Soldier Down

Submitted by Mallory:

Andrew and I met on a Christian dating site.  It was for all levels of belief, and all levels of belief, I think, were represented on the site.  To describe me as "lapsed" would give me too much credit.  I was basically on there to find a like-minded guy.

Andrew e-mailed me, and I looked at his profile.  The phrase "soldier of Christ Jesus" was mentioned twice, which, I have to confess, was a big red flag. 

His message, however, was devoid of any judgment or anything Jesus-loving.  He came across as a nice guy.  After sending a few messages back and forth with him on the site itself, he asked if we could switch to e-mail, which was fine.

It was in my first e-mail to him that I asked him about his identification as a soldier of Christ Jesus.  He explained that it was a long story, and that he didn't actually keep the faith as strongly as he implied in his profile, but that it wasn't up to him.

This made me curious, and lowered the original red flags a bit, although it raised up some brand-new ones in their place.  He asked if we could meet in person.  Other than this whole "soldier" business, he seemed normal, and really, really nice.  Nice guys on a Christian dating site, I don't know if you're aware, are actually pretty hard to find.

The tall Andrew showed up looking clean-cut, and he wore a terrific smile.  I really wanted things to work out, although, as a few years of Internet dating taught me, it was always best to be cautious.

We sat down to dinner and we made small talk until I finally asked him, "Okay, so explain the whole 'soldier' thing."

"My mother made me put it in there," he explained, "She stumbled on my profile a few months back, and she's really into Jesus, and she said that I'd either have to put it into my profile or she'd cancel my account."

"She pays for your account?"

He nodded.

I asked, "Why not pay for it yourself?  You could put anything on there that you want."

He said, "It's thirty dollars a month.  It's worth it to have it paid for, if the only trade off is putting that phrase in the profile.  And that I let her read the e-mails I get."

Suddenly, I lost my appetite.  I asked him to elaborate.  He said that that was why he had asked me to switch the conversation to e-mail, to an account that his mother didn't know that he had.

"She has my password for the dating site," he said, "It's a condition of her paying for it."

I asked, "Is it really worth it to you, to have it for free?"

"It's free," he said simply.  Then, he asked, "Want to meet her?"

"Your mother?  Not tonight, if that's okay."

"Even for a minute.  She likes meeting my dates."

I said, "No thanks."

"All of my dates."

"No.  Thank you."

Yes, I went through the rest of dinner.  We split the bill, and I returned home as soon as possible.

He wrote me that night, telling me that he told his mother all about me and that she really wanted to meet me and that I should be honored.  I wrote back a one-line response to inform him that I didn't think that things were going to work, and that I wished him the best of luck.