Q: Do you find your expectations in women, in terms of a Significant other, to be fair, or would you feel you have lower/higher expectations in what that person should be for you?
A: First let me just say that I think this is a GREAT question for it represents the very kind of question I was hoping to get…something someone really has wondered about me. I think I tend to have HIGHER expectations than I should when it comes to women. As I moved through adolescence when I should have been learning and exploring the mystery that is “woman”…learning how to interact with and be in healthy relationship with her, I was instead following the lead of my guy friends and was seeing how far I could “get.” On top of that I was introduced to a relationship poison called porn that further marred my perception of women. It wasn’t until college when I finally began to desire a healthy, appropriate relationship with the opposite gender. God began a long-road of restoring the years that the locusts had stolen (Joel 2:25)….a work that continues to this day. Since then I’ve come to see how much I am lacking when it comes to a lot of the “basics” in building relationships…things as simple and necessary as; how to strike up conversations with someone new, not passing judgment on a person’s flaws too quickly or fearing rejection. A lot of the time I feel paralyzed at 28 for working in a church as a youth pastor definitely makes it harder to meet someone. Most of my friends are married (aren’t most people in their late twenties?) or are under 18 and I don’t have a lot of free time because ministry is not a 9-5 job. That being said, I still desire marriage and need to continue working on learning those relationship basics I didn’t learn in adolescence.
Always an awkward moment when I try and decern at the end of my talk if we have time for it or not. 
