Fifty-Eighth Entry

Tonight has been a night of intense thought for me. I rarely ever sit and think for long periods of time. I thought about my goals in life, my current situation in life and my past experiences in life. I thought about my career, my friends and family, and my more-than-friends relationship(s). The latter part (relationships) caused me to think the most.

I found myself reflecting on my most recent romantic involvement and what went wrong. We had it good in many ways: we enjoyed each others company, we always had a good time together, we both had basically the same ideals where family and friends were concerned, we both want and strive to be career oriented. There was, and still is, a lot of chemistry between us.

What didn't jive, at least for me, was her religious and spiritual place in life. I am no where near her level of spirituality and, what I sometimes call, belief of the unknown. She is a woman who takes her life and treats it as a vessel for God to do his bidding. Although I believe in God, it is to a much lesser extent than her; I flip-flop between a lax Catholic and an agnostic. After having a college experience where a majority of my friends were practicing Christians, I have seen the positives in having such a strong belief in God and his ways. I however, have not been able to become as "believing" as they were.

I ended the relationship because I knew that she and I would only be truly happy with people of our own spirituality. Our two different beliefs would lead us to two completely different ways of life.

But tonight, I was thinking. Why do you date someone? Why do you marry someone as opposed to someone else? Does your belief system really matter?

1. Why do you date someone?
The reason you date someone is because you take an interest in the person you are dating. Simple, but true. It could be because she is funny, it could be because you share a lot of hobbies or interests, or it could be because she is great in bed. You obviously see a quality in that person that you would like to see more of.

2. Why do you marry someone as opposed to someone else?
Compatibility on issues such as goals in life, raising a family; in general, the potential symbiosis of your lives. The love bit of a serious relationship will always be there regardless so when looking at this scientifically (which is kind of an oxy-moron, because there is nothing scientific about love), it can just drop out of the equation and basically becomes a non-issue. The dating process should expose a person to enough potential mates to where you know who you want and just go after her. The more you date, the more likely you are to come across your most compatible match.

3. Does your belief system really matter?
Although I do not believe that heavily in God and the bible, I do think that a persons belief system does factor in heavily when judging the compatibility of two people in a relationship. A person who has a strong belief in God is definitely going to raise her children differently, partake in different activities, and act differently in general. That is how I saw it when I ended my recent relationship.

But then why am I so confused about its importance? I found myself tonight thinking that it really wouldn't be so bad to marry a strong Christian and raise a family with her. I think that my morals and beliefs in raising a family are essentially the same as any Christians. It's not like I would raise my kid to be a killer. I would raise my children to respect all people. I would give them the choice on if they wanted to go to church with mommy or stay at home and help daddy build something. I have always thought that my children would be raised to have a choice on whether or not they would want to be involved in a religion. But could that happen if their mother was a Christian?

It's kind of like that whole thing about raising a bilingual child. Would you force him to learn english and, say, portuguese? I wouldn't, although some people would say that you should...higher test scores, etc. But I would only consider that if my parents weren't bilingual. Fortunately for me they are, eliminating the necessity for a bilingual grandchild. To me, this is a lot more cut and dried than the whole religion issue.

Spirituality and religion has always been a tough issue for me to think about and I handle it best by avoiding it or pushing it aside. Maybe its a fear that I may be wrong and go to hell for not going to church. Maybe its a jealousy of the religious because I am not able to walk around knowing that God is watching over me and protecting me.

I was thinking tonight that when we were together, we were good, which spawned ideas of getting back together. But then I think about how confused I get about the whole thing and just push it aside, like everything else I can't handle, and move on.