Chris's Musings

As you are waking up this morning. And if you are waking up alone and don't have a date with a "special someone." I'm certain that in some way, you and I (Yes, I'm in your shoes this year) are tempted to get down, to believe that we are unloved, or say something insanely crazy on Facebook (wha? wha?) So, as you are reading this (and you are reading this), let me put a few things in your mind, especially if you are a Christ-follower. Jesus COMMANDS for us not to be miserable and wallowing in self-pity. He has come that we have life to the full, and that includes when we are single.  In Philippians, Paul writes that we are to "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say Rejoice."   If you belong to Christ, these are not options, so live out of joy and not out of emotional scarcity. Single doesn't mean "alone."  Be with friends and invest in them. Barricading yourself in your house to avoid the sea of pink and Russell Stover ...

Over the past couple of months, I have had a bunch of conversations with friends about what our "type" is... You know, what type of girl (or guy in the case of the girls I talked to) attracts you?  What type of person makes you stop and say.... (cue the Keaneu Reeves from Bill & Ted's)... Whoa! If I were an alien coming down to observe humanity and spent any time observing singles, I think I would scratch my head at how different humans will look at certain members of the opposite sex and say "Whoa!" while others of us would look at that exact same HOT person and say "Yeah, she's attractive, but I'm just not attracted to her."  I think the aliens would look at this apparently, uber-pickiness we have and conclude "No wonder they're all still single!"  (as if our parents and married friends don't) I wonder (and have wondered aloud in these conversations), are our "types" something that we constructed for ou...

I was actually zoning out somewhat when this suggestion was directed at me.  I was out with a few friends fo queso and tacos at a nearby taqueria, awaiting the Smyrna fireworks show. My friend, a female, was talking about her experience with a guy that she's gone out with about three times now.  And then... "You know, you really should hold a class for guys" Of course, I was now paying attention and ready to tell my friend how unqualified I am to talk to anyone about dating.  (aka - you really should find a married guy to talk to us single knuckleheads about how to relate to women).  Then, she said something to the tune of... "Oh no, that's not what I mean.  I'm talking about guys having a plan." And she didn't mean having a plan for their life... or having anything figured out... she just meant that she wanted the guy to actually plan the date. Apparently (I'm hoping this guy doesn't read this, honestly), this guy whom she was se...

There are a few fortunate/blessed people out there that have never and will never feel the pain of having a romantic relationship end.  I've heard stories (like Louie's), and honestly I am a little envious. The rest of us mere mortals have loved and lost... or things didn't work out with someone that we invested a chunk of our life with.  This is probably more normal... in fact I heard (or read) somewhere that the eHarmony guy Dr. Neil Clark Warren estimates that the average person will date 100 people (I think that includes those blind coffee dates, so don't worry) and have a serious relationship with 6 people before they get married.  Ok - wow... that's a lot of "well, I'm not that into you" and "well, I'm sorry but it's not you it's me" type of conversations.   And can I tell you, breaking up (doesn't matter if you are the dump-er, the dump-ee, or it was mutual) really stinks.  It may be the best decision, but it s...

I finally watched this video this morning, and like probably most guys that have seen it that have been on the other side of the conversation like this... We laughed. And were glad, if we were at home, that no one was around. Especially a woman :-) All of us guys that either are married, in relationships, or have been in relationships before have been in this precarious predicament before.  (I'll talk from my perspective) Our girlfriend opens up about something that's really bothering her, she's obviously distraught about it, and we in our infinite (and supposedly objective) wisdom can see the solution to the problem obviously staring us in the face. Supposedly.  It's like... "what you really need is... to take the nail out of your head." And honestly, let's give ourselves some credit because we do mean well and as guys we are natural problem solvers.  We're pretty smart (in our own minds) and can figure out how to make things better, and...

My parents are in town this weekend.  We are chilling right now, and planning to get some Stone Mountain laser show action in tonight. Last night, we went through the "where do you want to go to eat?" question, and we decided to go down to the Colonnade.  I organized my dinner group there a few months ago, and they have great, aka - amazing - Southern "down home" goodies.  Mom and Dad were pretty down with that. We get to the restaurant around 7:30pm, and it is PACKED, the smells of fried chicken is in the air (mmmmmmm), and there's a 20 minute wait to get a table.  Given that I've waited over an hour for tables in Houston before, I didn't see this as a big deal.  After about 5 minutes of standing, we find a table in the bar/lounge area where people are hanging out and waiting for tables. Oh, I should give you this detail... The Colonnade is an Atlanta landmark, it was showcased on Guy's show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" (a Food Net...

Some of you know that I organize a once a month dinner club for friends and friends of friends to explore new restaurants in the city, meet new people, and have interesting conversation.  I am somewhat of a foodie and started organizing these dinners a few years ago because I wanted to go out to nice dinners but was on a dating fast at the time (and usually you go to restaurants like these on dates), so why not organize a "dinner club?" For this summer, I have themed my picks as the "Summer of Celebrity" and am picking restaurants that are owned by well-known celebrities or have been featured on a national program.  For whatever reason, this month I felt lazy (I say this, because I usually never choose restaurants that are part of national chains) and picked Ted's Montana Grill as it is owned by one of Atlanta's most famous (or infamous) celebrities, media mogul Ted Turner.  I organized for last Thursday night.   On the way from my office to the restauran...

I've been thinking about this recently, and a conversation I had with a married friend of mine about this topic got me thinking about the "F-word" in relationships.  You know it. "Let's be..."  (I can see you cringing now :-) ) Friends. My friend told me, "You know that once you're friends you never get back."  That may be true, but sometimes when you're interested in, or have gone out with a great girl a couple of times and "something" is not right which you can't put your finger on - sometimes surrendering the romantic is the right thing to do.  Obviously, there is risk to it, but it is in my opinion the most honoring thing to do for the other person too. Even if it may be the "kiss of death."  Perhaps this is why I'm still single.  Ha!  I'll get to that in a second. Being an expert on being friends with women (in my own mind), in my opinion there are four or five "friend dynamics" (from...

I don't know if you saw this post from Tyler Stanton, but I thought it was pretty hilarious.  Not only because of it's obvious snarkiness, but also because it's pretty obvious that I'd probably not impress Tyler (me being the movie line quoting, Android phone carrying, theologically minded guy that I am).  But I laughed, so I gave it the fanfare that a great post is due.  Here is the link, in case you haven't seen it. http://www.tylerstanton.com/2011/06/06/16-things-that-dont-impress-me/ I've actually thought about posting my own, but I think I'd rather ponder what actually DOES impress me (even though in Henry Cloud's "Nine Things" chapter about "hating well," what we dislike (aka - doesn't impress us) is an indication of what we value).  If you don't really care about impressing me, then you can ignore the rest of this blog, but in case you're curious then you can read on... :-) Things that impress me in general 1...

Andy is doing a new series at Buckhead Church (either live or on HD), about (as if we need to be made fun of any more for being relationship-obsessed :-) - Ha!) "The New Rules of Love, Sex, and Dating."  It should be an interesting series, not because I haven't heard a thousand talks about relationships (that's what it feels like) but because Andy did some field research on The Bert Show a few weeks ago.  The Bert Show is a very popular morning radio talk show for Q100 in Atlanta that focuses on pop culture news and gossip; and is not a Christian program.  I'm interested to learn how he's going to use that "call in and talk to Andy" session he did a few weeks ago. So, I posted the link to the series on my Facebook page earlier today and have gotten a few comments about it; including a comment from one friend of mine that asked that I give her the "cliff notes" on what Andy's new rules are.  That got me to thinking, given all that I...

Tonight, I did something a little crazy. I missed fusion (the singles gatherings that my church holds for community)...  a fusion group that I really enjoy the people at... and attended a small group leaders' training event at my church.  Okay, that's not quite crazy but what was crazy was this was the session designated for the MARRIED group leaders.  There's a good reason for this, and it's because when they were holding the sessions a couple of weeks ago for me and my fellow singles group leaders, I was out in L.A. running some crazy race (one that I'm very happy about running in case you missed any of the medal pictures :-) ), and this weekend was the only one available for me to pick from. And I was the ONLY single person in the room. Actually, that was a great thing for me tonight.  First off, being newly unattached after dating a really good girl for five months, being in an environment where no one was even remotely working the room was neat and relaxi...

I got one of the biggest compliments that I think I could get from a friend of mine.  We were standing outside of Urban Flats after a dinner club outing, and we got to talking about "nuggets of wisdom" - which was a question in my "Guess Who?" get-to-know-you game that got vetoed - and this friend tells me that the best piece of wisdom that he's heard actually came from... I couldn't believe it.  I think I'm pretty smart, but that's a big compliment.  When I heard him rehash the conversation we had on the way back from Labor Day Retreat, the light bulb turned on.  I suppose that if what I shared on the long, 9 hour drive home from Destin was worthy of my friend bringing it up in front of a group, then I should probably share on my blog as well. The idea came from something said at LDR by Joel Thomas at the opening session.  He said something about the fallacy of "Dating to get married" that I have always known but have never heard it ta...

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." - Ephesians 5:1-2 "Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." - Ephesians 5:15-16 "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." - Ephesians 5:21 Over the last few weeks, maybe longer - I'm not so sure, I have been in a number of conversations with friends of mine about dating in the church... or perhaps, why people in the church don't date or seem to be very closed about dating issues.  In fact, I think the frustration with a lot of Christian singles is not in the dating scene but in the lack of transparency in the dating scene.   I believe this line of thought started for me with a conversation with a married friend of mine over breakfast a month ago... we got...

Not a pontification on my married friends, I promise!!! Not at all... I got asked this question at the airport yesterday. No joke. After a long consulting week, I arrived to to Memphis airport to see if I could catch an earlier flight back to the ATL and had some time to kill and a stomach to feed. As any good hungry business traveler would do, I moseyed through the aiprort looking for a place to eat and ran into an old Kelley School of Business classmate that I literally haven't seen in almost 5 years (May 2003 to be exact). After getting over the shock of running into each other so randomly (in the halls of the airport... we were both scurrying for food venues & ended up grabbing lunch at Corky's) we catch up on what we're doing in Memphis, what we do for a living (any good MBA will eventually go here), and then he asks me if I am married. Strange question, huh? Discuss among yourselves for a second... how would you react if that were you? I laughed under my breat...