Here Is What He Thinks Qustion One

Last winter I lead an intimate little study in my home with some very amazing young women.  Over the course of about seven weeks we took at look at what hinders our ability to be in a committed relationship.  Please note that these are women in their twenties, all of whom have never had a "real" boyfriend, are passionate in how the they love and serve Jesus, and beautiful both inside and out.  After weeks of deep study.  A study that will be repeated with a new group their is the finale.  What do the guys think?

A list of 13 questions went out on facebook to the young Christian men I know.  I asked them to answer honestly, and that I would not reveal their identity.  One young man shared that they went over the questions in their house church.  For the next 13 posts I will list one question and the answers that follow. I was not surprised by how similar many of the answers were. After receiving over 35 responses, I have chosen those answers that represent all the answers submitted.  Please comment and ask questions and offer your own answers to each question. Here we go with the first question:

Do you get the sense that your acts of kindness towards a girl are misunderstood?

“Yes, when I sense this, then I totally back off, sometimes pretend to ignore her for a period of time after to show her I'm not interested, I was just either being nice/or being conversational like I would with anyone else.”

“On the first time I do not think they are misunderstood. After repeated times of kindness and without clarity in intention, often I do feel they end up misinterpreted (or least lead to a heightened level of interest from women)”

“Absolutely! I'm always very up front in my communication with a girl though so that she knows my intentions behind my actions. Despite even open communication I think we can tend to want to see someone else’s actions as a sign of interest because we really want it that bad.”

“Sometimes. It’s not a big deal for me because I know my intentions when I do something. If I get misunderstood (question 2), I will pull back, but still be kind to her. I will just try to make sure I am not doing an act of kindness to JUST her, but that I do the same thing to others as well. For example, I hug everyone at my home group. If I get an idea that a girl likes me, I may not hug them... but I will still say hi. If I do hug them, they see me hugging everyone, so they will see they are not getting special treatment.”

“ ... I am having trouble answering this because there are so many different answers depending on things said above...”

“ Yes, I understand that I need to be more discerning in how I am around certain girls, but if I am just a guy being nice, it does not mean I am interested, and if I am stand off, then I have a problem. It’s harder than girls think.”

" It is really hard to strike up a conversation with a girl without being misunderstood. Especially if she is interested in me, and I had no idea.  Then it turns out that I back off and offend her."