Match Maker

“You should marry that boy!” Or… “You two would be so good together!” Or my personal favorite… “But you two are such good friends!” I feel like every girl (and guy) I’ve talked to has, at one point or another, had someone try to set them up. Someone gets it in their head that it’s their job to play Match Maker and try way too hard to push two hearts together. I have definitely been one of the two hearts several times. Most of the times (thank goodness) they guy and I have managed to stay friends without everything getting weird (or rather, staying weird… Things are bound to get weird when match making meddling starts going on). But I have heard of so many other times with other people where the match making put such a strain on the relationship that instead of getting together, everything, including their friendship, fell apart.

If you’ve been following my blog at all you already know that I am a Christian. And as a Christian I believe God has a guy for me, I just haven’t met him yet (or if I have, God hasn’t shown me he’s the one yet) so when people try to set me up with a guy I find myself getting frustrated. It’s hard enough for me to slow down and make sure I’m doing what God wants with the rest of my life, it’s even harder when my friends or mentors are trying to push me towards some guy who may or may not be the right one for me. When I date a guy I’m dating for marriage, a God centered marriage. That doesn’t work if I’m distracted by some guy someone set me up with and miss the one God actually has for me.

I have a lot of guy friends now that I’ve learned to direct my friendship in the direction God wants no matter what anyone else thinks. I don’t care if you think we’d be good together, only God can decide if we will actually work together. I have guy friends who, yea, we do work well together, but as friends. Not in a marriage. I can talk myself into a lot of things, so if a friend starts trying to convince me that this one guy is right for me, that we’d be perfect together, I might actually listen to the friend rather than God. It takes incredible strength on my part to slow down and think about what God wants over what they might think is best.

We’re just friends! Or even better, we’re like brother and sister (I have a few of those and thank God for them every day) More than once I’ve had a guy’s mom try to set me up with her son. It’s not that her sons not a good guy, he’s just not my guy. Why do we keep coming back to this debate on whether or not guys and girls can just be friends? I’ll make it simple; Guys And Girls Can Just Be Friends! That’s it! That doesn’t mean anything is going on, that doesn’t mean anything will ever happen romantically. And that’s ok! I have learned a lot by having guy friends who I consider brothers. It’s totally ok and actually healthy to have friends of the opposite gender. It helps us learn and grow and become who God wants us to be. So yes, we are really good friends, but I want us to stay that way!

I try hard not to play Match Maker. I wish that those around me would try to do the same. I’m just a girl trying to find the right guy; I don’t want to end up with the wrong one just because someone was really good at pushing my heart. As I told a friend a few weeks ago, there is only one who can play Match Maker, the first and only Match Maker, God himself. He is the only one allowed to push my heart. It is only Him who I will listen to when He says “You should marry that boy,”

Artwork concept by me, artwork by Seventh Hall