Emotional Chastity

Thanks to the wonderful comments on my earlier post, I've decided to do a whole post on emotional chastity. It's a sticky topic and one that is easy to misunderstand, so please bear with me as I try to address it accurately. I would be so happy to hear your opinions and thoughts in the comment box!

Let me start off by telling you a little story, one that may already be familiar to you.

Once upon a time there was a girl who had a best friend who was a guy. She was sure she could never fall in love with him, because he was too nerdy/not funny/unattractive/etc. (insert adjective of your choice). But he was an awesome friend. So she shared with him all her thoughts, feelings, and cherished dreams - because that's what best friends do, right? He gave her emotional affirmation and built up her confidence. It was a beautiful friendship, and they were proud to be proof that men and women can in fact be "just friends."

Then one day, he mentioned that he was planning to ask another girl out on a date. And our heroine woke up with a sickening thud. She realized she didn't like that idea at all. Because you see, all that time that she was pouring out her heart and soul to his sympathetic ears, she didn't realize that she was actually falling in love with him. And meanwhile he was falling in love with someone else.

It's a sad story, isn't it? But it's an all-too-common story in our modern world, where the line between friendship and dating is awfully blurred. It used to be that whenever an eligible single girl and an eligible single guy hung out alone together, that was a date. Nowadays, not so much. Especially in college, there are all kinds of reasons to hang out alone with a guy - meals, walking to class, sports games, class projects. Very often, you start to develop an emotionally close relationship. If you both happen to fall for each other, that's wonderful, and a very good thing. But if only one of you falls in love... then someone is going to end up with a broken heart.

Since reading the comments on my last post, I talked to a lot of my girl friends and compiled a list of tips on how to protect yourself emotionally. Before sharing it, though, I'd like to clear up one thing. In my earlier post, I said that emotional modesty is as important as physical chastity. Some readers called me out on this, and wisely pointed out that serious physical impurity is a sin while emotional impurity isn't. True. But in response, I'd like to point out that the kind of girls who read this blog already know about the importance of physical purity, but they may not be aware that emotional chastity is important too. Second, I will contend that the virtue of modesty applies to what you say as well as to how you dress and act, and modesty (as well as prudence) is what is needed in order to be emotionally chaste.

Some Ideas for Practicing Emotional Chastity

1. Consider the good of the other person. Pope Benedict XVI tells us to "See with the eyes of Christ" and to "give [others] the look of love which they crave." Pray about all your friends, including your guy friends, and ask God, "Am I loving this person as God intends me to do?" And keep in mind that where your guy friends are concerned, loving him does not mean serving him or getting emotionally close. I know that seems counter-intuitive. But is it for his good if you're secretly pining over him, or letting him pine over you? If you know he likes you, for his sake, stop hanging out with him alone. If you feel yourself starting to like him, protect yourself and pull back from the friendship (and if he likes you back, that won't stop him from pursuing you). It's really hard to pull back from a friendship! It requires a lot of prayer, the support of your girl friends, and keeping yourself extremely busy with other things. But it is so, so much better for you both, in the short as well as the long term. Oh, and I shouldn't even have to say this, except that it happens more often than you'd think: don't ever date someone out of pity. That is most definitely not for his good (even if you think it is!).

2. Be self-aware. Some people claim that guys and girls can't ever really be friends, as seen below:

The video is hilarious, but I think it's wrong in one respect. Guys and girls can be friends - as long as they're not emotionally intimate. When the serious emotions come out, someone is bound to start liking someone else.

That's why it's important to monitor your own emotions and remain aware of your guy friends' emotions. Through self-awareness, you can make sure the friendship stays on an emotionally appropriate level.

Harry and Hermione - proof that guys can make great friends, as long as you're not too emotionally intimate.

What is an emotionally appropriate level? Unlike physical boundaries, everyone's emotional boundaries are a little different. It's a question of knowing yourself and what is too much emotional intimacy for you. To give a broad example, after a rough day, it might be nice to get a hug and a kind word from a guy friend. But if you're taking your problems to him every day? Then you've got a problem. Being self-aware takes maturity, and I think you can do it!

On that note, here are some Ways to Tell if You're Too Emotionally Intimate

1. If you spend so much time with him that other people think you're dating. This article is one of the best things on emotional intimacy I've ever read. The situation described in that article is very common, and it's no fun for the "friendgirl" stuck in it. Yikes. Be cautious!

2. If you rely only on him, or mostly on him, for emotional support. Relying on just one person isn't healthy even if you're married to him. We need different kinds of relationships to meet different emotional needs.

3.  If you spend an exorbitant amount of time alone together. Again, it's hard to lay down a hard and fast rule, because this too will differ person to person. But if you find yourself hanging out alone with him almost every day, or eating a meal alone with him for literally every single day of a college semester (don't laugh, it happens), that's a little excessive.

4. If you don't have strong, honest female friendships in the near vicinity. Besides providing much-needed emotional support, girl friends will hold you accountable if you're wasting your time on a guy. Besides, girl friends are one of the best parts of being single.

Let me tell you a story. I recently met a sweet, beautiful woman at a party. We started talking and she revealed that she is 32 and just got married last year. "When I was a teenager, I thought I would be married by the time I was 21," she confessed with a hint of surprise. But God had a different plan for her. "In the secular culture, people are getting married later and later," she said, "and that's affecting the Catholic world too."

Even though her life didn't work out as she originally planned, she told me how grateful she was for the years she spent single. "I got to have the most amazing opportunities to travel all over the world and to build my career," she said. And most of all, "I developed the most wonderful, strong female friendships." Now that she lives far away from her family, "My girl friends are my family. They're my support network and they help me in so many ways."

I was blown away by that. I realized that the single years are a gift from God, a time to help us grow in maturity and to strengthen our relationships with our family and girl friends. If you find yourself tempted to start an emotionally close relationship with a guy, remember that your girl friends are the ones who will be with you through thick and thin, and that cultivating those friendships is more important (sorry, guys!).

5. If you talk about really personal things a lot. It's one thing if you have a guy friend with whom you talk about books or music or sports, but if the conversation keeps getting all personal, you might run into problems. Again, this is on a case-by-case basis, and of course there are times and places when it's appropriate to divulge personal things. But if you're not even dating this guy, does he really need to know private emotional details of your past? I think not. It's wiser (and more modest) to save emotional unveiling for the stage when you're discerning marriage with him.

Whew! Well, that's most of what I know about emotional chastity. I hope this is helpful to someone! Have you ever been stuck in a "friendgirl" relationship? What else do you think girls can do to protect themselves emotionally?

Further Reading: I first encountered the idea of emotional chastity through an awesome book called Every Woman's Battle. It's geared more towards Protestant women and married women (although there is now a separate book called Every Single Woman's Battle), but I really liked it and I think it's useful for anyone looking to practice emotional chastity. My friend Cori also recommends a book called Lady in Waiting.

I would also recommend reading literally everything every written by Seraphic Singles, whom my friends and I call Auntie Seraphic. She is a devout Catholic woman who got married in her late 30s and gives sensible, honest advice on dating and marriage to single Catholic girls. You can write to her with dating problems and she will reply with the most helpful advice imaginable. Here is something she wrote about emotional chastity, for a start. **I should warn you though, some of the stuff she writes about is a little intense (things like sexual assault, for example). While she is an awesome writer who gives great advice, some of her posts may be a little much for high school readers.**