“What are you doing with this Jake guy? You know he’s not a Christian, right? You can say it’s casual, but I see your face light up when you talk about him,” Kate said, as my face now grew red with the embarrassment of hearing the truth – which I’d previously denied to others and myself. “He’s not worth it. He’s not worth you.”

In the silent moments that followed, I finally faced the fact that I’d only been fooling myself. I’d fallen for Jake with each interaction, flirtation, and teasing email. I also realized most of my attraction had been to his attention. I was one of the many affected by the dating drought in Christian circles, and it had been a while since anyone had shown interest in me. Jake’s emails, in which he’d openly expressed his attraction to me, had been refreshing. As a woman, I longed to catch someone’s eye, to be pursued romantically. And with no Christian guys stepping up to the plate, I, like many other single Christian women, was faced with a dilemma: a non-Christian or nothing.

In fact, I’ve heard many single Christian women use this as an excuse to date people who don’t share their faith. And I’ve heard others say the church is going to have to address this dilemma for countless single Christian women – that based on the numbers, many women will either remain single for life or will marry non-Christians. “This challenge,” a recently married thirty-something friend of mine said to me once when we were chatting about ratios and limited choices and such, “needs to be acknowledged by churches and Christian leaders, and dissected to determine the lesser of these two undesired outcomes. These are new realities we need to address.”

Regardless, I’d known all along what the Bible says about being involved with someone who doesn’t follow Jesus. I’d read 2 Corinthians 6:14 – “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers” – many times during Bible studies and sermons over the years. And I’d seen a few Christian friends, like my college friend Emily, date non-Christians then suddenly disappear from church. I should have known better than to fall for Jake. And that was the most difficult truth to swallow.

I thanked Kate for her honesty, then asked her to check up on me in the weeks ahead. After dinner I had a long talk with God; I apologized for boosting my self-esteem from the wrong source – a guy instead of him.

I knew Jake needed God more than he needed me. Part of his attraction to me undoubtedly had been an unconscious attraction to Jesus in me, and I didn’t want to squelch that. I needed to finesse our relationship to keep it “just friends,” but I didn’t want my first flat-out talk about God to make God seem like some cosmic killjoy.

Thankfully, before calling Jake to tell him I couldn’t make the trip, I discovered I had to attend an out-of-state conference the weekend after the beach getaway. I could tell him in all honesty that being out of town two weekends in a row would be too much. When I told him, I could hear the disappointment in his voice. I think he knew I’d consciously chosen friendship over romance at this crossroad in our relationship.