Remember Clueless? That fantastic/utterly ridiculous high school film in which Alicia Silverstone plays a Californian high-school-girl version of Jane Austen’s Emma? There’s a quote in it that’s always stuck with me, when the lead character justifies to a friend why she’s still a virgin: “You’ve seen how fussy I am about shoes,” she says, without a hint of irony, “and they only go on my feet.”
I like to think I’m discerning rather than fussy. As you know, I always try to go on a second date with the guys I meet, unless the first one is irredeemably awful. My mother, however, thinks that I could fall in love with any one of her army of proteges if I just applied myself a little. And recently I had a conversation with one of my oldest friends who extracted from me, by a long sequence of syllogisms, this truth: that the guy I reckon I’ll deign to fall in love with has, somewhere along the way, become so accomplished and kind and fascinating and funny that he probably doesn’t exist.
Take this case. There’s a Christian chap at work who I see once every couple of weeks because we have a regular meeting with his department. He’s nice-looking. He’s intelligent. I’m pretty sure I don’t fancy him. I’ve not found myself suggesting that we change our meetings to weekly ones, or making sure I look particularly pert and winsome on those days, which would be the giveaway. But we’ve been getting along well, and one time when we bumped into each other in the canteen we had a very amiable lunch together and he didn’t seem to find half an hour with me a terrifying prospect.
One morning last week, I was praying about the matters where I like to be in control and find it hard to trust that God’s plan is better than mine – money, career, what have you – and I thought about that conversation I’d had with my friend about dating. So I said, God, maybe I am fussy. Maybe I’m holding on to an ideal of a guy when You’ve got something completely different in store. So if there’s anyone you want me to get to know better – like the guy at work – I’m up for it. Just put them in my way…
Got into the office. Opened email. First thing I saw was a message from nice Christian chap asking if I wanted to have lunch some time. That very lunchtime, I headed down to the canteen at an unusually late hour, only to meet him on the way. We lunched. It was nice.
I am going to call him Divinely Ordained Crush.
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