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Inappropriate Relationships

by Ruthie Alekseeva  
6/04/2023 / Dating

A Gracious Interview

This interview’s going great, Barry thinks. I have the audience eating out of my hands.

He leans back in his chair smiling, as the audience laughs.

The man sitting opposite him chuckles also then looks directly at the camera, breaking the third wall.

“Good evening,” he says. “If you’ve joined us, I’m Adam Gadsby, and you’re watching Interviews With TV Stars with tonight’s star, Barry Campbell.

“Yes, yes. Welcome,” Barry says.

The audience titters again.

“Let’s change topics,” Adam says. “What’s it like? Growing old, I mean.”

Barry pauses.

That’s an unexpected question, he thinks.

Barry rests his forearms on his thighs, clasping his hands, then says, “Well, I can’t really say.”

He pauses again, thinking, then says, “Because you don’t really notice yourself ageing. You see, I still feel the same as I did at twenty. Ageing happens in the background while you’re busy doing other things. Then, one day, you wake up, and you’re not considered young anymore.”

Adam nods and smiles but doesn’t interrupt.

Barry sits straighter, then looks at the audience.

“Ageing is seeing a pretty, young girl and loving her the way you always have but she doesn’t see you anymore. You’ve become invisible because, in her eyes, you’re an old man now.”

An Identical Realisation

That’s a real question asked of a real performer by a real TV presenter, and that’s the reply that question received. That answer struck me because it reminded me of an episode I had experienced that resulted in a similar realisation. Not long after a milestone birthday, one wintry Sunday morning, a man visited my church. I felt an immediate physical attraction toward him, and when he approached, I noticed his nature and love for God held an equal attraction for me. During the sermon, I wondered if he had felt anything for me, and if he had, would he show his interest? Then, I remembered my recent birthday and the age I had turned and realised that, no, a man of his age would no longer view me in that kind of light and if he did, and revealed his attraction? Well, how inappropriate.

That realisation prompted another memory inside of me of another incident that had occurred at a much younger age. While a 17-year-old school girl, still living with my parents, on a couple of occasions, my male 49-year-old youth pastor had driven me, unchaperoned, to a youth group activity, as a favour for my parents. No one had batted an eyelid. Move forward a couple of months, still aged seventeen, I had moved out of home for study. I now lived in a new city. Still without a car, still without a driver’s license, a much older man at my new church, noticing the long distance I walked when attending services, offered me a lift. Young, naïve, clueless and trusting, I accepted his assistance. I don’t know the intentions of that older church-attending man. I never asked. I didn’t realise the need. At that age, I didn’t know that sometimes older men hit on much younger women. Why would they? Wouldn’t they feel silly turning up at social events with someone much younger than their friends’ spouses and girlfriends?

On the two occasions I accepted his rides, I never noticed any signs of vulgarity but that simple act of, hopefully innocent, kindness instigated a slanderous hailstorm at my new church. Suddenly, members of the congregation declared the man my sexually-involved boyfriend with me only after his money. So, that ended that. Walking the long distance became my routine again. As I walked, I wondered what had changed within the last couple of months that made one scenario fine and the other scenario a perversion.

More Inappropriate Relationships

As a teenager, I lapped up episodes of Seinfeld, a show where a male comedian often sees movies, eats at cafes and spends time alone at his apartment with his former girlfriend, as a non-romantic friend, even when he’s in relationships with new women. The ex-girlfriend engages in the same activities with other male characters of the show, as a non-romantic friend, even when she’s in relationships with new men. Young, clueless, inexperienced and naïve, I didn’t know that this situation absolutely could never exist in real life.

So, I participated in the same behaviour, but unlike the ex-girlfriend in the internationally acclaimed show, I found that only I considered these relationships platonic (At that age, the episode where the former boyfriend and girlfriend trial a friends-with-benefits relationship went over my head completely, as did the episode where she dates an older man). It caused a lot of pain, hurt and confusion. For that, I’m still sorry. An emotional affair – that’s the relationship the characters in this show had. I had heard of adultery, but I’d never heard of the term emotional affair. No one had ever told me they existed, but they’re equally hurtful and equally wrong. I wish I had known.

While we’re at it, here’s another poor choice I made as a young person. I lived in share accommodation where both men and women lived in the same quarters. Once again, a rumour spread that I and the men living in my house engaged in sexual activity. Only one of the men ever asked me for this kind of behaviour, and I said no, but that didn’t matter. From the outside, no one knew that I still held my integrity intact. From the outside, I looked like a depraved person. That’s all it took. Based on rumours, I lost a much-loved ministry opportunity because the Bible says that only people above reproach, well thought of by outsiders and not open to the charge of debauchery should hold the office of elder, deacon and overseer, so shouldn’t that criteria hold for all those involved in ministry? Yes, and so I lost that much-loved ministry opportunity.

The Pendulum Swings

Heartbroken and confused, I wondered why I hadn’t received more direction around male and female relationships and sex. During the sex talks my family members, secular school and church youth group  had given me, all of them had revealed that sex exists and informed me that my body would soon change but no one told me, that because sex exists and because of the changes our bodies undergo, men and women can’t have the same relationships that boys and girls do. You can’t go play with your best friend, alone, at his house anymore because the only male that can hold the title of best friend now is a husband. Spending time alone, and sometimes even in a group, with members of the opposite sex can now illicit temptation and salacious gossip, even if those temptations never materialise into sinful conduct.

At the same time, purity culture arose. It broadcast a constant stream of instructions about navigating the grey areas of male-female relationships and sex. Never wanting my character besmirched or my ministry opportunities pulled out from under me again, I guzzled these directions up, but many of those rules were rigid, iron-fisted and one-size-fits all. Although many of the rules can render temptation and gossip non-existent, the stringency of them can also render the possibility of a righteous, holy attraction with a good man, that could end in a life-long marriage, impossible also.

Finding Balance

So, what’s the balance? Instead of only instructing kids about the physical side of sex, teach children the emotional side as well, that not only will their bodies change, their male-female relationships must change also. When you see relationships on TV that could never exist in real life, inform your adolescent. Explain why that relationship’s immoral and the hurt it would cause if lived out in the real world. When you see real people in an apparent indecent relationship, before you judge and administer consequences, find out if what it looks like on the outside really reflects what’s happening on the inside.

Show grace and mercy, realising younger members of those relationships might not know that what their involved in doesn’t look good from the viewpoint of outsiders and that, for older people, there's a short window of time where the older members of those relationships may not have realised that, because of their age, a relationship with people of younger, less-experienced ages can’t exist anymore. Why? Because it slurs your reputations and makes obeying 1 Timothy 5:2 and 1 Timothy 5:8 impossible. How do you treat older congregants like fathers and mothers and younger congregants like sisters and brothers if you’re dating them, and how do you provide for your family members when you die, leaving a younger spouse alive who must now provide for your children on their own?

Above all, although there’s wisdom in having rules around our interactions with people of the opposite sex, if their too rigid, righteous relationships can’t grow and if the Bible doesn’t contain any of those rules, you can recommend them but you can’t enforce them as biblical requirements for salvation or church membership. Losing my much-loved ministry really did break my heart. If we’ve raised our children as Christians, then, of course, serving God will become a big desire of theirs. If we love them, we should give them all the information they need, without enclosing them in iron-clad rules, of ensuring that their character and ministry opportunities remain in they’re hands.

Titus 1:6 NKJV

1 Timothy 5:2

1 Timothy 5:8 NKJV

1 Timothy 3:17 NKJV

 

 

 

 

 

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