not raise the bar? I just hope the girl who texts him back and says, have the guts to do that, and when the guy comes and says, okay, will you go out with me?

I hope she doesn't go, no. And being injured like that as a guy is something we need to take our legs. It's healthy. Now, are you seeing in the dating culture now, are you seeing women and men responding like Bob was saying? Like, that's what they really want deep down. I think authentically, yeah, they really do want it.

High school students, college students for certain, and high school students, I actually talked about this with a group of high school students a month ago. And they were riveted because it's so foreign for them, for someone to communicate in a way that says, why don't we live authentically? Why don't we raise the bar in the lives of the people around us? Why don't we have the guts to look people in the eyeballs and interact with one another? Because if you're going to just text, you're going to avoid the bumps of relationship friction, but it will come back to bite you in the future because you will not know how to communicate authentically, and you won't be able to argue well.

I even tell them, you won't be able to get a job as much because the guy or girl who can look the boss in the eye, listen to what their questions are, answer in an intelligent way, is going to be a way better candidate for getting a job in the future than someone who has no idea how to communicate with someone because they don't know how to make eye contact, they don't know how to shake a person's hand, they don't know how to answer a question because they spent their lives looking through a digital window. And I would just concur with that and say, man, here's what I'm hearing God say to the men out there, and you can talk to the women, but I can talk to the guys. Like, he's calling you to step into manhood. There's some guy listening right now who needs to drive over to that dorm room, drive over to her house, walk up to the door, ring the doorbell.

I mean, it sounds so elementary, but it's like, step into risk-taking manhood and look her in the eye, and if you found a woman you want to pursue, step into it. And if you need tools to help you with that? Yeah. Tools? We got the tool to help you.

Got one. We got copies of Shelby's book, which is called I Am a Tool, to help with your dating life. The book is available in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can order a copy from us online at familylifetoday.com or call to order 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, our website is familylifetoday.com. The phone number is 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. The book we're talking about is by Shelby Abbott.

It's called I Am a Tool. Of course, we're dealing with something here that is pre-marriage, and Family Life Today is known for ministry to marriages and families, but our real focus is on relationships, on helping you with the most important relationships in life. Your relationship with God, your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with your children, your extended family members. This is where the Christian life is lived out, and at Family Life Today, our mission is to effectively develop godly marriages and families.

So when we get into issues like dating, pre-marriage issues, it's with that bigger goal in mind to help us know how we can walk faithfully with Christ in every relationship in life. And we're so grateful for those of you who make Family Life Today possible, for the hundreds of thousands of listeners who join us each day, those who listen on radio, those who listen via podcast, online, through our Family Life app. You make that possible when you make a donation to support the ongoing work of Family Life Today. If you're a regular, long-time listener and you've never made a donation, why don't you pay it forward today so that there can be hundreds of thousands of people who listen to tomorrow's program. You can go online at familylifetoday.com, make a one-time donation, or become a monthly legacy partner. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com.

You can also call to donate at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. And we hope you can join us back again tomorrow when Shelby Abbott will be here again to help us think about how we can assist young people, friends, family members, going through the challenges of dealing with the rugged terrain of the dating scene in the 21st century. Hope you can be with us for all of that tomorrow. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.