Astrology On A First Date?
This has been getting a lot of commentary on Twitter, mostly people making fun of it:
I think she's phrased this in an immature and foolish way, but that she's basically right. Frankly, if I were going on a first date, I would want to know if she took astrology seriously. In my case, it wouldn't be because I think astrology is silly (though I do); I could handle silliness. In fact, I like eccentricity! No, I would want to know if she is into astrology because though I think it is mostly silly, I also see it as a gateway into the occult. And that is an insurmountable barrier to a romantic relationship for me. Similarly, she would no doubt want to know that I am the kind of Christian who would not get into a romantic relationship with someone who even dabbles in the occult. If she finds that crazy, fair enough: we understand each other.
When the divorce my wife filed this past spring becomes final next year, I will be free to marry again, if I want to. I'm not sure what God has in mind for me, but if I do start looking for a romantic partner again, there's no question but that she will have to be a serious traditional Christian. I can't imagine being so intimate with someone who doesn't share my faith, and my level of commitment to it. It's not a matter of "he likes travel, she likes to focus on building her nest," or "she loves the theater, he prefers movies". That kind of difference can be a lot of fun, and add interest and delight to a relationship. A faith commitment is absolutely foundation for anyone's life, so why shouldn't it be so for a life together? I couldn't imagine not being able to share that aspect of my life with my partner. What I don't know is how far that boundary should go. Only Orthodox, like me? Catholic? Protestant?
What about politics? In theory, I wouldn't care. Except we now live in a time in which politics is a reliable marker of an entire worldview, including religion. Yes, there are some Democrats who are faithful Christians, and if it were a matter of arguing over economic policies, hey, no problem. But the kinds of social and cultural issues that divide Left from Right derive from a profound moral and spiritual worldview, such that I would fear that my liberal wife and I would be arguing constantly. I think I could live and thrive within a marriage in which we were different kinds of conservatives, but not beyond that. I don't think this would have been true forty years ago, but the divisions in American life and culture have become too great. The last thing anybody wants to do at home is argue -- not "discuss" or "debate," but "argue" -- politics with their spouse.
What about other things, like, say, music? There's a funny sequence in Woody Allen's Hannah And Her Sisters, in which Allen takes Dianne Wiest to hear Bobby Short at Cafe Carlyle, and she's bored out of her mind. She takes him to a downtown rock club -- CBGB, maybe -- and he hates it hard. I don't think I could be comfortable living in that kind of relationship, unless neither one of us cared much about music. But then, what is the soundtrack at home? At my age (55), I listen to classical, classic jazz, and old-school, pre-rock popular music (e.g., Cole Porter). Basically, as a young man I was a CBGB type, but I have turned into a Cafe Carlyle guy. I once knew a couple in which the husband was about twenty years older than his new wife, and he loved go to to classical concerts and the opera. She didn't, and preferred other kinds of musical outings. They were both wonderful people, but the marriage did not last, because the radical difference in musical tastes symbolized a much deeper division between the two.
I hate to have to think about all this stuff again at this point in my life. I also listen to Byzantine and Slavic chants a fair bit these days. Maybe I'll become an old monk, and get a dog. But the dog had better love Diana Krall, is what I'm saying.
Subscribe Today
Get daily emails in your inbox
What about you? What do you think of the astrology question? What other questions would you think are crucial to ask on a first date -- questions that would reveal whether or not this relationship has potential? By the way, that screenshot above is from this short film about how astrology led to a first-date fight. It's got some profanity, so NSFW.
UPDATE: A friend texted to say that this reads like a personal ad. Oh gosh! I'm embarrassed. I did NOT mean for that to happen! It will be a long time before I ever am interested in dating, if ever (I'm thinking: probably not ever). The astrology tweet, though, to me to wondering in general about questions that would weed out unsuitable partners. If I were going to do a personal ad, here's what it would sound like:
As for political differences I would not want to be with anyone who was strident about politics one way or the other-- but I certainly do not expect to date or marry someone who is my intellectual clone either.
The big issue would be A) religion-- either it should be shared, nearly shared (Catholic-Orthodox marriages seem to work OK) or respectfully accepted as a personal difference (my parents' situation) And B) a need for a fair number of shared interests and activities. Oh, and must like cats!
just meaningful parables, but actual historical happenings, I would dump her as fast as if she told me that she believed in vampires and werewolves.
Astrology is not an opinion. It is a pseudoscience, thoroughly debunked, as she evidently knows. What she is actually testing is whether a man will shut up and pretend to agree with her when she spouts arrant nonsense that she knows is arrant nonsense. It's rather like saying men should pretend on a first date to be flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers, so they can weed out women who don't nod, smile, and ask for a second date in response.
And absolutely yes, women who want uncritical agreement with nonsense from their dates should make this clear on the first date, so men with spines can avoid them, and vice versa.
He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
It's unclear to me what this might demand of Rod presently, since he did not initiate the divorce, but it seems like if no adultery was committed, then the marriage is valid and neither party can date, and the divorce shouldn't even be allowed. However, since it is allowed, and since both are Christians, that means there's missing information, about which it's uncouth to speculate, being a private conundrum that we are not privy to, nor should we be.
It shouldn't even have to be said that natural empathy by a faithful reader is the default position when it comes to variegated twists and developments in Rod's personal life. I'm still one of those who secretly hopes that Julie comes to her senses, but you didn't hear me say that. None of my business, ultimately, and I have a lot of trust when it comes to Dreher. He knows how to keep boundaries, and will fill us in as needed. Despite some occasional indications to the contrary, we're all pretty much adults around here, mature and normal enough. Well, let us be there for each other, then.
I figured this was probably happening, because I've run into people who really hate Rod, for reasons that I don't understand, as they seem to go beyond political and religious disagreement. Happily I don't seem to cross paths with those people anymore and so have not encountered the phenomenon you describe.
One real-life deal breaker I did experience was a girl I was having coffee with casually telling me how she's all into "performance art" then proceeding to show me a video of herself on her phone doing different poses sans clothing under weird psychedelic lights. That was a few bridges too far!
Another weird first date experience that was not a deal-breaker for me: I met this girl last time I was in Kyiv and we decided to go to dinner. This was my first date after my divorce (had been apart about a year and a half at that point), and this young lady was quite stunning on top of it. Probably six foot tall, raven black hair bobbed straight and green eyes. In the car on the way to the restaurant, she happens to ask me about my ex-wife who is also Ukrainian (I had told her as fair disclosure earlier). Asked what city my ex was from, I said "oh, it's a small city in the south you probably haven't heard of - called Melitopol." She just nodded and went on to a different subject. We had a great dinner, talked about a lot of different things and really got along well. While waiting on the check I remembered I hadn't asked where she was from, so I said "I'm sorry, we've been talking all this time and I never asked if you're from Kyiv originally." She nonchalantly took a sip of coffee and said, "no, I'm from a small city in the south, called Melitopol" - then sits back looking at me with this cat-who-ate-the-canary smile while I flustered around thinking "Please God don't tell me my first date since becoming single again went to high-school with my ex-wife!" She had obviously saved that little nugget up and was enjoying herself, but thankfully she never asked my ex's name or anything else. We ended up going out a few more times before I returned to the states, and stayed in touch a little after that. So not at all a deal-breaker, just a crazy story about how a guy from Trussville, AL ends up dating two ladies from Melitopol Ukraine without ever having even visited the place.