How Many Girlfriends/Boyfriends have You Had?

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I am of Jewish background, and I only became Christian few years after I moved to the US: I converted by reading internet sites. So I became Messianic, which means I keep Jewish law and believe in Jesus. Sometimes I go to Messianic congregations, and other times I go to other churches that meet on Saturday -- particularly, Seventh Day Adventist church and United Church of God. So they are all Protestant.

However, I been curious about Catholicism/Orthodoxy for quite some time. You see, if I read the Bible, some of the things Jesus says sound quite extreme, such as the believers are supposed to do the miracles Jesus did (John 14:12), drink snakes poison and not die (Mark 16:18), give all their posessions to the poor (Matt 19:21), etc. So I figured that if I were to be a Catholic, I wouldn't have to worry about any of those verses: in this case I would be able to say "well, pope and church fathers aren't concerned about those things so I shouldn't be concerned about them either". I guess its difficult to trust the pope since it would raise such questions as: was Spanish Inquisition the hand of God? Is Pope John Paul the hand of God as well? And if they are both hand of God, why are they contradicting each other? But I guess there is an interpediate option which is to say that early church fathers probably DO have a lot of inside -- since they directly interacted with apostles -- but after few centuries passed then no they no longer had the access to all that information. So yeah it would be nice to read church fathers, but I kept postponing them.

Speaking of church fathers, one "bad" thing about them would be that they would basically refute all the sabbaterian churches I am going to. After all -- just like sabbaterian churches point out -- there is no biblical evidence for sunday; however there is a lot of church fathers evidence for sunday. At the same time, I have a way of addressing it too. I read on a messianic website http://www.netzarim.co.il/ that Jesus original followers kept saturday rather than sunday but they were eventually suppressed by fake followers that kept sunday. There was also some other website -- which I no longer remember what it is (I read it like 10 years ago) -- that pulled those two opposite pieces of information together and said that the biological children of apostles kept saturday but gentile converts kept sunday -- so they had two competting churches -- both headed by people with direct interaction with apostles -- and eventually sunday keepers suppressed saturday keepers. So if both groups directly interacted with apostles, then its hard to tell which view apostles themselves would hold (unless you want to go to the bible directly but that brings me back to the debate between different protestant denominations on how to interpret it). In any case, what I am trying to say is that it would be interesting to read sunday-keeping church fathers (the catholic part) together with the early sabbaterians (the messianic part) and try to pull it together. But like I said I didn't have time to do it, I keep postponing it.

I would think that lots of reasonable guys would value your moderate views.

I think a lot of the problem comes down to age. Most people are already married by the time they are in their 30’s.

I think a lot of us on the spectrum are late bloomers. Did it take you awhile to figure out who you were and what you wanted? That can happen and then one realizes that most guys they’d consider are already spoken for. It’s tough!

But I find that with ladies. Most available ladies roughly my age tend to have about 6 children, have gone through umpteen men...
They may even call all their children by the first name as they all have different sirnames. Ok... That was my humour... And I don't really want to put a lady down when she needs a bit of loving care! But for me it would be hard to take on a lady with children because in my mind... Oh.. I must have hurt one young lady once and I never intended to hurt her at all. I dated her on a single afternoon date, but it was on my mind that the child wasn't my child. I don't know how to describe my feelings. I never want a child to not have a dad. But somehow, I couldn't do it. And I was not getting the connection with her.. Yes, she tried. She squeezed my leg and I did find her a lovely kind lady. But I wasn't getting a connection other then a turned on sexual way... Hard to describe. I text her after and I thought I said a beautiful thing in the way that I put it, but when I re-read it, I suddenly realized that the text wording I sent could be taken totally the wrong way and it was aweful. I tried to send more texts apologising, but her phone was off. And that was it. I was so upset that I had upset her. I never ever intended to upset her.

No. I've been pretty sure of what I've wanted for quite a while now. I'm quite sure of myself.

Even in my 20s I couldn't get any interest. I've liked some good guys. But meh, nothing.

I guess in my case its not that I would "always" try to convert someone but its more like I would try when I have an opportunity to. Now, if I am offered something and then it is taken away, then I push, thats just human nature. So if a woman says she is willing to try to explore my religion, but then changes her mind, then I would push her to change her mind back. But if a woman never offered it to me on the first place, then I would be happy to date her despite our religions being different. On a flip side, if a woman rejects me "because" she thought I was trying to convert her, then I would go like "no no no, I don't want to convert you, just please date me".

And its not just with converting to a religion. Thats how I operate in general. For example, with majority of women in the past, I tend to turn them off because I am too long winded (no I don't mean religion I mean long winded about secular things) -- and then I tell them "no no no, I don't have to be long winded, I can change and write short emails just give me a chance" and they would be like "I know you enjoy being long winded, you have to be who you are, find the girl that enjoys it too" and I would be like "no I don't enjoy it, I just happened to be this way just now, it was an accident". But then there was a girl I talked to past couple of months who actually liked that I was long winded and was long winded right back at me, which I liked too. But then she stopped being long winded when I threw a temper tantrum that pushed her away. So then I started to nag her to become long winded again like she used to since I want to "undo" my temper tantrum. She kept telling me that not being long winded is fine, and I was like "no no no its not fine, look how perfect it was to be when we were long winded".

So you see how the tables were turned. In the past other girls were telling me I need to "be who I am" and stay long winded and I been telling them that I don't, and now its the opposite the girl tells me its fine not to be long winded and I keep telling her that I need long windedness. So which way is it? Well, the same goes with whether or not I try to convert the girl. Whether I insist she should convert OR I insist she doesn't have to, all depends on situation, and on exactly what was "taken away" from me and when, in any given interaction. I guess for the most part I am trying to figure out "what is the most I could have, without pushing the woman away", which at times is hard to predict.

Yeah. I have a son.

I definitely don’t want a relationship in which a guy feels like he needs to step in as the father and take care of us. That would put way too much pressure on me and could threaten my autonomy.

I’d much prefer to have a loving but not always together relationship. That’s a pretty tall order...

Yeah, I don't want to marry a woman with kids. I guess even when it comes to divorced woman without kids, I won't marry her either, since Jesus said divorce amounts to adultery. But if she has kids it only makes it worse. For one thing, I want kids of my own to be fulfilled. Yes, she might agree to have one more kid with me, which makes it "somewhat" better, but wouldn't it be too many kids to take care of, particularly since I am trying to focus on my science career?

Thats a bit interesting. Usually I would expect that the biological parent of a kid would want their partner to help and their partner wouldn't want to help, but here you are describing quite an opposite situation. So if you don't want your future husband to take care of your kid, how do you think your kid would feel to have "a father thats not really a father"? I guess "having a father that wasn't used to be a father" also feels weird in a differnt way, like some stranger intruding into your life. So I guess I can somewhat see where you are coming from. But what are your thoughts on this?

Jesus said that people could remarry in situations where there’s adultery. Most Christians would allow for it when there’s other problems too like domestic violence.

I don’t want to remarry but have a relationship nonetheless. I value my independence.

My kid is challenging, and I don’t want to bring someone else into the mix who might have a different parenting style or who might come to resent me for adding another burden to his life.

Well, in Matt 7:13 Jesus said that only few are saved, yet the number of Christians is far from few. So math tells me that most Christians aren't saved and thats why I don't really listen to most Christians and instead go to the Bible.

I guess, speaking of the Bible, I "can" marry someone who got divorced due to adultery but I can "not" marry anyone who got divorced due to domestic violence. I guess that sounds bad since it implies that I am telling a woman who has been physically abused to stay in that physical abuse for the rest of her life. So I guess I am refraining from telling anyone what to do (since obviously I am very confused) but I simply want avoid the situation where I am becoming personally responsible for some decisions connected to it -- which is what would happen if I marry her. You see, if I marry her, I would be obsessing for the rest of my life "so did I sin or didn't I", but if I don't marry her, I don't have to obsess about it: refraining from marriage isn't a sin.

As far as the situation where there was adultery, I don't want to marry either since that would feel like "taking advantage of adultery" which also feels bad. Besides, its not always cut and dry, the reason for divorce is not just one or the other, its usually combination of things. So again, a lot easier not to marry, and then I won't have to be asking myself moral questions like that.

Does it mean that you want the relationship to end eventually, or you want to have lifelong partner? Also, wouldn't this deprive the man you are with from his desire to marry? Or are you saying you want him to be in the same boat as you -- also someone divorced and also someone with kids?

I guess I am coming from a different place since I never been married and don't have kids of my own -- so I want both of those things eventually at some point. But I guess if I were in your situation -- where I already had past marriage and kids from it -- then I guess I would be looking for something a lot closer to what you are describing.

So when you said your kid is challenging, do you mean autistic? Obviously you are on this board, so you are connected to autism somehow. Is it your autism, or your kids autism or both?

We both have autism. He also has some severe ADHD and is prone to frequent meltdowns. I’m very good with him and patient but his father and my parents are not. I wouldn’t want to deal with another adult’s impatience.

I wouldn’t get into a relationship with someone who really wanted to marry. I’m 35. Probably whoever I would meet would already have been married or had a serious relationship.

I’d like a lifelong partner.

I think you’re about right, though if I had more time I’d qualify that. Nevertheless, I think the past attitude was better, especially for people in our situation.



Yes, the respect people have for diversity is quite ironically rather selective. Indeed, if you’re different from the norm in the sense of having traditional, Christian values, you’re actively shunned. Someday I’ll discover how these types of people think, though I’m not sure I care to.


My beef with what passes for individualism today is that it’s not individualism proper, but a caricature of individualism, which is of course a contradiction in terms. For instance, people think that wearing torn clothes, using lavatory language, listening to “rock”, refusing to shave and sporting greasy hair makes them “individuals”, but precisely because so many have swallowed this piffle sold to them by advertisers, it ceases to be true individualism (aside from the very fact that it’s been sold to them). Ours is the only age so ridiculous that individualism is a mass-produced commodity.


The cult of the “mighty likeable fellow” didn’t come into being until much later, but the western love-affair with extroversion and scorn for solitude have their roots in the esteem in which rhetoric was held in fourth century Athens. It’s important to note that this cult nevertheless always had notable detractors, until fairly recently. In America, this would be men like Bejamin Franklin, John Woolman, William Penn, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, et al.

Every century before our own since the beginning of civilisation was more cultured than it.



My point was that, once wealth is democratised, a great premium begins to be placed upon salesmanship, which obviously requires an extroverted personality. Until the Enlightenment and the emergence of the Industrial Revolution and, with it, the nouveau riche, the only realistic means of amassing wealth was to be born a true aristocrat, so that there was no incentive to, as the fashionable phrase goes, “sell yourself”. Everybody knew his place and had little or no chance of rising above it. This nouveau riche cult of extroversion came of age with the rise of the New York Stock Exchange at the end of the nineteenth century, and was then exported to Europe, much to the dismay of wiser intellectuals like GK Chesterton and TS Eliot, through Hollywood and the rest of the almost exclusively American emerging pop culture.


That’s an odd thing to think. Do I cut off an arm because I’m without a leg?


Plenty of people aren’t immature by the given definition (though may well be by other, equally good ones). Perhaps there are reasons for your being a bachelor other than others’ immaturity.


My point was that if you never intend to have sex, even after getting married, it seems an odd – though not wrong – arrangement.


I’d immigrate to Poland, Hungary or Russia if I knew the languages and could get the requisite visas. I admire how Eastern Europeans are proud of their Christian heritage.


Somehow, I really do like women to be taller than me (I’m 5’6”); I’d more than happily marry a woman six feet tall. I do rather like women to be “plump”, too à la Rubens. I suppose my ideal BMI is between 25 and 30. I’m probably around 18 myself, LOL.


I don’t go for that sort of thing, though I know another Christian who does. It was all done away with in the New Testament.


I’d never attempt to convert a partner, though I’d accept her if she were earnestly willing, for her own part, to convert.


Go with whatever works for you. Complicating things is never a good idea, and we live in an ecumenical age.

For me, the virtue of the Catholic Church is its justification in the apostolic tradition dating to Peter, as well as the beauty of its ceremonies and its legal constitution which, rather for the same reasons as the United States’ political constitution, makes it impervious to the kind of undermining from within that Protestant Churches have suffered over the past few generations. This is why the RC Church is still Christian in its positions on homosexuality, divorce, and so forth. It will endure forever, as stated in Matthew.

It’s important to note that, although the antinomian atheists have been distorting this for a number of years now, the principle of papal infallibility does not extend to morality, but only to points of doctrine when the Pope speaks by virtue of the Church’s magisterium. The immoral actions, like the Inquisition, halfway endorsed by the Church do not form part of this and any claim to the contrary is a piece of Christopher Hitchens obscurantism.

I have been a Catholic all my life.

I, too, am a physicist. What do you specialise in?

You're so kindhearted. I really do find you inspiring; you're exactly what a Christian should be.