(THE UNREALISTIC DEMANDS OF A MODERN SINGLE CHRISTIAN YOUNG ADULT WOMAN)

It’s late on a Saturday night, and I’m sporting an outfit inspired from someone’s Pinterest board entitled “threads and treads” when I see him in my peripheral vision and my insides suddenly begin practicing for the floor routine in the next summer Olympics in Brazil.

He approaches me, smiles, and I get a waft of scents I’m only used to smelling after walking by the Abercrombie and Fitch store at the mall. I flip my hair over my shoulder, blink my eyes in a fashion that hopefully isn’t confused as battling a rogue eyelash, and smile just enough to show interest and not desperation. He leans in and rather seductively whispers “excuse me, can I buy you a gallon of milk?”

He grabs my gallon of 1% cow juice out of my shopping cart and proceeds to scan it at the self-check out line in the grocery store. Surprisingly, he has a coupon. He looks at me, winks, and my stomach sticks the landing and I hear distant cheers in Portuguese. “So what do you say? Can I get your number?”

I never get a chance to give him my number because this never happened. Ever. To any girl who ever lived.

As the name aptly implies, the bar principle is only applicable in bars. A locale not unlike the African safari, where a guy makes his way across the smoky and loud room like a lion spotting a gazelle after three days without food. After a time of admiring his prey from afar and surveying the competition, he swoops in unexpectedly and asks to buy her a drink. Then he takes her home.

As a general rule of thumb, the lion doesn’t stalk the same prey twice.

The bar principle is also clearly a cost effective one: instead of buying her a cheesesteak with a side of French fries, he buys her something cheap. After all, a lion isn’t successful on each and every hunt.

But for the herd of Christian girls who aren’t found roaming in bars, we’re looking for more than one cheap drink and a one night stand. We’re looking for a commitment. We’re looking for a lifetime.

We’re looking for a good Christian gentleman to pay for 1/3 of the groceries in our shopping cart.

A serious pursuit of a serious relationship should begin in a bookstore when both our hands happen to reach for Crazy Love on the top shelf (he will be tall like me, obviously) and we commence witty banter about Christian literature and Twilight. He’ll ask to buy the book in my hand. I’ll say yes. We’ll get married and have 2 kids (a girl and a boy) and live in a 4 bedroom 2.5 bathroom house on a corner lot with enough of a yard for a hypoallergenic crossbreed canine.

A serious pursuit of a serious relationship should begin at a gas station that is not in New Jersey where they pump the gas for you and he comes to my rescue because the gas tank cap is stuck. He’ll tell me that my rear left tire looks like it needs more air in it. I’ll tell him he’s probably right. He’ll ask if he can pay for my tank of gas. I’ll say yes. We’ll get married and travel the world for three years developing a slight obsession with cruise lines until we decide to settle down and have 2 kids (a girl and a boy) and live in a 4 bedroom 2.5 bathroom house on a corner lot with enough of a yard for a hypoallergenic crossbreed canine.

A serious pursuit of a serious relationship should begin at a coffeeshop where I’m writing a post for my blog that nobody reads except my parents and some random person I’ve never met in Hong Kong, and it’s raining and he comes in and he’s wet because guys in America never carry umbrellas with them. He sits down at the table next to me and I offer him a napkin because that’s the best I can do and he asks if he can buy me a tall double chocolate chip frappuccino and one of those really expensive cake pops. I’ll say yes. We’ll get married and he’ll guest blog on my blog and we’ll have five total readers, his parents, my parents, and that random person I’ve never met in Hong Kong until we settle down and have 2 kids (a girl and a boy) and live in a 4 bedroom 2.5 bathroom house on a corner lot with enough of a yard for a hypoallergenic crossbreed canine.

All this gazelle is looking for is a good Christian gentleman to make his pursuit serious. Don’t give me cheap. Don’t give me once and done. Don’t ask for the bare minimum. Ask with the ultimate goal of everything—Christ centered, two-becoming-one-til-death-do-us-part everything.

But if the bar principle never has any hope of transferring to other venues where the exchange of goods for money occurs, I’ll settle for a good, Christian man making his way through a crowded grocery store to find me and he’ll lean in and rather seriously ask “excuse me, can I spend time getting to know you?” I’d be out whatever the current state minimum is for a gallon of milk, but there would still be the sound of distant cheers in Portuguese.