How the heck do nice young single people meet each other these days?

I randomly met my last girlfriend on a Greyhound bus, and we dated long distance for several months before she moved to the Washington D.C. area, where I lived.  Eventually we broke up, but it was a good relationship.  Since I moved to Nashville and am single again, I have begun realizing how incredibly difficult it is to find a romantic partner if you’re not into the bar and club scene and you’re not attending college where you’re surrounded by other young singles every day.

My own situation is perhaps more difficult than most, because I work as a church pastor.  This means if nice young single women attend my church, I pretty much can’t date them, because that could potentially cause problems in the church.  What would happen if we broke up?  I wouldn’t want an ex-girlfriend to leave the church just because of personal issues with me!  Furthermore, some people would say it’s unethical to date members of a church that one leads, just as it would be unethical for a business owner to date a client or something like that.  I’m not sure whether I agree, but I can see the argument.  So my job makes things more complicated as far as finding a girlfriend goes, since I can’t date people I meet in my workplace.

Add to that the fact that I’m a very liberal and unorthodox Christian minister — which means that most self-identified Christian women — i.e. “called out” or “movement” Christians, you know, the type who would vote for Sarah Palin for president and think members of other religions are “lost” or “condemned” by God — wouldn’t even date me, since I don’t conform to their religious or political standards.  (For example, I consider the “no sex before marriage” thing to be absurd; I read the Tao Te Ching as much or more than the Bible; and I can’t stand Fox News and the Republican Party.)  But many non-Christian or non-religious women — the liberal types I’d actually be more compatible with in a lot of ways — wouldn’t date me because in their eyes I’m a Christian religious leader and that might make them uncomfortable.  When you don’t fit into any convenient category, it’s quite a catch 22!

Leaving all that aside, I really don’t know how anyone who’s not into drinking and dancing finds a date these days.  One of the “traditional” ways for such people to find each other is through church.  But I’ve noticed that in all the churches I’ve attended in recent years (liberal, non-fundamentalist ones) there are hardly any young people there.  This makes me wonder if American society has any robust social institutions anymore where nice, decent young people who are neither “partiers” nor “born again, saving it for marriage” types can meet similar members of the opposite sex and find a suitable mate.

It seems to me that the answer is no.  I have yet to discover any such social institution.  In fact, I can’t even figure out where most normal young people are nowadays.  Most people don’t actually like the bar and club scene; they just use it to hook up with an intoxicated and available person when they can’t stand being alone anymore.  And most people of the younger generations today don’t go to church.  So what do they actually do to meet people their own age whom they would be compatible with?

This brings me to the question of online dating.  Since many young people sit behind a computer most of the time and see more video game characters than flesh-and-blood people, perhaps the normal way to find dates now is on the internet?  I don’t know.  I have some qualms about online dating, mainly because I suspect that the subtle aspects of romantic chemistry cannot be gauged by any personality questionnaires, and because I suspect that the type of people who look for a romantic partner online have a “consumer mentality” toward other human beings rather than being willing to give of themselves and accept people’s flaws.  However, it might be that this is how our society is in general, and that the way such people approach online dating is just one of many manifestations of the prevailing culture of shopping and selfishness that pervades modern American culture.

A friend of mine with a lot of similar values and personality traits as my own has tried eHarmony and a couple other dating websites, but had little success.  I went to eHarmony and found out that you have to answer a long list of questions about yourself, and after that you can’t even browse through anyone’s profiles — they “match” you up with only the people they think are right for you.  If you get few or no matches, tough luck!  It didn’t sound very promising to me — especially since I read a couple of blogs where people who have used eHarmony said that most of the matches they give you are people who can’t read messages you attempt to send to them because they didn’t pay to use the site.  But hey, who knows, maybe I’ll try it someday if I get can’t find a girlfriend by meeting someone in the flesh.  Or maybe I’ll try one of the many other online dating sites out there.

Having heard that Craigslist personals have a reputation to be crawling with prostitutes, I went to that site and read some of the listings out of curiosity.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the “women seeking men” actually sounded like normal, decent people looking for a real relationship.  Some of them even spoke of wanting a “man who believes in God,” and a “man who isn’t interested in casual sex.”  But when I replied to three such women, two tried to sell me a subscription to a website to view pornographic photos of themselves, and one actually turned out to be a prostitute who offered to spend a weekend with me, “or the first man who is interested,” for $300.  Needless to say, I deleted their emails and realized that Craigslist is indeed not the way to find a good girlfriend.

Where to go from here?  Well, to be honest, I’m thinking perhaps another trip on the Greyhound bus is in order….  Or some other totally random way of meeting people.  Because the normal ways to find a girlfriend just don’t seem to be very effective nowadays.

Then again, most other people seem to have a significant other.  I go places alone, such as on hiking trips, to churches, to restaurants, to social functions, and nearly everyone else I see is with a girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife.  Tell me again how these people are finding their partners?  I’m clueless.  I’m beginning to wonder if I even live in this society or if I just happen to be occupying space on the same planet as the rest of humanity, going about my business which barely intersects with the social universe that others are living in.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m more willing to get out and do things alone, whereas the huge numbers of other single people are sitting behind their computers, exchanging messages on dating websites, searching for that elusive “perfect match.”  I guess if my loneliness gets severe enough, maybe I’ll join them!

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