raising the bar

saturday night i was frustrated about not having many friends who live close to me. i had been invited to hang out with ryan, but with $12 to my name, i'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been the smartest idea to use all my gas to drive 45 mins hang out with him. i thought i was going to hang out with brooke, but i couldn't find her and she has a horrible habit of not taking her cell phone with her. so in my desperate state of need for a friend, i called upon my AMAZING friend robyn. it'd be so much easier if she didn't live clear across the country, but she does. so i called her up and started in on how i was lonely and i needed friends. she was getting ready to go somewhere, so i didn't talk to her long. i was just driving around in the 'rolla trying to decide if i wanted to go back home or to go rent a movie. my phone rings! i do have a friend! it's robyn...apparently something happened and her plans were cancelled. so she's doing the same thing i am...trying to figure out what she's going to do.

we talked for a very long time and at some point in the conversation we started talking about our friends, dating, and the seemingly high expectations we hold for guys. the longer we talked about it, the more appreciation i had for my guy friends. from the time i started college, i'm sure my expectations i held for any future boyfriend changed drastically. the guys i was friends with were always raising the bar. they were brought up not only to be chivalrous, but godly. it was even in the little things they did that some people wouldn't even notice. now, i grew up in the south and any nice guy with manners always made sure he opened and held doors for women...whether it was going into a restaurant, the mall, church...it didn't matter. i remember when jeremy and i first started hanging out. he always opened and closed my car door for me. at first it made me feel a little awkward. when i told him i could do it myself he replied with "i know. but i want to." he wanted to. wow. this was a new revelation. he didn't do it because he thought he needed to, or because i was a fragile woman who was thought uncapable of doing it herself. no, he did it merely because he wanted to.

john was known to call me up a lot and ask me to cook dinner for him and matt. i almost always agreed, but asked them to take care of dessert. it always worked out well because ashley was never home and i hated cooking for just myself, so having company was always a blessing. everytime they came over, they brought me flowers. just a nice simple gesture that definitely let me know that they love me and they valued my friendship.

i had to take a bunch of night classes in college because that's the only time they were offered. on a few occasions i'd find myself at the bsu getting ready to walk to class and my friend stuart would be there. we'd start walking up the hill in the dark and halfway up i'd ask where he was going. it turns out he was just walking me to class because he wanted to.

there's a million other examples we talked about, those were just some. but robyn and i decided that the guys we've worked with at camp, our close guy friends, and men from church are those who are continually showing us what our future husbands are suppose to look like. they're suppose to do things because they want to, not because it's required of them because they're men.

so thanks to all the men in my life who continually show me that i'm special. thanks for raising the standards for any guy i'll ever date. thanks for showing me that you do these things because you want to, not because you have to.