Pondering Priest - Letter 2 - Avoiding the Pressure

Dear Bro Jo -

I wouldn't say they are so much pressuring me to get a girlfriend as I would that they are implying I should get one. It’s my mother and two of my brothers (both return missionaries). I honestly have no idea why they might be doing it.

I think you advise that we date multiple people so that we can have a much wider range of people we know that could be prospective eternal companions, and that we should keep from getting to serious because it would make the temptations more and more "there".

- PP

Dear Pondering,

I think you should point-blank ask your Brothers and Mom what the deal is with the GF pressure - might be interesting answers . . .

And you are correct. We want you to get to know more people, to broaden your horizons, and to be safe. The longer you're in a relationship, at any age, the stronger the temptations. That's just a fact. Not everyone sees that, but it's true. A guy and a girl may be too shy to hold each other's hands at first, but you put them alone in the dark enough times, especially if there's a mutual attraction there, and eventually the clothes come off. That's why we try to keep you out of the dark, mixing up the dates, and married when it's no longer possible to keep you apart.

You're still young.

This girl may be everything you've hoped for, and she may feel the same, but neither of you should find that out for certain until it's marriage time. So slow it down. Keep it casual.

Trust me: Break-ups suck. And the Younger You are and the Closer the Relationship, the worse they are.

I'm glad you're working hard to stay on the right path. Good for you!

A mission is a once in a life-time opportunity, don't live a life where you're going to look back and regret that you messed up the opportunity to go.

Look, I understand the drive to have a Girlfriend, even without pressure. And I understand how great it can be. I don't advise it for the very reasons we've discussed. But I'm not going to tell you to dump your girlfriend.

I AM going to tell you that you should talk to this girl and tell her that you think she's great, that you really like her, and that you love spending time with her. Tell her that you think you should date, but that you see the intelligence in both of you keeping your relationship from getting too serious at this point in your lives. Tell her you plan to go on a mission some day (LDS girls eat that stuff up, by the way), and that it's important for you to keep that as your number one goal.

Tell her that you think the best thing for you both to do is to go on Casual Group Dates, sometimes with each other, and sometimes with other people. Tell her that just because you're taking some other girl to the movies on one of these CGDs, it doesn't mean that this other girl is your Girlfriend or that you're going to be smooching her, you just need to mix up the companionships as a way to keep things light.

If for no other reason, do it to keep people from hassling you about how serious your relationship is at this point.

Does that make sense?

- Bro Jo

Yeah, it does. Thanks for being so quick to reply and thanks a lot for the great advice. I'll talk to her now.

~~pondering priest

btw she wants to read this if she can so I was gonna tell her as soon as you posted it. Thanks again.


Feel free to share it with her, forward, whatever. It probably won't post online for a week or two (and I'll edit it a little)

Good luck and God Bless to both of you!

- Bro Jo