TransAm-LT1

Im wondering if any one has read this stuff? This book is becomming all the rage around the area where im living and it sucks. This girl that i've cared a lot about for a long time I told her how I felt and it didn't go so well. I've never been rejected and lectured at the same time, about how she's not going to even kiss a man tell she's at the alter, how dating is a sham etc. So I check out the book and read it, it's really weird I didn't like it at all, I was wondering if any one has experienced this lovely book, like I said a lot of the girls have read this book in my area, making it even harder to find a nice girl. However I did agree with one thing, that people shouldent feel so bad if they arn't in a relationship there's a lot of pressure to be dating some one and being single is okay, but then the book goes completely out of control. I personaly can't wait tell it goes away and hopefuly one day it goes out of printing. It's called I kissed dating goodbye by Joshua Harris, it's an interesting read even though it's all completely BS.

Xiangsu

My aunt gave me the book and wanted me to read it. She has not kissed her fiance, thats right, her fiance. He lives there and she has never even kissed him. My aunt is a very religious person and I love her to death, I just don't agree with her some times. I didn't read the book, but it sounds like I was right to judge it by its cover.

amonkie

I have read "I kissed Dating Goodbye", "When Boy Meets Girl" (the sequel) and "I Gave Dating A Chance" as I was going through my younger teen years. The main message is that your heart is not a trivial thing - every relationship you have has an effect on you, and taking care to choose those more intimate relationships so that you do not crash and burn.

The No Kissing part is admirable in the sense that it means the persons are engaging in their relationship at a higher level - as someone once told me, "you're lovers 9% of the time, friends the other 91%". If you can't have a solid relationship NOT entirely based on the physical, it makes me wonder what in the relationship will allow it to grow.

That said, I think sexual chemistry is just as important as emotional and mental connections - if two people have VERY different expectations, and those are not talked, addressed, and resolved, it is bound to be an issue in the course of the relationship. Completely pretending the sexual side does not exist is to be foolish.

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Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

majik_6

My former church did an entire series of youth meetings on this book which lasted for several agonizing months.

In my opinion, the book was actually pretty dumb. His idea was interesting and it worked for the author, but I find that it's often taken way out of context.

For example, in the church I was going to, they took it waaaaay too far and it ended up being a really strange ultra-conservative witch hunt. They went so far as to have public surveys to see how far everyone had gone with a SO and then berated those who fell outside of what they saw as right.

It ended up being nothing but an attemp at forcing guilt upon everyone that attended.

The way I see it, if someone's into the book that's their business, but for me it's absolutely insane.

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it's all about self-indulgence

martinguerre

i think the main issue i have with this message is that it assumes that sex is a limited good. you give some away, and it won't be there for the "rightful owner." it's just as commodified and fear driven as the regular culture that tells you that women "sell" sex to get love or whatever.

i think the real gospel message about dating, love, relationship and sex is that you don't have to worry. if we're already completely loved by God, it means that we're free to stop doing all the destructive things we do to be "loved." this knowledge gives us the ability to be in real and authentic relationship with the people around us...friends, family, lovers, whoever. when you're making decisions about relationships with that security, it is a lot easier to say no to destructive relationships, ones that are uncaring, "just" about the sex, whatever. and if you do get hurt, and that's nearly an inevitability, it can give you the strengh to recover.

i would much rather live in the world and chance getting hurt than to try to build another wall up to protect the honor/purity/whatever system of telling people that there's only so much love in the world to go around. it's a damn lie, so far as i'm concerned.

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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

chickentribs

See, I hear that statement, actually I say that exact statement all of the time, and arrive at the exact opposite conclusion as the author of this book. Who is making marriage all about sex, the person who sees it as natural and comfortable to want to be close with somebody you have fallen in love with, or the person who makes intercourse a trophy to be given out only after you get the "big prize"?

In fairness, I have never read or even heard of this book until this thread, but it strikes me as the same worn path of The Rules a few years ago. There is no value in spending time with anyone unless you are going to marry them, and the whole relationship becomes a Quid Pro Quo where you commoditze your affection (and for many women their bodies) that gets sold for a marriage license. It may be a little lonely right now, TransAm, but think of it as healthy Darwinism, you're thinning the herd of women who would drive you crazy. You don't want to marry a girl who has learned how to barter with sex before she has even gotten to 1st base!

If the point of the book is that it is ok to be alone - then great, but it sounds like he wants it both ways. "It's ok if you don't want to get married, but if you do it's so earth shattering that you can't even kiss until you have the contract in hand." I am sure he is selling plenty of copies to the Federal Government to hand out at the Abstinence Classes they have been force feeding to the increasing numbers of pregnant teens, but I digress.

Martinguerre - I always enjoy how you demonstrate that faith and social concern don't have to be adversaries. Thanks...

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Oft expectation fails...
and most oft there Where most it promises
- Shakespeare, W.