Phases of Talking To Girls

(upbeat music) - Welcome in to episode 189 of The God in the Men Podcast. Today we have a very interesting episode. We recorded episode seven. February, I think it was for Valentine's Day, if I remember right. - February, 2023. - 2023. It's been a minute, to say the least. It's been a minute. Since we've had an episode on talking with girls, I know we've had a few things here there along the way. - Girls to avoid and stuff like that. - Yeah, girls to avoid, but like a practical how-to. Well, this is something we get asked like a lot actually. We just had another one on Spotify, so shout out whoever that was. Thank you for listening and for the comment saying, how should we, 15, 16, 17 years old, engage girls at that point? And we thought, why stop there? What if we did down to 12 years old? We know we have some younger watchers. What about 22 plus, you know? So we broke it down into four phases. We're gonna get into a little bit later. 12 to 14, 15 to 17, 18 to 21, and then 22 plus. What conversation should you be having? What does this look like in terms of how to engage girls at that age? Should a 12 year old be dating, you know, a girl? Should a 22 year old still be kind of wondering what he's looking at here and whether he should engage or not? So those are the questions we really want to get into. But any opening thoughts as we start? - Yeah, it's crazy that I think it was four kids ago. - Yeah. - Recorded that episode. - That's nuts. - This is obviously one of the biggest questions and kind of things that are on a young man's mind. I mean, I'm only 26, I very much remember, you know, when I was 10, 11, 12, and the reason we went down to 12 is like, yeah, girls were on my mind at 12, for sure. Like it didn't wait 'til I was 15 or 16 years old. And especially in the age that we're in, where, you know, certainly by 15, unfortunately, some people are a lot younger. You get a phone in your hand, you're able to communicate with anybody and everybody, specifically girls, of course. And so, yeah, I think this is a very needed, you know, discussion as we figure out, like, okay, we know that you can, you know, just talk to girls and engage with girls via digital communication or whatever, again, as soon as you get a phone. So, 10, 12, but how should you, what should that look like? You know, what are the, I'm not flirting and like, is that, how much of that is too much is that amount and things like that. So, a lot of this, again, you don't have to agree. - That's fine. - But this is our podcast, so you're listening. - So, you know, you're gonna hear what we think, you feel free to disagree. But Joe, the only thing that I was gonna ask you is we kind of get started and you kind of give them the basics here. What we were homeschooled, both of us had kind of unique experiences, or unique not experiences, unique restrictions, as far as dating goes. - Sure. - I think the way that I'm gonna try to approach this episode is obviously that's kind of my perspective. Like, I'm not gonna be letting my son date at 14 years old. But I'm also gonna try to answer under the, you know, perspective of like, I know not everybody is going to be aligned exactly with the way that we were raised from a dating restriction standpoint. I don't know if you have any thoughts. Like, that's just gonna make it a little bit different with this episode. - It will, it will. You're gonna get a shelter homeschool kids approach. In all honesty, though, I mean, - Just to put the qualifier out there. - Yeah, and there are some things that I might nitpick about how we did it, how my parents say, we're gonna have some questions on here that might disagree with the way I was raised, in some ways. On the other hand, there's a lot of wisdom to it. That's the thing is you have to go off of the merit and off of the wisdom of some of these things. - And the fruits that come from it. - Yeah, the fruits that come from it. - So you look at it and it's like, oh, those backwards homeschoolers, okay. What are the fruits of dating at 12 years old? Versus waiting until you're ready for marriage. I think we can kind of see the difference there just because you waited, as I've said before, yes. My wife and I still had sex before marriage. It was not the silver bullet of like, oh, it's perfect. Everything's great. No, you still make mistakes. You still have issues. You're still not always smooth with the ladies or whatever it may be, just because you waited. It's not the path to perfection. But I think there's a lot of wisdom to some of these things that still, you can't look like this, though. You know, like, oh, I don't even notice girls. - Yeah, dude, you're 12, 13, 14, 15. Of course, you're gonna notice girls. So we just need to know how do we respond to some of them. And look, if you end up dating at 12 years old, we're gonna, news flash. We don't agree with that. On the other hand, yeah, there's some things you probably need to be aware of, which we wanna get into. So the one thing that I had on here is, I was gonna let you elaborate on this one. I'll just put rough state with girls out there. We are in a rough state. I mean, the whole Lindsey Clancy thing just came down. You look at the way that a lot of women are, a lot of the Gen Z women are going as woke as possible, as liberal as possible. We feel for you. We genuinely do. We found two amazing wives. That is not the case for everybody out there. And so I feel really bad for, like, you know, we see these guys on the Discord. Great, hearted guys. I mean, if my daughter was old enough, it'd be like, these are the guys that I would have her, you know, potentially consider as suitors. Just a lot of salt to the earth guys, they got nobody. You know, they, and the funny thing is vice versa. I know a lot of girls like, there's no good guys out there. It's like, we got a couple hundred guys on the Discord and we just need to find each other out there. But I do see the modern trend of guys becoming more based and things like that. We got a lot of guys that are looking for fraternity. They're looking for, you know, this, this, you know, guys doing guy things, masculinity and all this. We're in a rough state with girls. And so I'm just going to put that right out there that we see that. We understand that the conversations that you can have with girls may be more, more difficult these days than they used to because girls used to be the finer that were the fairer sex. That's not always the case. Nowadays, girls sometimes are just a sexualized girl. Sometimes, you know, they do cuss trying to be like the guys. So we want to be aware of that as well when it comes to engaging with the females in the year 2026. - Yeah, so I think that was very well said. Before we get into kind of each of the age phases, the kind of that we're calling it. Just to cover some basics, it's pretty obvious here, but you don't need to be afraid of females, especially if you're on the younger end. They're created in God's image just like you are. And yes, like God designed you to be curious about them, to be attracted to them. Maybe even to be nervous around them, but you know, it's important to know they are creating God's image just like you are, just like you were. And the other thing too that you've got to appreciate is due to the kind of gap in belief systems that young guys and young girls have of these days. And again, you can say that that's whatever, but like statistics back then up. Like guys from Gen Z do lean far more conservative statistically on political issues and females lean the other way. Like again, look up any article you want. And because of that, I think some guys can get into this mindset of, well, just all women are impossible. It's just not worth it. Like the men going their own way we talked about before, but like, it's just not worth it. Women are just impossible to deal with. Not all of them, as we, as you spoke to both of us, we're incredibly blessed with the girls that we found, the ones that were still happily married to. They do exist. Regardless of especially where you live, it can be harder to find at what your church situation is, has a pretty big impact on it as well. But don't give into that. I'm glad you put that on there. Don't give into that belief that it's just, it's impossible and too much headache. Yeah, the only other thing I'd add for a basics. I don't think you should be nervous. I think women are actually drawn to confidence. The women are drawn to-- I think that might be the number one thing they're drawn to. Yeah, not to speak for women, but like confidence is, it sets you apart so much. Confidence, vision, and identity. Do you know who you are? The vision, I got a career, I know where I'm going in life, and that's what brings that confidence, is like, I know who I am, I know where I'm going. That's the confidence that we're speaking of that you will have a much easier time with the women if you don't need them, but you want them. And the needing is like, I know how to live life on my own. I'm confident in my abilities to get by. I don't need a female like, oh please, please, please. Anybody who grovels, you've already lost. Yeah, legitimately. You've already lost, and the girl will never respect you. Women need to respect their men. Men need to love and cherish their women. That's just basic, that's Ephesians 5. And so when you're looking at it through that lens, if you are confident in who you are, that's going to be pervasive throughout this entire discussion. Is treat them like creatures or fellow creations of God. Don't give into this belief that they're impossible. They are not impossible. They're not aliens. They're not anybody that you can't understand. They're very understandable. You just have to know what they want, which is confidence because that's what creates safety. That's what creates security. That's what creates the respect that they're looking to give is I am confident. That's not arrogance, it's, I know who I am. I know where I'm going. I know who holds me in this, and you know where I'm grounded. Finding identity in Christ as we've talked about. So those are some basics. When it comes to engaging with women, but we want to leave the most time for these phases. And there's going to be a key lesson in each, so if you're taking notes, they'll be on screen too. But there's going to be a key lesson we want to learn in each of the phases. So we'll get us into 12 to 14 years old. Yes, so 12 to 14 years old. We have alluded to it enough already that neither one of us think you should be, should really even utter the word dating when you're 12, 13, 14 years old. I actually think, Joe, and I could be wrong about this. From my experience, I actually think we swung back in a little bit better of a direction with this with young people. I work with a lot of young people, which I feel like not 12 year olds, I guess I couldn't really say for sure. But I do see it's more 15 and 16 that they start dating, which is still incredible young. But, you know, the age of the 12, 11, 12 year olds dating, again, it definitely still happens. I, maybe it's, that's purely anecdotal. I feel like it's gotten a tad bit better. But either way, like, I don't know if you have, it sounds like you might have some thoughts on that. But, no, I agree. I mean, this is the middle school time. Right, you're getting out of elementary, you're the middle school, you're trying, middle school is an awkward time. You're trying to figure out where you stand. So yeah, I think it does happen, but I agree with you. And this is because Gen Z and Gen Alpha really are not having sex on near the, the levels that the millennials and Gen X and such were ahead of time, because they're kind of pulling away from the whole sexual thing and from dating in general, which is, well, kind of a nerve-wracking trend, but especially 12 to 14, I think that's probably a positive. 12 to 14 year olds too is Gen Alpha right now. Gen Alpha Gen Z goes to 2012. Gen Beta's already been born, so it's not gonna be that long until they get there. But anyway, sorry, sorry, got off on a sidetrack there. Your friends are mainly gonna be guy friends at this age. So you're just gonna be starting to venture out into kind of the girl territory, so to speak. And, Yeah, I don't have a ton to say here because again, like everything we're talking about is in the context of like talking to girls that's going to lead to dating. What I would say here is again, you're too young for that at this point and if you're listening like, yeah, I'm 27, I get it. Like for your kids as well, this is going to be important for you to like figure out may I want to do with my kids. Learn, I think 12 to 14 age, it's going to be very important for them to learn how to be friends with girls. That's one of the frustrating things about how sexualized our society is, is that man, two, 12 year old, a guy and a girl, they can't really be friends. Like it's just, it's either we're not friends or we want to be boyfriend girlfriends. And maybe that's idealistic to wish that we could, you know, kind of erase that. Like obviously I do think that's really hard when you're like 16. Your hormones are raging. It's very much on your mind. 12, 13, like I don't know, again, might be ideal, I feel like there should be still a little bit more of that. We can just be friends have a good time hanging out, you know, at church in the youth, whatever it is, like, but I know that doesn't happen. So I'm kind of rambling. But that's, I guess my point is you need to be figuring out how to be friends with girls at that point. Yeah, because I think puberty's hit, right? The girls are developing a little bit more there, you know, so you're starting to come into it. I was in the porn at this point. And so you are definitely aware of the females. But you don't know what to do with any of the romantic stuff. You don't know how to be. It's the crushes and things along those lines. And then you have the trope, or like the boys are mean to the girls that they like, you know, it's a trip amid school or they kind of talk down to them or whatever it may be. That's a trope. It's a stereotype. But it's there for a reason. There is a legitimacy to that. The key takeaway or the key lesson for this phase is treat them with respect. And that goes along with a friendship element, which is guys and girls, especially when hormones are involved in things like that, we're going to get in this later. I don't think guys and girls make great friends, especially as they get older. I think spouses do. Outside of that though, the platonic relationships, it can happen. But it's true. It's true. It's just no such thing as friends once you hit about in 1617. Right. And so this is kind of the phase to just learn to be around them. Treat them with respect. Treat them as fellow human beings. Treat them as fellow creations of God that you're learning that to treat them with respect as the fairer sex. Like you're not going to be tripping them or talking down to them, being mean to them, yelling at them in the hall like this is somebody that you need to learn how to not kid gloves, per se, you don't want to be scared of them, but you just want to have respect. So that's what 1415 to 17 is where things get interesting, because this is where to your point, dating is really coming on the forefront for 95% of people out there. No. Well, the phrase, please hear me out, you should not be engaging in any sexual activity pre-marriage, of course, especially at this age. But there is a sexual tension element. Correct. It enters the picture from 15 to 17 that doesn't really exist in 12 to 14. Right. So it's puppy love. It's the crushes. It's legitimate. And a lot of people do lose their virginity 15 to 17, once again, do not do that. We are, we are, that's a sin. It's wrong. We're crushing against it. It's just a reality. But it's just a reality that yes, guys are going to get to that point. So now I would say you still need to be friends with them, but you need to learn to talk with them. Not just talk to them, not just talk about them, you need to learn to talk with them. And yes, you're building a little more and hitting maybe a next phase of friendship with a girl per se, where, I don't know, I think it's a, I want to be careful on how I say this because I don't think leading right toward marriage at 15, 16, 17 is smart. But I also don't think that real life is backwards, but kind of backwards when it came to girls, like, almost, I wasn't scared. I knew I wasn't going to marry them. And so it's like why talk to them at all. And so I think I was very standoff. I'm sure to say I probably had a little bit more experience than you did. I think you did too. Yeah, I was very, yeah, standoff is just how it would have looked, but it wasn't that. It was like I was kind of told, hey, you're not going to be dating them. You're not going to be stupid. You're super mature already. So you're like, what's the point of this? We're super excited to tell you guys about our newest sponsor, Curbly. 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To learn more about Curbly, scan the QR code on the screen or check out the link in the description below. And yeah, I'm not trying to like pump my own tires or anything like that, but I graduated 16. You know, I was I was in the college at 16 and so and I was early 16. I graduated or I turned 16 in April, graduated in May and started college in August. And so I didn't engage with females at all. And so it sounds like a flex that I'm saying that that's not at all. I'm saying I was a little bit backwards actually. And so I held myself a loop. This is that phase where you need to learn. Don't hold yourself back. Don't be a I don't think you need to be approved. I don't think you need to be standoffish. I don't think you need to like have the whoa, you know, I'm not ready for marriage. So I'm not going to talk. I think you need to learn to find your voice with them. So this is very interesting with both of us on this podcast because you know, it's true like, you know, neither of us for super experience. I wasn't allowed to date, but I definitely, you know, talked to plenty of girls in a mutual interest standpoint. And I would say, because the next thing we talk about is flirting, like how much is that appropriate? It sounds like you did none of that. None of it. I did, honestly, probably way more than I should have. So I'm curious, Joe, like that's where this kind of gets very interesting is like you're looking back on your teenage years, like probably didn't really, and again, like it's such a strange thing. Like you probably didn't do enough flirting, so to speak. And I look back at it like I did too much. So I don't know, how do we find, how do you find this balance? The question we got on there is how much flirting is appropriate. I do think it's somewhat unrealistic to expect zero flirting, but man, that can go off the rails real quickly. That's the difficulty is I was, you know, taught zero. And so I did, zero, and I didn't rebel against it. And to be honest, I think it fairly served me, or served me fairly well because by the time that it came along with Lissa, you know, I didn't really have problems, which is weird. You would have thought I'd been pretty backwards. That's not how to. But yeah, I mean, it's a, I think it's okay to have a little bit of back and forth, you know, and show a little bit of interest on the other end. And I think this is way, I think it's way healthier in person than overtext that we have that on here. Do not engage with girls online at this point. In my opinion, I don't know how you feel about quitting texting. Yeah, personally, I don't think from 15 to 17, I don't know that texting is a good idea at all because I wasn't allowed to. Right. And it turns sexual very, very, very quickly, a lot of times. And you can think about your response a lot more like the in-person thing. I do think is a little bit more innocuous, like it's not quite as harmful. And again, this is going to be natural sometimes. I think I agree with you, actually, that's, like, most of what I'm saying about you need to know how to do maybe a little bit of it is in the context of not necessarily texting, like in-person group settings, things like that, because you also included on here. I think there's a great addition. Oh, man, yeah. Well, a couple of different things. Don't be Mr. Overkill with the compliments. This comes across big time on the texting. You're the most beautiful girl in the world. You know, things along those lines where it's like, you're overkill. I think you're saying that in person is a lot harder than saying it over text. Right. It's easier. And the reason I used overkill is because it's like, yeah, that's really easy. Like you said, it's really easy for you to say behind a keyboard. Right. Right. And it's just, I don't know. It's very immature. You know, you obviously had the maturity, the education, all that. You were three, four, five years ahead of most guys at 16. That is a great example of maturity. The immature side is the, just, she's gorgeous and she's beautiful and she's, you know, all these things. It's like chill. The other thing I have on there is, or the other I put on there was, be very careful not to say things or to not say things that you don't mean. It can be very tempting again, especially if you're going to kind of break our rule and do it over text on, you know, message or whatever. I love you. You can come out pretty early. We'll be together forever. Can't wait to marry you at your, when you're 15 years old, like, be very careful with that. Again, it's, it's, it's, like, it can be very easy to just, man, the, the puppy love, the crush thing, the you just, what's the word, I'm, you're infatuated with, you're infatuated with them. So you just let stuff spill out. That usually you're going to look back on that four or five years ago. That's embarrassing. So, as I was going to say, there's a cringe factor to this. If I look back at 30, if I look back at 30, am I, like, do I look back and cringe? Yeah, about some things, for sure, at 16. I think that's natural. There's a level of cringe and embarrassment, like, man, I, but with the way you talk to girls, the way that I talk to girls, yeah, I think that is a, even if you were to flirt, mildly flirt, which I think if my kids are kind of mildly back and forth a little, what is the term, teta teta, or whatever, you know, with a, with a female, okay, that's perfectly fine. So, it looks back at 25 and goes, my goodness, I gave, I either broke her heart and told her things I shouldn't have. I was incredibly, um, I was really pushing the line and the sexual tension and leaning into the flirtatiousness because I enjoyed that sexual tension, like, we're guys here on this podcast. If you're getting a heart on, if you're getting an erection from all of these things, is you're really kind of leaning into the flirtatiousness and such? Which can happen, especially digital, especially digital, pull it back, pull it back. I don't think that this is a time in life. You're not marrying a girl at 17 years old. So from 15 to 17, you need to learn how to engage with them. You need to learn how to, you know, to be around them how to find and so the key lesson we have here is learn to find your voice with them. From 15 to 17, learn to find your voice underneath. You need to be having legitimate conversations with them about legitimate things, you know, not just the year the most beautiful girl or about stupid stuff, legitimate conversations, legitimate compliments. You're the most beautiful world. No, you look very pretty. You look very, very pretty. Be careful on the wow, what a hottie. Yeah, you know, fire emoji. Yeah, exactly like be very careful with those things, but hey, you look great. Learn to have legitimate compliments and then this may sound like a dull one, but legitimate authenticity. Show up and know who you are. The 15 to 17, you should be trying to figure out how do I show up around the females and know who I am in terms of being around them. So many guys are trying to find their identity with the girl. What's going to get me liked? What is what is she like? How can I do that? And you become a chameleon? 15 to 17 is where you learn to find your own legitimate voice with them in the conversations, compliments, and how you show up your identity, your authenticity, things like that. Be authentic with them. It Joe should be Joe through and through that even if I look like an idiot in front of them, you know what? That was authentically me. That's okay. That's okay. If they take me wrong in some way, as long as I'm being respectful, as long as I'm being kind, and long as I'm showing up, you know, with the with the godly demeanor, I guess. Yeah, it's not, it's not that you have to be Mr. the most mature guy in the room, but there is something to be said about girls being drawn towards guys that are a step or two above the average guy that's just goofing off and doing dumb stuff all the time. At least the quality girls that you want to find. They're going to they're going to be more to actually draw into somebody who, you know, is a little bit more future minded. And again, you can still have fun. They're very much attracted to fun too. Like you want to find you want to be funny. You want to have that charm to you. But also, yeah, I love like the legitimate conversation thing. Like, oh, this guy can actually talk about more things than Marvel movies or something like that or sports, you know, yeah, or sports. And so, yeah, just keep that in mind. Joe, we got to move on. But I think I think this age bracket here, this 15 to 17 that we just finished talking about. I think this is the maker break it. Like it's pivotal. It's pivotal because you do too much of the flirting. You kind of take away all the rest, you know, just let, let everything go. Take away all the restraints, guard rails, take away all the guard rails. And you can become girl crazy pretty quick. You can just, you can by the time you're 18, you kind of talk to 12 girls, you're dated four of them. And then it's like, man, you need to chill. Or, and then there's the other side too, where it's like, well, I'm just going to kind of stay away. And then by the time you hit 18, it's like, well, I don't really know how to talk to you. So, this is such a pedal. I want to just beat it to death here, but this is such a pivotal age. Like, I'm not looking forward to navigating the supply. It's like, man, how do I do? How do we do this? Yeah, I think less is more in my opinion. I think if you were all about the girls at this phase, I would pull back a second. You have no career. You have no, you may have the vision, but you don't have the ability to support a girl. You don't have to do anything else. I'd be very careful on the dating front. I know some guys are, you guys and girls get together, high school, sweet hearts, whatever it may be. It's always a nice story. The most of the time they're getting in trouble way ahead of time because if you're starting, you're dating 16. Okay, let's say you do get married at 18, which nobody does. I mean, you were 19, right? And you were, you were the most legitimately ready guy that I knew. And 19 was really young. Nobody's really ready at 18. And so let's say you get together at 16. By some miracle, you do get married. You got two years, two years to stay pure. When hormones are raging, your brain is not fully developed for another seven years after 18. You're talking 25 years old, your brain starts developing. So I'm not saying you need to wait till 25 to get married either, but I'm just saying at 16, this is why we advise against dating. Yeah. Correct. This is why is be very careful. And to your point, so many guys have a string of relationships at this point. How many, how many hearts have been broken at that point? Either there's, or they're going to be emotional attachments or emotional attachments or God forbid, but you know, sexual attachments as well, where oxytocin has been shared. So be very careful. This is pivotal. I think that's a great call it on your part. Let's get into 18 to 21, 18 to 21, because things are getting serious, things are legitimate. Now you actually have an ability to potentially move forward with a, with a marriage from this 18 to 21 phase, most likely, probably not. It's very rare to have somebody 18, 19, 20 be ready for that for marriage, but on the other hand, it does happen. And we advocate, we had Josh Carolyn, you know, advocating for young marriage, he got married very, very young. And so what are your thoughts on this one? For me, and I hate to just keep going back to examples of, but, you know, for myself, but it wasn't that long ago. I remember like when I, as I was getting closer to 18, it's like something clicked. So when I like with Rachel, when I, you know, got with her, it's like something clicked. Like, oh, wow, I actually could, and well, you know, I could marry this girl. You know what I mean? Like, it was a, it was different than what I was used to previously. And it's because around 18 years old, you're having to think about your life plans. You're having to think about, especially your guy, what do I want to do for my career? I mean, I was, when I was right around the time I met Rachel, I was taking college classes. I was picking my degree out. I mean, I was still in high school at the time, and you're about to graduate. And so yeah, like you're, you're just thinking more big picture life stuff. And so your brain, I feel like kind of shifts in that direction towards where again, for me, at least it clicked. And it's like, oh, marriage, that's actually an option now. And coming all that, you know, definitely plays a huge role. But that to me is the shift. Right. It's like you're now thinking big picture. Like when you're 16, man, you're still going off for ice cream three nights a week. You're playing video games. You got hardly any responsibilities. 18, obviously, plus. And then we're not even counting college. Obviously a lot of guys are going to college at 18 as well. Big shifts happen. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. And that to me is the thing. And this is what I'll tell my boys, do you have career, a career in place? And okay, maybe you're not there, but you have the idea for a career. You have the, you're well on your way to getting the degree for the career. The end of you have life plans, because if that's the case, I think you can actively start looking for that. I was going to ask if you would be comfortable with your, with your son pursuing your 18. If he has a strong understanding of where he's going in life and has a, I'm going to be this. And this is what I'm going to do. And here's what I'm going to provide for her. And not like a, well, I was thinking about doing XYZ as he goes into college and then switches his major three years. And then I'm going to cut it. You have to know this is where I'm at. So 18 would be very young. If he's put together enough, I would say yes, but that's a tough one. I'm going to require a timeline. Yes. Yeah, especially if he finds somebody, hey, I want to pursue this. Great. What's timeline? Right. I want to know right now. Because if it's two, three years, I'm probably going to tell him the way. Because if you're 18 right now, you know, I would say the same thing. I think that's a, a really good point. Have a timeline. What is the legitimate? What is your legitimate timeline to being able to theoretically get married? And if you're going, boy, I got to finish my career, my college, you know, that's going to be 22. And then I want to get a job of $3,000 on the bank. Exactly. Like, no, you're probably not pursuing girls when you are negative $3,000 in the bank and don't really know what you're going to do or you're waiting. Well, I boy, hey, I'm in freshman year of college. There's a lot of pretty girls. All of them are getting stashed up by other guys. And so the temptation is, let's go out find the prettiest girl. She happens like you. You happen like her. You guys are doing club runs or whatever it is with your fraternities or sororities or, you know, all those things. And, and when you're in college and it's like, man, I want to make it happen or a girl that you're working with at 18 years old. Maybe we're going to Chick Flay. You found a nice girl. You don't want it to be taken up by somebody else. And so you have this, this, that's the challenge is man. But if we get together now, we can just kind of slow, slow roll this thing. If you think that you can slow roll, maybe most of the time, a girl does not want to wait four years or whatever it's going to be. If the timeline's two years, yeah. Great. You know, if the timeline's three plus, I'd be very wary about jumping in a relationship. And I would trust God in that moment to say, if this is his will, I'm going to pray about it. I'm going to think about this a lot. I'm going to talk to my mentors, you know, my parents, whoever it may be. I'm going to set the timeline. If this is God's will, and I say no to it now, I'm going to trust that he, she will still be around and the right person. And if she's taken up next week, when I said no, I'm not mad at myself for that. That was God's clear answer to my prayer. She's not yours. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. So as far as the talking goes, I mean, because that's, that's the, the tough part here. What we got on here is just be curious and be willing to ask all kinds of questions. If you find a girl that you're very interested, I think at this point, it's perfectly within bounds to be texting a girl, you know, again, digital communication and all that. Finding girl solely on the last part of a good idea. But, you know, girl, a church kid or number, like, I think that's fine. And so at this point, whether it is digital or in person, don't be the person that's always talking about yourself. Right. Learn to be curious, learn to ask questions, learn to just be a good comment. That's really human, a human etiquette, like being a good conversationalist is my go over to Joe's house to eat. I'm not just talking about everything that's happened in my life for the last three weeks. I'm asking them about, you know, things. And so, again, that's just basic human etiquette. But especially when you're trying to get to know a girl or maybe potentially pursue one, be curious, ask a lot of questions. The other side of this Joe is that it can be very easy at this age for your world to revolve around either girls in general or a girl that you found. It'd be very easy for that. And it's easier for me to say than, or it's easier said than done. Don't let that be the case for you. Don't let your world revolve around her because then, man, you do get distracted from, man, I gotta get my career started. I gotta finish my education. I've got to be a faithful follower of Christ, like some guys allow a girl to distract them from that. And again, you know, especially if you find the one you want to marry, it can be a wonderful distraction, so to speak. But, man, don't let your, don't let your world revolve around your world. Right. Because you dreams and everything else. Yeah. Or around girls. It may not just be your girl. It could be girls in general where everything comes back to, I'll start with this hot girl today. You know, and oh, it's text with this other girl on Snapchat with another girl. When you're that guy who's got a bazillion girls on the line, you know, and kind of on your fishing hooks, like, not a good look. I think you need to be thinking about, what am I really pursuing in this? It feels really good for a girl to like, you. It also feels really good for 15 girls to like you. That's a that's not like a one girl. Like you 15. Exactly. You're not a perv. You're a dude. Yes, it feels good to have. We got it out of the back and we got to recognize that's not that can't be the thing that picks you up that makes you feel good about yourself. That's where you need a girl and not want a girl. If you're the guy that has 15 girls on the line that you're always chatting up, you're the guy who needs the girl. You're not the guy who wants the girl and you can convince yourself as much as you want that it's no. I want all these. No, you don't. You're looking for the attention because it's affirmation. Correct. It's affirmation that you're not giving yourself. So just be careful. So how do you ask a girl out, Joe? You got that on here? Yeah, that's a tough one. We're super excited today to tell you about our newest sponsor, Project Anyok. Project Anyok is a transformative eight month discipleship focused gap year program for the Northwest School of Discipleship. This exciting initiative is designed for young adults ages 18 to 23 and is based at the Southwest Church of Christ in beautiful Tigard, Oregon. Project Anyok brings young men and women from across the country together for a season of intense spiritual growth and service to the church. 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We're very grateful to Northwest School of Discipleship and Project Anyok for sponsoring this video now back to the show. That is a tough one. I mean, I'm trying to remember. So both of us went because we are believers in a modified version of courtship. Right. Courtship has some negative connotations. We're not, you know, doug or style necessarily. But both of us, not speak for you, sorry, did talk to, you know, our wives' dads whenever the relationship first started. I did it obviously before asking for a hand of marriage, but also just before I wanted to make things official. I wanted to talk to her dad. That's, I don't even remember how I like asked her to be my bride. I truly don't even remember that. I wrote a long letter of intention of wanting to get to know her and think she's great. And, you know, I'd love for the opportunity, and then they flew out. And then in that, you know, it was kind of like a school paper. Like, here's the way to my thesis. Basically, yeah. Here's why I'd be a great candidate. Here's three reasons. Yeah. No, that was, that was then used against me later as things kind of went downhill. And so, yeah, it's, I think the asking the dad is appropriate in a lot of situations if you're going to do the core tip. Let's be honest. Let's be real. Most people aren't. If you're going to ask the dad, I think having a letter, I think you did in person though, right? I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd be able to speak to that a lot more. I was long. That's easy. Yeah. Well, how did you just have to cure us with this? So I, it's funny. I just, I'd messaged him and said, I'd love to talk to you. I don't remember if I said like what it was about. He said, yeah, sounds good. And he just took me to McDonald's and we were there for probably 20 minutes. Like he knew he knew that's what I was asking. And, uh, yeah, that was pretty much it. I just, here's the thing though, how did he know you were going to ask what led up to him knowing the interest was already there? Well, oh, why the interest was there? Like, how do you know going to McDonald's was about that? So my story is interesting because, like, my racial story is because I just kind of, this is one of the boldest things I've ever done. We had been sort of talking over text, but not had not like expressed mutual interest or anything. And I was like, you know what, I just want to find out if this girl is legit and not legit, like real, but like if this connection is going to be legit or not. So I just showed up to their church. It was her birthday and I just showed up. My myself had no siblings with me. No parents, nothing. And, um, of course, that was a unique thing. Um, and so her parents were obviously were there. They invited me over for dinner and me and Rachel talked for a couple hours in the kitchen. Um, just kind of by ourselves. They were in the living room beside us. But, and so it was kind of understood from that point. Oh, okay, there's an interest here. And so I'd visited in a few more other times. And then so I think he knew it was coming. I think that makes a lot easier. That makes it a lot easier. Like guys not his first time meeting me if that's what you're there. There you go. And that's what I was saying. Like the intention was there. He could already tell. They were making things a lot easier. So when we have had to talk to the girl or how to talk to the dad, that does play a role. Um, Randy also knew that I was very interested in listening based off of us being on the trip, talking a bunch. So it wasn't a surprise to him either. Some dads, it's going to be a surprise. Excuse me. And the whole cleaning the gun thing while they're, you know, trying to intimidate you, Joe, take every chance he can. You can take a pot shot at that. This is stupidest thing. Guys just don't do that. And if they do, I, I look down on them. It's like you're 15 year old. You never grew up, you know, the dad, I'm sorry to say, but like, don't do that. Don't intimidate them. I mean, because the whole thing is like better not touch my daughter. It's like if everything goes well, this guy's going to be touching. It's hard to say. But like, that's going to happen. Okay. If everything goes well, all in good time. So like let's, let's not pretend as though the woman is the, the queen, the princess, you know, he's just lucky. Drives me nuts. But how to ask her out, but how to ask her though. Sorry, going off. No, that's, I got to, I got to bring it back in because that just frustrates podcast fun. But as far as it goes with the dad, yeah, be bold, be confident, but also present yourself as somebody that's worthy of knowing his daughter. I think like, you're not the, she's the princess and you're the popper. And you're just some, wow, if I could just get a crumb from her table. And that's how a lot of guys treat it. And you know, you go with the dad like, I'm just kind of bad about that. And courtship is very bad about that. Courtship leans into the guys just lucky to get to know the girl. Like, no, find your voice 15 to 17 at 18 to 21. You know who you are. You know how to relate to, to the females when you go and talk to the dad. So show up confidently, be bold and how you respond. I think your daughter's fantastic. You know, and I'd really like to know to get, or I'd really like to get to know her more. I think that's how you say it. Instead of I want to go out with her, I think I really want to get to know her more because that is broad ranging that also it shows your intention. Obviously, but I think it also shows like you can slow roll the thing. You can begin to date, you know, or begin to go out on, you know, whatever, even if they're going to court, you can start to get to know her without having to jump in feet first. So I think that's a big piece. As far as it goes with asking a girl out, I also think it's a similar process. I think there's a boldness to it of, hey, I find you incredibly attractive. I think you're, I think you're fantastic. And I'd really like to get to, you know, to take you to dinner or something like that. I'd start small, but I would also throw a compliment in of I think you are amazing. I wouldn't necessarily go with the, the single compliment of her looks because I think that's somewhat shallow. You are, you are unbelievably hot. Would you mind going out with me? You know, obviously not that, but I think I really think that you're, you know, you're a great girl and somebody that I like to get to know, maybe that's unstupid. Something along those lines, though, where you were complimenting her, saying, yes, would you like to go out with me? Be confident. If she rejects you once again, you don't need her. You want her. And that'd be, it'd be a bummer. You don't need her to complete your life. And if she says no, that's okay. Yeah. So this is podcast is over. I'm going to go inside and ask my wife if she remembers how I did it because I do not remember. I truly don't. But I would agree, Joe, I think you need, there's a, this is where the smoothness element is helpful. Yeah. Like you, you don't want to be Mr. Clumsy, especially because again, my setting, my scenario, whenever I did this, like we already knew there was mutual interest. For some of you guys, it might be like, I, again, maybe I work with this girl occasionally or I see her in the coffee shop or whatever and I just want to ask her like, that's a little bit different. Then you're just kind of going out on a limb. But the key lesson we got to roll here. This is where the curiosity shows it. Sorry. This is where the curiosity shows up. Be curious about her. If you've been watching her day by day, like get to know what she likes, get to know what music she listens to, get to know what, you know, what flower or whatever and it's like you get her flower or something and you say, hey, just brought this in today. You're working to Chick-fil-A together and you just happen to get her whatever favorite candy bar and there's a little flirtatiousness there. But you can also start picking up on things. How do you know that I like this? Oh, you know, I was standing there and we were in that conversation. You said that three months ago. That plays very, very well. So sorry, not to cut you. No, that's really good. But yes, key lesson. Go for it. Well, I want to let you kind of talk about most of this. We just put choose wisely. Be very wise about who you are spending time because you, when you're 18 plus and you've got a lot of stuff on your plate at this point again, career, academics, you got a lot of stuff, you're investing your time into somebody. You're investing your time into getting to know somebody. You're investing your time. And so choose wisely. You don't want a poor return on your investment. It's not to say that everything, every girl you talk like that you're going to be one for one necessarily and that, you know, good things can't come out of a relationship that maybe just doesn't work out. But yeah, you don't want to be just kind of wasting your time. I guess is what I would say. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. Girls are going to start to show their true colors kind of at this stage. Yeah, you know, 18 to 21. Are they really caddy? Are they feminists? Are they, you know, the moment they got out of their parents house, you know, what's that? Are they self-absorbed? Yeah, exactly. Are they incredibly backwards? Like, you're going to probably find that out 18, 19, 20 especially if they're college or away from their parents. You're going to find some of those things. So just choose wisely. And yeah, it doesn't mean that you can't go back and choose again when you're 25 years old, but figure out what choices need to be made and what girls you're attracted to and why. 22 plus is our last one. We got to, we got to go through this fairly fast. This was tough because it's like, man, most of the time you're going to be building up, you're going to figure out who you are choosing. You're going to have found your voice with them. You're going to have learned to treat them with respect to all these things. So what do you do? 22 plus. Well, first off, I think this is obviously where you're going to be getting into relationships most, most guys, I mean, the average age is what 31 for guys to get married. And godly young men, that's drastically going to drive. We're going to assume a lot of you guys are probably either already in a courtship or dating at this point. But I think there's a few things we want to get into as it goes to this. Well, the first thing I'll say on this is hopefully your timeline is accelerated a bit. Like when you're 18 again, like we were talking about about our sons, I would make mind, give me a timeline of like, I'm pretty confident that I can be making enough money to get married to her in a year and a half. Okay, great. Right. Sounds good. At 22 odds are you're done with with your education, maybe you haven't started your full course. or you're necessarily, but you're gonna have a solid job, you're probably gonna make an okay money. And so you are gonna be in a position where if you find a girl hit it off with or whatever, like you're not gonna have to wait a year and a half, or two years or longer to jump into it. So, that's where, again, I guess that's just my first point, is that your timeline can now be, it can be expedited a little bit more, I'm not saying Mary or two months type of thing. But that is the change in element here, is that your life plans, hopefully for the most part are kind of set in stone, and now you are truly pursuing a life, which is the difference. - Right, so if you're in a relationship at this point, I think this is where you cut out the other girls, the other girlfriends, you gotta be really careful on the, well, we're just friends, the platonic. Is she just friends, does she know that? - Oh yeah, yeah, no, we get that. - It's real difficult, and that might make your girlfriend jealous, or your fiance, or whatever it may be. I just don't think it's a good look, so I would put that kind of to the side. If you're not in a relationship, I think it's important to know, don't make this a binary, she's a candidate, she's not a candidate. I see this done in a reverse way. He's a candidate, he's not a candidate, and you rob yourself of any ability to get to know somebody, because you're rushing to, instead of seeing them as a human worth getting to know, you rush to, are they a marriage candidate? Can I see myself with them in 40 years? Like, is there anybody you meet in life that the moment you meet them, you go, I wanna be with this person for the rest of my life? No, so why do we treat it that way a lot of times? Well, we start viewing it almost as a transaction, we view it as this, again, the binary of marriage or bust pretty much, you still gotta be friends with them, okay? You still have to work on just developing, if you're not in a relationship developing, the relationship with girls, where not everything has to be a date, just learn to be around a girl, just learn to go have fun with a girl, just learn to, maybe you are asking girls out on a date, but you genuinely are a nice guy who, and I'm not Mr. Nice guy who just gets run over, a nice guy in terms of like, I treat them well. All these other lessons have been, yeah, have already been learned. So by the time you get here, you just learn to treat them as a human being, and when you are friends, this is the John Gottman stuff. You know, the Gottman method is a huge couples therapy method, and he builds his sound relationship house on friendship. Friendship is pivotal. If you don't know how to be friends, but you think, you know, you're really good at all the pickup lines and all these pickup artists that are morons, and then, oh wow, you got the hot chick, it's like, maybe you got her to sleep with you in the world, right? She doesn't really love you, she doesn't care about you, there's no friendship there, there's no actual mutual connection. Now is the time to really lean into, they are somebody else that I really want to get to know, and I can be, we talked about friendship throughout this entire thing, but to me, it kind of goes out the door when you get to the, I'm really close to dating, or really close to courtship, and everything goes on that binary, just be very careful with that. - Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and hit the key lesson, Joe, and that is, understand your trends in life up to this point. That might sound kind of strange. Like, what do you mean my trends? This is not a stock portfolio here. But what we mean is, at this point, understand, let's say at 22, you look back and you're like, I have either talked to or been in a dating relationship with 12 to 15 girls in the last six years. That's not a great trend, and so you need to be very careful that you, because if, at 22, if you're still in that lifestyle, I'm gonna date somebody for six months and you know, have the companionship, and then be dumb about somebody else, that can turn into a lifestyle quicker than you realize, and marriage gets that much harder because it's like, oh man, I've dated, I've had the variety of 15 different girls over the last four years. I gotta take one, so, you know, so that's a negative trend that you need to be very aware of if that is you at 22. You know, the other side of it is if you're, you know, somebody who, again, let's say you just really struggled to even make any kind of connection with girls because of the, you know, I'm instantly going to, can I see myself with them in 40 years? If not, then I'm done with them. That's a dangerous trend as well. So I don't know if you have any more to add to that, but it's basically like, at this point, you need to figure out, you need to really understand what are your tendencies, and especially the negative ones, steer clear. - Yeah, what do I need to work on? - That's really what this comes down to, is, at 22, okay, I'm not, I'm not married, which is fine, most guys aren't. But, is there any particular reason why I'm not headed there? Maybe it has nothing to do with you. I just haven't been around. Maybe that's a trend, I'm not in the right places. I haven't met a good, godly girl in the last five years. Okay, well, that's a trend that probably needs to be fixed. We need to be thinking about where we can go, seminars, or whatever it is to meet other girls. Maybe I go to a different church for a time just to meet somebody. Do I consider online, you know, like, you're starting to figure out, I do want a girl. I'm not backwards, you know, I figured myself out. I got a career, I got all these things in place. But, trends wise, you know, these things are going on. So, that's what we talk about. Where are the things to get into? Maybe we'll have another episode on this of when to talk about what and dating and courtship. I'm a more big fan of talking about the big things in the front end. We didn't really get to that. Well, we can get to some other things, maybe in a later episode. Are there questions? - Yes, a lot of things. - I know your thoughts and questions. Let us know, a question you got, what thoughts you got, what disagreements do you have? You know, what did you find as ridiculous versus something that may be cause you think? So, hit us up on the discord. Make sure to join our discord if you have not. Otherwise, man, we're reading all the comments on Spotify. We don't always get back to them. But I guarantee you I read every last comment that we get YouTube's Spotify things along those lines. And so, we appreciate it. Keep sending your comments. - Like, subscribe as well. - All of those things. - So, any other things? - That's it. No, this has been great, Joe, appreciate it. Yeah, let us know your thoughts. This has been episode 189. The Gollyman podcast, we have got a special announcement next week for what we're gonna be doing in episode 200, which is coming up quick. So, thank you guys for listening. We'll be back next week. (upbeat music)