Class Three - Communication Btwn Men & Women

The differences between women & men... let the debate begin.

Here are my notes from Class #3. (We didn't get to talk about boundaries, but I'm sure it will come up this Sunday when we talk about Sex.)

Here is my power point presentation.

And here is the Swingers clip... funny, yet quite painful:

A Bachelor's Search for Love

Here's an article in the NY Times about a 40-year-old-plus bachelor and his book Us: Americans Talk About Love. Interesting what we will do in search of love...

Is it love they're after? Or infatuation? In my opinion, Love is an Art (a la Eric Fromm's Book, "The Art of Loving," and art takes skill, hard work... and some luck.

Thanks Satchwell!

Class Two - What is Love?

View Presentation Two - What is Love?  Baby Don't Hurt Me - here.

Here is the video we watched as a prelude to our discussion.  It's from the movie "Night at the Roxbury," based on the SNL skit with Will Ferrell and Chris Katan.  Funny stuff about what love is NOT.  (Thus, not everything in the video is appropriate, just to be clear).

Sanctuary Dating Series

For those interested in listening to even more talks on dating, the Young Adult ministry at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, called Sanctuary, had a dating sermon series last May.  It's got some pretty good stuff, some of which I'll be using in our discussions ahead.

http://sanc.info/messages/series/Going_All_The_Way/

Thanks Satchwell!

Socioeconomic Status

One thing we haven't talked about in class yet is... class; social class, that is. We don't really talk about social classes these days, but there is still a difference in incomes when two people come together to date... Who pays for what? When? How? What do you think?

Here's the most recent stats on those getting married, in a WP article based on a Pew Report and US Census, along with some discussion.

Highlight: For one-in-five marriages today (that's 20%), the woman will be more educated and have the higher paying job.

The Love Equation

An interesting article on Salon.com talks about a PhD candidate in economics who comes up with an equation using (pseudo)variables about his chances of finding a girlfriend (who, by his definition, is a lady willing to sleep with him - a skewed definition, for sure).  Let's just say his chances are pretty slim.

I found this comment on the article, posted by ralafler, to be quite pertinent to the discussion:

"In our media age where everyone is surrounded by images of people who are much more attractive than average [...], people (especially men, and especially [those] who spend more time looking at images on their computers than out in the real world meeting real people), have distorted ideas of what a woman should look like to be considered attractive. They overlook dozens of available single women in their lives because they don't look like the models they feel entitled to, and then they whine that they can't find a girlfriend. Not so charming."

That's my emphasis on "people have distorted ideas of what a woman should look like to be considered attractive."  More discussion about this on Sunday.

Mark Driscoll - Peasant Princess

In last night's presentation, I quoted Mark Driscoll a bit. He is a pastor at Mars Hill in the Seattle area.  He has an interesting sermon series online called the Peasant Princess, based on the Song of Songs. Check it out if you're interested in hearing about how he interprets these passages for modern-day Christian relationships.  People tend to love 'im or hate 'im - he's not afraid to lay out what he thinks.  More on the conservative side and very relevant, relational to young adults.

Axe Commercial

Here's that Axe Commercial I showed last night, FYR (For Your Reference).

John Gottman & Unhealthy Relationships

John Gottman is a renown marriage counselor who is probably most famous for being able to predict (with up to 90% accuracy, I might add!) whether a marriage will end up in divorce or not.  You can view his website here.

According to Gottman, the four harbingers of an unhealthy relationship are:

• defensiveness
• stonewalling
• criticism
• contempt

Thought this is good information to keep in mind as we move forward.

Presentation One: The "D" Word

View Sunday's Presentation here from January 10th. 

What are your thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?  Anything you'd like to add?  Comment below.