I remember the first time someone flirted with me.
I was fourteen or so, out with a male-female group for the first time. I was rather loudly telling a story to my sister when a teenage boy suddenly put up his pointer finger. “Shhh,” he said. “You’re too pretty to talk.” Insulting, but to a young teen girl, oddly flattering. It was memorable — the first time my whole brain was flooded with the addictive substance that is the male gaze.
I wish I could say that I soon grew and matured into sobriety, leaving the cheap thrill behind in my journey to adulthood. But I went to college when I was sixteen years old; my fleshly appetite for attention only grew as it was fed. And when I became a Christian in my early twenties, the old habits of interaction with the opposite sex died hard.
For a time, the only thing I knew to do was to avoid single men. If I ever encountered one who seemed “legit” — a respectable, hardworking, marriageable man with a job and a commitment to the church — I would be very rude to him. I suppose I didn’t want to seem eager. You may wonder how I could maintain such widespread impoliteness, but it was easy. There was only one single man in our church at that time.
Reader, I married him.
I’m actually serious about that last part. God was very kind to arrange a marriage between myself and the awkward young pastoral intern at my church. A dozen years later, I am often overwhelmed with gratitude at the Lord’s kindness in protecting me from worse than the muck I waded through in my early life, largely shielding me from greater consequences of my foolishness about men. I have to admit that part of the means God used to protect me was to marry me off to a godly man early in my sanctification journey. It was better to marry than to burn.
Restraint, Modesty, Dignity, Respect
We have three daughters and one son now. As so many parents can tell you, much of my advice for my children about relating to the opposite sex begins with “Don’t do what I did.” But in advising my daughters and other single gals on how to relate to single men, four major principles come to mind.
1. Show restraint in your daydreams.
I wasted so many moments (from my young teens onward) thinking about romance. I understand that this is normal — young girls dreaming of weddings, meet-cutes, that one brown-haired boy in the youth group. But oh, if only I could prevent the total takeover of the daydream from stealing my daughters’ productivity in their single years!
I strongly recommend disciplining your daydreams. If you can’t control the rabbit trails of fancy when you are young, if you let your brain wander down any pleasurable road, you leave yourself soft, undisciplined, and open to sin. Like a young man given over to lust and pornography, a young woman lounging on rom-com pillows and serially indulging in crushes leaves herself unwilling and unable to fight the good fight of godliness with contentment. Although her daydreams may not be inherently impure and defiling to the imagination, she is pacifying herself with fantasy instead of choosing to strengthen her spiritual, mental, and emotional muscles for life in the real world.
The daydream is a kind of drug, even if a very mild one. It renders you less sensitive to the pleasures of knowing God himself (Psalm 16:11). And, like any neutral appetite for something innocent (such as food, screens, or sleep), it can either be mastered and made to serve God and health and all good things, or it can be allowed to take over a life and rule it.
2. Show modesty in your behavior.
Loud, boisterous joking that makes you the life of the party often feels fun. Dressing and speaking in a way that attracts attention can be gratifying. Making pointed eye contact with a stranger may boost the ego. But these are cheap thrills. This kind of pleasure distracts you from developing your skills in ordinary relational work, such as resolving conflict, listening, and interceding for others in prayer.
The other reason this pleasure is cheap is that it steals value from your reputation. I’m not saying you should kill your personality in order to adopt another arbitrary one. Some of us are jolly people. Some of us are quiet and contemplative. There is room for the virtue of modesty within the range of God-given personalities. But your personality needs to give way to wisdom, not the other way around. All personalities must be strained through the sieve of Scripture.
While modest behavior can be hard to define, you can imagine behavior that would give you pause if you saw it in a mature Christian lady: A woman who is constantly drawn to the young men in a group, laughing and talking loudly. A woman who always finds a way to give a topic a flirtatious edge or to bring a conversation back around to herself. A woman who gossips about others who are not present. A woman who is open to a lot of casual texting, calling, or online interaction with any man who reaches out. A woman who dresses in a way that is sexually suggestive or demands attention.
Her reputation may not appear damaged in the moment, but over time these kinds of behaviors will damage her reputation among people of sense. A Christian man pursuing a godly life with a godly wife will log this information in his head. He knows the difference between this kind of woman and “women [who] adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control . . . with what is proper for women who profess godliness — with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9–10).
Proverbs warns that charm is deceitful and beauty is vain (Proverbs 31:30). There is clearly a type of feminine charm that is lovely, deep, slow, and lasting. There is another kind that is loud, self-indulgent, and short-lived. A farsighted woman understands that although practicing modesty around single men may feel like it slows down the momentum of “attracting a mate,” it is a far better way.
3. Show dignity in communicating expectations.
As one made in the image of God, you already have dignity as a woman (Genesis 1:27). When you operate from this awareness, you will not allow your time and attention to be commandeered by any young man who wanders into your life.
For many single women, fear of remaining single is very real. But don’t let a desperate desire to be married drive you to put up with immature behavior, lazy pursuit, or even sexual advances from men. And if you accept the premise that you’re in a race against time (or worse, against other women) to get a man, you may yourself behave in unseemly ways in order to stand out from the crowd.
So while a woman’s dignity is God-given, it can be obscured by immature behavior and treatment. And it can be cultivated in small acts of self-control and relational practice. When you behave in ways that demonstrate your imago-Dei dignity — fighting your fleshly passions, taking initiative in love and service, expecting respectful and dignified treatment from men you know — you make a statement about God’s intentions in creating you.
It’s true that a woman derives a lot of her sense of dignity through her close relationships: Our parents love us, and we absorb dignity from this. Our girlfriends have character, and we absorb dignity from this. Our husbands are godly and faithful to us, and we absorb dignity from this. There’s no question that the heart-cry of a woman is to love and be loved, and that outside of this knowledge, her sense of dignity is hard to generate from scratch.
Here I would just urge a single woman, particularly one separated from her family, to focus on intimacy with her heavenly Father and then to throw herself into the circles of her church. Offer to cook for families, at their home or yours. Host friends. Push through conflict, confess sin to others, meet with older women in the Lord, and faithfully attend church meetings. I know it’s hard. I know that there is a loneliness that can be felt in the bones. But a woman’s dignity can be carried and strengthened through single years, and God has much to teach you if you will lean into obedience while being honest with him about the pain.
Ask God to be the ballast that allows you to interact with single men in a way that shows you are not “up for anything.” Communicate clearly with your body language, frequency and depth of communication, and explicit responses that your time is not up for grabs. You are available for a certain general friendliness with all the men and women in the church, but you will not dive into frequent or intimate contact without a clear purpose.
4. Show respect to all men.
When you are in conversation with a man, whether he is married or single, there are many ways you can demonstrate respect without making yourself available to him emotionally or physically. If you have a brother, you can imagine the kinds of voices, faces, and words that make him feel demeaned and disrespected, along with those that make him feel honored and esteemed: Asking for his opinion and listening to the answer. Laughing kindly at a joke instead of rolling your eyes. Waiting on him to make a decision in a small matter, which gives him a chance to practice something along the lines of leadership. Any man you encounter is someone to whom you can demonstrate a kind of respect.
Every man you see can be loved as an image-bearer of God your Father and, for believing men, Christ your brother. You want each of these men to thrive and mature. Though you are not responsible to them in the same ways you would be to your own father, brother, husband, or son, you can see all men as father-types or brother-types in the Lord, and you can be a warm sounding board to each man-in-process that you meet. A dignified woman knows how to show gentle and warm respect to all men, and should God call you to marriage, this will make it all the easier for you to show special respect, love, and submission to your particular husband.
Now, Then, and Forever
Imagine yourself in the new heavens and new earth — unmarried, a woman but somehow not built for procreation, living in your body without curse or stain of sin — and imagine the many brothers and sisters you will be interacting with there. In all likelihood, this kind of honoring relationship between men and women will continue into eternity.
And through the practices of restraint, modesty, dignity, and respect, a single woman in the church can seek to love single men well right now, as she anticipates that final day. Her single years can be a sweet aroma in the Lord’s nostrils, an offering that demonstrates faith in her Maker who is also her Husband (Isaiah 54:8). She will be preparing well for earthly marriage, should God call her to it. More significantly, she will be preparing well for the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 16:9), the heaven where men and women are no longer given in marriage to each other (Matthew 22:30) but are presented together “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27) for eternal intimacy and fellowship with Christ.
Desiring God