Case Study – Sarah R.

I had the pleasure of interviewing a friend of mine who was willing to work with me, put in effort, and have fun along the way. Learn about her journey below!

1. What was your dating life like before we met? What were your views about your dating life?
   Before we started working together, I had no dating life. I wanted to get married, but had so many erroneous preconceived ideas…the man should pursue me so I shouldn’t have to make any effort, I wasn’t worth pursuing or had no chance because of all the competition, I didn’t want to look desperate by looking for a mate, and besides there was no hope anyway because there were like a million sisters per single brother. I didn’t have a chance!)
   
2. What was the biggest challenge you’d say you faced? 
   One of my biggest challenges was accepting that I needed to do some work in order to find a good mate. And by ¨work¨ I mean, work on myself physically, doing a lot of learning about social interaction, expanding my network of friends to increase my chances of finding a mate, and polishing my personality traits or bad habits that would make it harder for me to attract a good mate.
   
3. Besides personal Bible study and getting advice from others, what were you doing to help yourself with dating before we met? 
   Before we met, I was trying a few things that I thought would help me out. I started working out to improve my health, self-esteem and overall looks. I would also talk about dating with married couples, thinking that this would help me. After all, if they got married, they must know what they’re doing, I thought.
   
4. What were your results from what you were previously doing before we met?
   Well, the advice I was often given by married couples was cliché or just plain bad…I started  to see that being older and married didn’t mean a couple knew anything about proper Christian dating. Also, I would meet men, but not the kind that I was interested in. For example, several times I followed up on a ¨lead¨ from a sister who wanted to ¨help me out¨ But letting others try to set me up never worked out for me. I was always so disappointed because it never went well. Either the brother wasn’t attractive, he would be too old/too young, not spiritual, a player, or just flat out not interested in marriage. All this just left me feeling more hopeless and discouraged, like the only single men out there were duds so I was doomed to be single or not to get the kind of man I wanted.
   
5. Looking back, What were some views you had that you can now see held you back? Do you see these same views in other girls who are struggling to find someone?
   There were several strongly entrenched views that held me back. 
   1. If a man is worth it, he’ll come after me. I thought that I shouldn’t have to do anything to attract a good man because if he was worth it, he would come knocking. 
   2. Getting excited over ¨crumbs¨ of attention, then getting my heart broken. So many times I would get super attached to a man who would do nothing more than text me or call me beautiful or buy me a meal. I thought these meager tokens of attention surely meant we would get married. Often the man was just being friendly, or sometimes he was playing with girls’ emotions on purpose because it was so easy. I had to learn to stop reading into a man’s every action and assigning romantic intention. 
   
6. Was there any piece of advice that made you have an “aha” moment? After applying the advice, how did your results with men or dating in general change? Did your view of yourself change? 
   I can’t remember the exact words that were said to me, but I do know that once I started doing what we called ¨networking¨, the game changed for me. I started strategically putting myself in situations where I could meet the kind of men I might be interested in, intentionally getting their phone numbers, and organizing my own social events to invite them. I started building up a list of friends—single, spiritual, attractive young men friends—that I could spend time with in wholesome group settings. Once I started doing that, I could see that
   1. There WERE good men out there and
   2. I could choose one that I wanted.
   This also helped me to get practice just communicating in general with men, to learn how they think and interact.
   
7. If there was 1 piece of advice you learned, or maybe something I stressed was important ….that you’d pass on to someone who was single and looking, what would it be?
   There was so much good advice, it’s hard to pick one thing. I’ll try to keep it down to one! I’d say, STOP WASTING TIME. Stop wasting time at social events with all women where you’ll never meet anyone. Stop wasting time letting another person with an agenda try to set you up with their unattractive nephew. Stop wasting time listening to dating advice from forever-singles who had NO IDEA what they’re talking about. Stop wasting time playing hard to get, or being angry that you never meet any men, or believing all the common stereotypes spoon-fed to girls like ¨you’ll find a good man if you just focus on serving God¨ or God will drop a mate in your lap.
   
8. What surprised you most after going through this process? 
   What surprised me most was how much work a woman has to do to get what she wants, and the double-standard that comes with it. We’re told that a good man will just pick us out, so I had this idea that I could just sit back and wait. I was also surprised by the subtle pressure to remain single, because I somehow ¨wasn’t spiritual¨ if I admitted that I wanted to marry.  I really had to dig deep in personal study to identify what I could work on in to be a better future wife. AND I had to study hard to understand God’s view of searching for a mate. I was shocked at how different God’s view is from popular opinion, even from many spiritual people.  I also had to put in real effort to meet men…I literally looked up all the congregations and assemblies in my area, put them on my calendar, and scheduled trips to different meetings to expand my network. After trying for a while, I realized that my small-town area wasn’t giving me enough options. So I packed my bags and strategically moved 7 hours away to a sprawling metropolis with hundreds of congregations. There, I applied the same systematic approach that we’d practiced before in the small town, only THIS TIME, I was meeting men like crazy. Don’t get me wrong, here—I wasn´t meeting men just because I was in a huge city. I still scheduled and went to different assemblies, Christian dance parties, and other gatherings where I thought there might be single men. I quickly got a few promising leads and some dinners out with a brother or two. And within 2 months, I met my husband.
   
9. For someone who is on the fence about working with me, what would you tell them? 
   I would tell them that you need a neutral, unbiased source to give you a clear perspective. Working with Lauren is different from others because she has been there, she found what she wanted, and she isn’t giving you worn-out advice that everyone else says but doesn’t work. Lauren has studied and meditated on Bible principles, she put them into practice, and she has an almost scientific approach to dating. It sounds odd, but it works. Everything she tells you, she has already tried and tested it out. And she will be very honest with you, even when you don’t want to hear it. She doesn’t have an agenda, she isn’t afraid to tell you what you need to hear. She isn’t rude, but she will tell you kindly but directly ¨stop getting excited over crumbs¨ or ¨don’t waste your time, your time is precious¨. These are things that no one else has the experience or guts to say, and this perspective helps you cut through all the common dating stereotypes and start getting results.
   
10. How did you feel about my availability? Was I able to answer questions within a timely manner while you were going through the process? 
    Personally, I feel that Lauren was surprisingly available to help me. She was a coach who held my hand through years (yes, years) of this process, and I was always surprised at how quickly she would (and still does) answer me. I mean, I send her TONS of voice notes on social media (I like to talk), and she always responds specifically to what I was talking about, so I know she really listened to me. And she usually answers messages the very same day, if not immediately.