Bible Study – Dateable Week 1

Tonight started my first week with the youth girls going through the book Dateable.  Are you? Are they?.  I was a little worried at first when only 2 girls were there but I think we had 8 by the time it was over and expecting a few more next week.  That’s a good number for a small group study when there is only one adult.

Overall, it went well.  A few of our older youth were being immature at times but that was expected from them.  It’s sad some of our seniors act younger than our middle schoolers.  Anyway, we had good conversation and I think they were relating to what I was talking about.

The first two chapters we went over basically sent the message, “It won’t last.”  No matter what you think about the boy you’re with, statistics show your chance of being married to your high school sweetheart in 10 years is very, very low.  Girls are prone to build up this big fantasy world based on something as simple as a look from a guy, much less telling them I” could be with you forever”.  They talked about the well-known habit of girls writing their names with the guy’s last names, imagining what their kids would look like and picking out kids names even before they start dating the guy.  For a girl, that’s a requirement..if your name sounds bad with his, he’s not even considered.  I am almost jesting there.  And guys tend to say things to get what they want…it may be physical or it may just be the girl’s attention…so they don’t make it easy saying things that help build that fantasy world.   Anyway, none of that means it will last.  They might feel like they’re in love because of the world they’ve built, but for those of us married any length of time, you know butterflies have nothing to do with true love.

I love how the book points out that by giving themselves fully to each guy they date and then breaking it off, they are “practicing divorce, not marriage”.  That’s so powerful.

I don’t think they get that they will likely just be a number to a guy in 15 years.  I told them it’s better to be that one he never had than just another notch on his belt.  A few of the girls were scared about being called square (I had no idea they still said that these days) and I said, it’s better to be square than a skank.  Yeah, your local youth leader actually said those wise words…but I think putting it in their words helped them get it…and it was alliterated so even better 😉

If they can just get the fact that it won’t last, they can actually enjoy dating..not quit dating, but date in the true sense of the word: have fun, learn what you like and don’t like, enjoy being loved and enjoyed by someone other than family and just enjoy their teenage years.  I’m so tired of dealing with boy/girl drama that they shouldn’t even be thinking about, I’d be fine if they got the message “I shouldn’t be dating right now at all” because I truly think some of them need to take a break from it!  But hopefully they’ll see there is a balance where they can come out better, happy, respected people from their dating life instead of hurt and broken.

Wow, I could really chat about this for awhile, huh?

I got “good reviews” from a couple girls and actually had a pretty good time chatting with the girls.  This particular book we’re doing is much more lighthearted and not exactly a “bible” study but one that teaches them important values nonetheless.