Dyke Dating: Online Courtship Caveats

February 18, 2009

My parents met in the church marching band. For my younger readership, this was the 1930-40′s version of a praise and worship band but while the praise and worship musicians are usually stationed to one side of the front of the sanctuary, the marching band marched. Generally outside, at parades and other social gatherings where  “Onward Christian Soldier” and other hip tunes of the day were frequently in demand. As the story goes Dad played the trumpet and Mom the saxophone. Admittedly I chuckle no less now than I did in adolescence at the thought of my mom huffing some blues and jazz riff soulfully on her sax behind dark sunglasses. Or not.

Regardless, my parents were also part of the same youth group, went to church camp together, went on outings with the same circle of friends, fell in love and began their courtship. A couple years later after countless dates, postcards and letters,  the bride took a train across the country to meet up with her groom who was stationed in Boston prior to heading overseas and they were married in a small chapel on the Harvard campus with my Grandpa standing in as the witness.

It would be nice if we could all meet our significant other face to face at church, in the line at the grocery store, at the table next to ours at Starbucks. It would be ideal to have a friendship develop and over time grow into a love relationship.  For some of us that’s exactly how it happens but for others love blooms accompanied by the tapping of a keyboard. We meet through an online dating service, on a chat room or in an internet forum. We learn about each others favorite color, taste in music, and aspirations and dreams through emails that lead to phone calls that lead to cross-country weekend rendezvous, and if love sparks into a roaring flame a cardboard box stuffed U-Haul looms on the distant horizon.

In 2006, 1 out of 8 couples in the United States met online. My guess would be the statistics are even higher among GLBTQ people. For many queer folk, particularly those isolated in communities where there are higher odds of finding the elusive needle in the haystack than another lesbian in the neighbor, let alone a Christian one, the internet provides a means at meeting another woman with similar interests and values. Over the past dozen years I know of a handful of couples who met through ChristianLesbians / SisterFriends-Together and went on to commit themselves to create lives together. I’ve been privileged over the years to follow their relationships and celebrate at the news of their marriages.

And still, I have to admit I’m skittish about the whole thing, not only because my two online attempts at relationship turned out less than wonderful but because for every one great relationship that develops online, it seems like there are a hundred stories of heartbreak. Relationships, whether they begin in the gender studies section at Borders or in a chat room online come with a risk since opening our hearts to the possibility of love means making ourselves vulnerable to both tremendous joy and incredible heartbreak. As far as I know no heart filter has yet that’s been developed that lets in one and blocks the other.

At the same time it’s even riskier business meeting another woman online without certain advantages that getting to know one another face to face allows and so when I say there are caveats to online courtship I’m not saying it’s not possible. I’m just saying what the literal meaning of the word caveat suggests, ‘let the person beware.’

Be aware everyone online isn’t as genuinely real and amazing as you. Yes! There are truly incredible, brilliant, kindhearted, rock-solid Christian women online who are hoping, praying, and keeping their eyes open for a lifelong, mutually loving and committed relationship. After all, incredible you is here so others must be too, but just don’t assume because they sound like the woman of your dreams they are. The painful reality that’s been proven out far too many times is there are players who aren’t looking for the same thing as you but instead enjoy the thrill of the woo and snag but once the thrill of new love fades they move on to the next relationship. There are other women with psychological and emotional issues who are looking for someone to love them into feeling good rather than finding someone they can be in a mutually loving and giving relationship with. I’m not suggesting there are hoards of women from Crazytown and Creepsville roaming the internet for a nice girl like you. What I am suggesting is there are a lot of wounded human beings who have learned how to survive in life and get what they want by presenting themselves in a way that’s appealing and seemingly sincere, even to themselves, but in the end they’re being less than genuine because they don’t know how to get what they want and need any other way. From one SisterFriend to another, just pay attention and guard your heart. It’s valuable and deserves to be protected from undo harm.

Be aware of the limitations of getting to know someone online. When you develop a relationship online with a woman who lives a thousand miles from your front door there are certain things you can’t possibly know like you would if a relationship was developing with someone fifteen miles down the road. All you have to go on is what she tells you. You don’t have the advantage of seeing her character play out in the day to day of life. You don’t get to watch how she treats her parents and relates to her friends. There are no shared people in your life to tell you how great she is or to offer you a gentle word of concern. You don’t have any other perspectives on why her last two or twenty relationships ended. You don’t know how she reacts when she can’t find a parking place, how she spends her money, how rude or gracious she is to the grocery clerk, or how she actually lives out the priorities and values she professes. She might be all she says she is and praline pecan ice cream besides but even the most genuinely awesome woman can be different in the day to day of life than she portrays herself to be in the intimately tender conversations two lesbians in love engage in, oh so well.

Be aware of how fast the relationship between you and the love of your life is moving. Did you meet her online last month and begin a series of novella length emails that continued for a couple weeks until you switched to phone calls that never end before dawn? In one month have you gone from strangers to now being convinced the two of you are kindred spirits and soul mates for life? Are you fantasizing alone, or with her, about long walks on the beach, late nights in front of the fire, the touch of her hand on yours, and growing old together before you’ve ever laid eyes on one another and washed a sink full of dirty dishes side by side? Girlfriend. Slow down. Seriously. Slow down.

Be aware of what your gut is telling you. The message your heart is sending you when you’re passionately in love can make a sonic boom sound like a cat’s meow so you need to be intentional in paying equal attention to that quiet inner voice that nags at you in the pit of your stomach or bristles at the back of your head when something doesn’t feel quite right. Call it intuition. Call it the nudge of the Holy Spirit. Call it whatever you will but if it has something for you to hear, then don’t ignore it.

After my miserable but gratefully brief first relationship I mentioned in another post, I met a Christian woman online. The friendship progressed at lesbian warp speed and after less than a year of online courtship and a few random getaways we moved in together. I loved her then and I wish her nothing but all of God’s best now. She was one of the truly good women and so was I. We just never gave ourselves the chance in the rush of falling in love to see we were two good women who never belonged together. We might have known that had we ever taken time to exhale. To this day I regret we sacrificed what could have been a meaningful friendship to jump to a place we never should have gone. Why am I telling you? Contrary to how it might sound I’m not a failed relationship exhibitionist. I’m just hoping you won’t throw out everything I’m saying because you think I’m shooting from the hip. I’ve been there. I know. My heart has been broken. I’ve made mistakes and learned some hard lessons. I just hope it doesn’t have to happen that way for you.

So, can you find Ms. Right online? Of course you can. Maybe you have. And if you have, can I be the flower girl at your wedding? I look pretty in pink taffeta.

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Posted in Dating