Should women initiate? My first question to them is, well, what do you mean by initiate? We used to have a pretty clear set of rules, and I think that's just where now we don't.

I think a lot of guys do have the ick when a girl asks them out.

Yeah, no guy wants that.

But because of the digital age, because of these shifts in culture, we have become less and less used to just simply asking people out. We don't have the muscle that we used to.

I'd much rather you strike out and be frustrated because you tried hard for a long amount of time versus the opposite, where you just did nothing and you're just upset.

If you are in a relationship right now and you have a friend that's single, don't make it such a big deal that your friend's going on a first date.

God's design in the beginning, I think deserves to be celebrated and glorified. Men get to go first in hard things and I would say driving the relationship. Asking out, that's a harder thing. Foreign.

Should women make the first move? Depending on who you ask in the Christian circle you're in, you're either going to get the answer of, absolutely yes, totally show interest, totally make the first move. Other Christians are going to say, absolutely not. Why would you do that? So some people are going to point to Ruth and Boaz and say, yeah, see, Ruth did it. You can initiate.

Right. And others might say, he who finds a wife finds a good thing, meaning she's found, meaning she should just chill. Right?

Wait to be found.

Just be nice and pretty and cute, and he'll find you when he finds you.

Okay, so. But every time we do a Q and A at any event that we go to, one of the top questions that people ask is, can a woman initiate? Can a woman show interest? It's almost like, never fails. I always know that question's going to be asked, Right?

Y.

It always is. So, jj, my question for you, babe, is why does this question create such a strong reaction in Christian dating?

Well, it's funny how it is. 50. 50.

Yeah.

And I think the reason why it creates so much tension and disagreement is because no one really knows anymore. Yeah, we don't really have a good, solid cultural way of doing this right now. And so it's just kind of ambiguous. It's really unclear socially what's accepted, desired, and celebrated for the kind of initiation and ask out.

Yeah. I think underneath this question there are actually bigger themes. There's a theme of what is masculinity, right? Now, what is femininity right now? What is male headship and leadership? What really does pursuit mean? What, what, like what about marriage roles? Complementarian versus ecalitarian? I think it all come like this question actually has a much deeper breath underneath it.

Yeah. And we used to have a pretty clear set of rules. Right, right. And I think that's just where now we don't. And so there's a lot of pain that comes from that.

Yeah. People aren't arguing about if a coffee date is a good first date. They're arguing about what should men and women do, who should ask who on

that date, who should pay for that date, who should follow up after the date, who should plan the second date. Like, it's just not incredibly clear, you know, in dating right now, whose job is what.

So there's two different camps, there's two different sides. Right. And let's talk about like what their basis is for each side. So first, Ruth and Boaz, question for you. Do you think Ruth made the first move?

Yeah, I mean, how, how could you read that and say she didn't?

Well, actually there are two different sides to that.

I mean, I would love to hear how Ruth is not making the first.

Right, right. So one approach says, yeah, Ruth approached Boaz, Ruth signaled her interest. Ruth took initiative, she laid at his feet. Like all of that. Okay.

It was also less romantic, by the way. Yeah, I think that is helpful. Right. Well, not just creepy, it was, it was much more like he was an uncle in law and she was a widower and it's kind of her, it was his responsibility to take care of her and he wasn't. And so it was kind of like her way of saying, like, knock, knock, like bro, hey, you, you have a legal responsibility to kind of take care of me. And you're not. Yes, I'm going to make it painfully obvious.

Well, that kind of goes into the second. The, the second view people have is, well, yeah, she may have done that, but she was really just following Naomi's instructions. To do that was a unique cultural situation. There's unique cultural context around why she did that. And so because of that unique situation in that unique time, it doesn't really apply to modern dating dating because it was like very unique to that situation.