After a recent event, I was having a conversation with a friend about how I have a tendency to sprinkle the words "my boyfriend" into conversation with other men, in order to give them a correct impression of my availability.
"You know," she said, "Some men will hear that and think, 'Challenge accepted!'" Sure enough, the next day, I received an email from a man I had danced with once during the event, asking if we could go dancing again.
This kind of behavior leaves me completely puzzled.
Since this occurrence happened within my Catholic circles, I can't really excuse it by any apparent lack of clarity in the statement, "I'm dating someone." If there isn't, there really ought to be, a shared understanding of what that means--particularly in this day and age when the general culture is so reluctant to name any kind of relationship as a "thing."
Also, I just can't imagine actively seeking out someone who has made it known that she or he is in a relationship with somebody else! It's not the first time this has happened to me, but I've never understood it. Are you trying to test my loyalty? If so, do you want me to fail the test?
In a conversation with a different friend, we discussed the phenomenon of infidelity in marriage: in real life, as opposed to in Nicholas Sparks novels, it never leads to a happy ending. As my friend put it, if you make the choice to cheat, you're lowering your standards to the kind of person who wants you to be a cheater. You're basically saying, "I want someone who is willing to put morals aside for the sake of emotional satisfaction."
It's not particularly surprising in the broader culture, I suppose, but to me it is surprising to find that approach to fidelity among Catholic friends and acquaintances. We're meant to be set apart, to be an example for others, not to tempt others to flakiness and lack of resolution, not to mention sinful behavior.
Though dating is by no means the same thing as marriage, we should support our friends who are seeking to discern through their dating relationships, just as we should support our friends discerning religious life or priesthood: rather than seeking to tempt them away from the path they have chosen, we should seek to confirm them and shelter them so that they may be free to answer God's call in their lives.
