Straus interviewed one hundred singles from six cities in different geographic locations. As she talked with them, over and over again the people she interviewed said it was hard to meet other singles because of where they lived. “In other words, I saw crowds of people all looking for someone special—all unable to find what they were looking for, and all convinced the problem was where they lived. It was clear to me that geography was not the problem, however—the problem had something to do with the seeker’s approach.”² 

We Are What We’ve Become

Ultimately Straus concludes that it isn’t anyone’s imagination; it is harder to find lasting love in today’s culture, and she identifies seven “evil influences” that have changed us from the inside out: 1) a self-serving “what’s-in-it-for-me?” culture, 2) a multiple choice culture, 3) the effect of divorce, 4) the feminism fallout, 5) a “why suffer?” mentality, 6) the celebrity standard, and 7) delayed marriage. Before I even stumbled across Straus’ book, many of these themes had already cropped up in the responses I culled from my own research and general observations.

It’s hard to ignore the validity of this list of influences. As you read through the responses of single men and women in this book, you’ll hear these same themes, often worded in different ways and going by different monikers, but still there all the same. The real question that emerges, in the wake of groundbreaking books such as Straus’, is:  Why a book about Christian singles? Why break out this subset of singles from the larger culture and focus an entire book about their struggles to find mates? The answer is simple:  Because Christian singles, although a subset of the singles culture as a whole, are supposed to be a very different subset—viewing marriage as a positive thing, God’s appointed arrangement for how to get our intimate and romantic needs met. Unlike our non-Christian cohorts, we’re not supposed to embrace the overwhelmingly pervasive trend of living together out of wedlock, casual “hookups” in our search for a soul mate, or reckless serial monogamy, leaving a trail of broken hearts in our wake (and sometimes having our own broken in the process).

Yet looking around at the surplus of singles in the church—some hopeful, some desperate, some mildly bored, others depressed or even despairing—it’s plain to see that all is not right in Christendom. Somehow we’ve taken what was meant to be a very natural process (boy meets girl, boy woos girl, boy marries girl) and turned it into what can seem at times a virtual impossibility.

The truth, of course, is that while we Christian singles are a subset of society, we are more influenced by our culture than we may think. In a very real sense Christians have always “warred” with the culture they live in, and it’s a battle with a strong opponent. I suspect contemporary Christian singles are reaping the harvest of decades’ worth of seeds sown askew in the culture at large. The sexual revolution; the women’s liberation movement; women pouring into the workforce; a generation of children growing up in daycare centers; the powerful influence of entertainment media in a sexualized culture; mind-boggling divorce statistics; cohabitation replacing the marriage covenant—all these and more have combined to change the way men and women interact with one another, and we Christians are not exempt from the fallout.