Respect has no grey zones

50 shades of grey? No’b – strike that!…

After my crucial “first yes” to loosing my virginity – and “yes” to have the knowledge of my own body’s reaction to intimacy – and the loss of innocence, it took some time before I entered “round 2”.

 

 

This time I wanted a relationship and that happened in a really weird way;

I went on a school bus trip to the city of Prague. It was an all night drive to get there, but a week of studying the history of Prague and in case you haven’t been: It’s a gorgeous city! But it was a bus full of teens and for us the real trip was to party in a country where, at that time, everything was incredibly cheap.

We had emptied the hotel bar one night (for alcohol, not people) and the morning after, my hotel roommate found a note to me passed under the door.
– Could have come straight out of a British Agatha Christy series… But didn’t.
The note simply read “I love you”.
I found out it was from Mr. Cute. He was cute mainly because he was romantic. He certainly wasn’t very bright, but that’s not the issue.

Did I love the guy back? Hmm… honestly? I think I tried very hard to convince myself that I did. After returning from Prague we met and “hooked up”. Looking back we had extremely little in common…
Was he attractive? I can’t remember if I thought so, but I do remember that we didn’t exactly have great sex, he was definitely on the melancholic side and we had a hard time keeping a conversation going! Red flags all over, but unfortunately naivety blinded my sight.

I frequently stayed at his place overnight (Why oh why did I do that?!?).
One early morning I was awakened by a weird feeling between my legs… The guy had actually penetrated me in my S-L-E-E-P!!!
Good heavens…
Once I realized what he was doing, I got out of bed very quick – and got real angry! Mr. cute suddenly wasn’t all that cute and I wanted to know why he did what he did. Guess what he said:

I couldn’t resist!!… Duh… I was sleeping and he couldn’t resist?!!

 

 

 

What could possibly move a guy to do that??
Okay, I’ll tell you: Lust and disrespect!
My anger and his useless excuse brought the relationship down.
… If indeed we ever actually had one.

When I broke up with him, he played the “I’ll kill myself if you leave me” card. This was the first relationship I actually had and him saying something as rough as that actually scared me.
If a partner plays you “the suicide card” – get the h* out of there! and fast.

I was still much too naive to see that love doesn’t happen between the legs. Though granted: it is certainly a nice spot… if you’re with a guy who respects you!

I learned my lesson and though I kept asking “why did he do that and what did  I ever do to him…?” it did me no good. 

His respect is shown in his actions. Not his words (and it isn’t in his kiss either!).

How do you know if a guy respects you? If he respects and accepts that you 1) stand on the love of Jesus, that you have 2) chosen to follow Him (the Lord, not the guy!) and 3) keep your virginity… and even better: If the guy has chosen to do the same!

 

There are no grey zones in respect. Your partner either does or doesn’t respect you.