When Tosin met….or when Tosin went crazy! ;) Part 3

This is the third part to this post.
Part 1 is available here
Part 2 is available here

So you’d think that I’d have thoroughly learnt my lesson about guys who were not Christians, right?! But you’d be wrong! Unfortunately, there was an added complication with Guy No 2 that he came from one of these countries where people automatically think of themselves and refer to themselves as being Christians – a country steeped in thousands of years of Christian heritage, and where people always go to Church and light candles and chant prayers at Christmas and Easter, but where practically speaking, the idea of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God might seem a bit alien, or even wacky, and where faith does not really touch people’s lives, beyond aiming to be “a good person”. So if I were to look at someone, I would say “this person is not a Christian, because he does not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”. Whereas this person might say “Of course I’m a Christian….” And then of course there’s the fact that my own African background is so comparatively new to the faith. How dare someone from Africa challenge him like that! We did not actually have this discussion. I’m just trying to imagine what he might have made of all this.

I went from one extreme in shyness with 1 to another extreme with 2 – in that, oh my goodness, I chased him. Like seriously, I did not mince my words at all. But you know what, that is not what I am ashamed of. Part of the chasing thing was part of the circumstances of the thing – I accidentally revealed that I liked him, and then I just kept going on about it. What he did not know was that in going on and on about it I was trying to defeat my own guy-shyness demons. I would never have voluntarily admitted that I liked him to him either, but since he definitely knew, and this genie was never going back into the bottle, I just kept going on about it. If he’d witnessed my behaviour a few years earlier, he might have understood.
Actually, I lied to him too – but this time it was without opening my mouth – all the same, he never trusted me – and who could blame him? But even that is not what I am ashamed of. What I am ashamed with regarding him is that (it’s so hard to say these words!) I once danced very, very provocatively for his viewing benefit, and I gave him this very hot look – I flirted outrageously. Thankfully this guy did not flirt back. Now all of this took place in a very public venue with lots of people, and thankfully something eventually stirred in me, and I thought “What am I doing here?!” And I took to my feet and I ran away as fast as I could. So thankfully, once again God preserved me. But that is definitely the closest I ever want to come to doing anything so stupid.

Part of me would love to downplay this dance and this look and pretend for you all that they were not that bad but believe me, they were bad. It was like pure seduction. The poor guy did not know where to look. Now unfortunately this came after the whole “I know you’re a Christian but you’re not quite the right kind of Christian for me”… thing. (Not because he asked me out, but because I was pre-empting him.) And I thought – “Great, now he’s going to think I am trying to seduce him into some weird kind of cult… ” So then I had to apologise, but because I was too shy to apologise in person I had to apologise via….. In fact, I was too shy to conduct any of these communications face to face….

And I needed to convince him that I was a real Christian, and that I subscribed to the standard Bible, and that I believed and professed the standard word of God….and that is how Tosin’s Bible Blog was born! I had been planning and thinking of writing a Christian themed blog for some time – I had been working on the comedy channel with my sister, and while I loved that, and still do, I always felt as if my first priority was to focus on something to glorify God specifically. So I finally jumped into it. It’s funny, as he is now long gone, but the blog remains. In fact, he is now married. I had already “let it go” by the time he got married, but still, I was a little disappointed…
Naturally, this is also someone with whom I have had to break off all interactions.

What I got from No 2 is that while “guy rules” are good, and absolutely necessary, I have to be aggressive about uprooting these feelings from my heart. Actually, I should also have learnt that from Guy 1…( “Guy rules” are these basic and common sense principles I put into place after Guy 1 to prevent myself from getting too close to guys, or getting into silly situations, especially late at night, when everyone is tired, and judgement is impaired…However, I always knew that they failed to address the issue of my own thoughts, and the whole Guy 2 thing emphatically demonstrated this!)
With Guy 2, I kept thinking “Well God, this is after all the second time this has happened to me! If I were to walk away from this guy, would I ever find someone else I could feel crazy about like this guy?” Guy 1 had been years ago. “God, am I to wait another x years before I find someone I could be crazy about like this again?” So I really did not want to uproot these feelings from my heart. However, I hope I’m a bit wiser now.

After the whole chasing thing with Guy 2, I have also stopped being shy. I don’t know how it happened, but I can suddenly now speak to guys. I think that with any guy who expresses an interest in me, (or vice versa! – but I’m definitely not going to chase a guy again) it is still going to be incredibly awkward – but nowhere near to the same level as before, where I used to be paralysed, and I physically could not admit these things. I honestly don’t know where or how that shyness went, but it has finally gone, and it has gone for good!

So sometimes, when I’m writing away on my Huggie-Wuggie blog, I think “Hmm, perhaps I’m only writing this, itemising criteria in such precise detail, because I am not REALLY crazy about someone. How many of these criteria would stand when I actually meet someone who manages to stir up these feelings to the extent that these two guys managed it?!” 😉

Bible Verses:
Psalm 119v11:
¹¹ Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You.

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Image of eyes from Pixabay
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