Noli Irritare Leones

The Salty Vicar writes about his difficulties in dating (or maybe just hanging out).

So, I’ll share my own story of ill-starred romance (or, perhaps I should say, lack of romance), which (seeing as I celebrated my fifteenth anniversary this year) should be far enough in the past to bring no one any embarrassment.

It was a mutual friend who piqued my interest. I don’t imagine she was actually trying at matchmaking between the young volunteer in her twenties and the slightly older seminarian; she was just trying to arrange for her friend to be hired as intern at the small urban ministry organization on whose board she and I served. But she did manage, while praising his merits as a potential intern, to let slip the information that he was unattached. As well as being a Mennonite recently returned from a trip bringing relief to then war-torn El Salvador (this was the appealing part – Mennonite sounded suitably similar to Quaker, and I’m a sucker for anyone who brings relief to a war zone). So I was prepared in advance to like him, when he started his internship.

Now, the obvious way to court a seminarian, it seemed to me, was to read theology and listen to sermons. So, I bought and read a used book on the theology of Anabaptism (for those who don’t know, Mennonites are Anabaptists), and prepared to listen when Lonnie gave his first sermon. Only the sermon was in an entirely different city, and I failed to hook up with my ride. So much for that plan.

Presumably seminarians didn’t get scheduled for very frequent sermons, so it was time for more desperate measures. Such as actually picking up the telephone and asking him out. I got the semi-encouraging answer to call back. Of course, given my general timidity about such phone calls, I took this as an invitation to wait a week, not to look too pushy or anything, and then call back.

So, during the intervening week, we were both at the ministry one day, Lonnie washing dishes and me halfway across the room looking at the paper, when Lonnie said, I forget exactly what, but something which, if said by a woman, would have sounded to me like fishing for a compliment about his appearance. At least, that was how, rightly or wrongly, I heard it. So, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind, “I think you’re attractive, Lonnie.” Forgetting that I was halfway across the room. And the only woman. In a roomful of men. Making me way more conspicuous than I had ever intended to be.

“Wedding bells?” was the question from one of the men, who from that point on proceeded not to let me forget my comment for, well, the entire rest of the year. In the face of such public teasing, there was certainly no way I was making any moves, nor, for that matter, did Lonnie. A lesson in why not to pursue someone you’ll be working closely with anyway.

Jump forward a few months. One day, at the same ministry, I came in to find the minister, both seminarians, and everyone female out of the office, a guy who’d been hired as part-time staff in charge, and, perhaps for that reason, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition being shared among the men. I suppose the correct response in that situation is to take offense at the magazine. But I’m not correct. I had heard about this issue for years, and never seen it, so, wondering what the fuss was about, I asked for a look.

Now, I suppose this was pretty naive of me, but, it is, after all, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, and the image I had in mind was lots of trim, athletic women in tank suits. So, I turned to the nearest guy and said, “I didn’t know they looked like that.” He allowed that they were pretty thin. Thin, yes, I said, but also with certain prominently displayed curves. And, with an accompanying hand gesture, the guy told me not to worry, I had plenty to keep a man interested.

And it struck me how calmly he said it, that he could never be persuaded to feel ashamed of his compliment, while I could so very easily learn to feel ashamed of mine.

Still, all was not lost. I still have the book on the theology of Anabaptism, and occasionally use it as a reference.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2003 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Memory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.