Hi Crimson!
Great thread idea! And, I love the term, "proverbial carrot". I am going to have to "plant" that one firmly into my regular vocabulary from now on.
It's interesting that someone mentioned the Ashley Madison scandal (for those who may not know, it's a website with the sole purpose of connecting people who want to have affairs and promises to be completely anonymous--but recently it was hacked and identities were leaked, sometimes leading to divorces.) I read an article that said the Ashley Madison site had members in EVERY SINGLE US zip code except 3 (2 in Alaska, 1 in New Mexico) and they only attributed that to a lack of internet access in these very small towns.
As far as dating sites go, I think they're a lot like the medical field. Doctors would go broke if people didn't get sick. And dating sites would disappear if so many singles weren't looking for a 10 (but usually don't meet that standard themselves.) Personally, although Christianity prides itself on "looking at the heart", I think in some ways, Christians are worst of all.
Hear me out on this before picking up those stones!
What I mean is, Christians all say, "GOD WANTS NOTHING BUT THE BEST FOR ME!!!" And so, someone who might be 7, an 8, or even a 9.9 SIMPLY IS NOT GOD'S BEST and therefore, I SHALL NOT SETTLE UNTIL I FIND GOD'S BEST. And so, whether we admit it or not... I think many of us Christian singles are actually looking for perfection, even though we say we understand that there will be flaws. After all, what kinds of "flaws" can possibly be acceptable if God has "The Best" waiting for us? The thing is, God's idea of "what's best"for us is usually a lot different than what we think of as "the best."
I heard someone recently say, "God's goal in marriage isn't happiness... It's holiness." And becoming holy usually means going through a lot of messy situations along the way.
Our entire culture is geared towards Newer, Better, Faster, More. We are told to replace everything around us with something newer, faster, better, and with more options. When we live in the midst of that mentality 24/7, it's hard not to apply that mentality towards people, too.
Once upon a time, people weren't bombarded with hundreds of thousands of choices. I think of my grandparents, who were born nearly 100 years ago and lived through things like WWII and The Great Depression. In those days, you married the girl in your class who lived next door to your family, you kept your buggies and then your cars and your tractors until they fell apart, and you ate the same foods every week because that's what was available from your garden.
Getting married in a world of literally millions of choices as we have today is kind of like, "Ok, you get to pick out one car, one place to live, one job to work at, and one food to eat... for the rest of your life... and you have to be content with that. And learn how to serve the other person in the process and worry about THEIR happiness more than your own." I often wonder if God wants to teach us about contentment long before we even think about marrying. What if God told you that as a way to practice for marriage, you had to keep the same friend, clothes, car, and phone for the next 20 years? And if you marry at 25, you could very well be with that same person for the next 60 years or more.
It's no wonder the Bible says the Christian life is not an easy one. I'm certainly not trying to knock on marriage in any way or sound pessmistic. I come from a family of "'til death did they part'" marriages and mine was the only one that failed.
But the thought of picking one person, and that person hopefully picking you... to be content with for the rest of your life... is, to me at least, a bit overwhelming, even with God's guidance (just my own vulnerabilities speaking here.)
