The rules of dating -- RSQUBF discussion forum

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, [5], 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 16:40:31 10/12/04 Tue
Author: John
Subject: The rules of dating
In reply to: Chris 's message, "Re: History of ICC reform efforts" on 14:25:29 10/12/04 Tue

Dating was a curious thing in the ICC. It allowed all kinds of control from those in any position of leadership. It went basically like this:

If I had a romantic interest in a member of the church, I had to discuss it with my discipleship partner. He would call her discipleship partner and they would discuss it. If she had no interest at all in me, my discipler would come back to me and say things like "take it slow, she's not where you are yet" and "you've gotto win her heart". If she did have similar feelings for me, then he would come back to me and say, "take it slow, you've got to build this carefully and spiritually." You'd never know for certain if she liked you at all - she wasn't allowed to say so.

In any case, for reasons of purity, if the disciplship partners agreed to let this go forward, you were allowed to ask her out once a month. After a few months, then, you could ask her out twice a month. After another few months, then you would go through the proper channels to get approval for steady dating.

Stay with me, this gets complicated. If she and I were in the same small group (called Bible Talks), then the approval had to come the next chain up the ladder, usually a Family Group leader. If she wasn't in my Bible Talk or in my Family Group leader's set of Bible Talks, then approval had to come from both Family Group Leaders and the Region leader. If I had the misfortune of being in love with someone from a different region (usually meaning a different nearby city), then I had to get approval from my Bible Talk leaders, her Bible Talk leaders, My Family Group Leader, her Family Group Leader, my Region leader, her Region leader and an evangelist. If I had the misfortune of being in love with someone in another city, I had to get my Lead Evangelist's permission and her Lead Evangelist's permission. Considering the pyramid strucutre in place, that meant going all the way up the chain of command on both sides.

As a side note, if a sister moved away to another city because they were dating steady, all the single guys would be rounded up for a special meeting. At this meeting, we would be berated for not loving our sister enough that she had to look elsewhere to find romantic love. We were then told to redouble our efforts to go on more dates with more sisters or else.

All dates required another couple. You could not go on a date alone. Again this was for purity reasons. Dates were also considered evangelistic events, so if you went to a resturant, you always invited the server to church or Bible study.

There's more, but that's the gist of it.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]