A Kiss is Not a Contract

Here's an admission that will probably shock my churchgoing friends: Proud Christian that I may be (and yes, folks, practicing Roman Catholics can still be considered as Christians), I do not own a copy of the Christian-relationship classic I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Wait, scratch that: I may never own a copy of the Christian-relationship classic I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

It's not that it's a horrible book. I don't condemn people who read it for insight any more than I condemn people who take The Da Vinci Code as gospel, or who believe that Elizabeth Gilbert's little travel-and-divorce memoir belongs in the "self help" aisle. I also think that Joshua Harris, as a Christian and a writer, is pretty concise about making his points known - as we can see when we talk about his other books. I do have my own personal reasons for doing this, however, so please do forgive me if I do sound judgmental.

Reason #1 has something to do with my friend Bunny, who's a more conservative Catholic than I am. She and Josh Harris are around the same age, and both of them grew up in Maryland - not too far from each other, in fact, though not close enough to be passing acquaintances. She remembers vividly when IKDG first came out, when Josh was 21 and Bunny was in her late teens.

If I had been Bunny around that time - taking her own faith into consideration - my reaction would have been, "Oh, wow! Finally, a young person has written a dating book for Christians like me OMG!!1111!!!" But Bunny's reaction, upon reading the book herself at that time, was a little more blunt: HOW DARE YOU.

How dare he - a young person with no more experience than having gone through puberty - how dare he tell people to "not date" and give their lives to God instead, at an age when most people haven't even figured out their true calling! How dare he talk about courtship and dating when he himself had only gone through a "serious" relationship! Where was his discernment?

All things considered, Bunny had since gone to college, got a full-time job, lived out her (drama-filled) single years in service of the Church, and eventually married a wonderful fellow Catholic with whom she has three beautiful children and a blissful family life. Just like Josh Harris himself - who also got married, had children, and eventually became a pastor at his church - Bunny and her family continue to live their lives in service of God.

Which then leads us to Reason #2.

I did read the two books that Josh Harris wrote after IKDG - Boy Meets Girl and Sex Is Not the Problem (then titled Not Even a Hint). Both of these books addressed the prevailing irony of Harris' life: that the young man who "kissed dating goodbye" would then eventually find himself falling in love, getting married, and becoming a father - both to his children and his church community, as a young pastor. And in both books, Harris also talks about how much trouble "that dating book" gave him - how he realized that perhaps he had been too stringent and self-righteous about his dating advice; how young kids were telling him that they were "courting" when they don't understand the implications of the word; and how it even got him in trouble at Blockbuster whenever he rented popular mainstream movies that were obviously not "Christian" in content.

In retrospect, I thought the two books did a better job of meeting me where I was in my own journey than "that book" would have, considering how vulnerable I had been at that time as a renewed Christian/ un-lapsed Catholic. Even in Sex is Not The Problem - which would have sounded like a finger-wagging lecture to me - Harris acknowledges that not everyone has the same level of tolerance when it comes to addressing issues of relationships and lust in their own lives. It's not that he approves of "Christians" who don't mind owning vibrators or year-long subscriptions to Maxim, although Harris is a lot more frank about his sexual experiences in this book. Yet, it's not like he's asking working people to live their lives like cloistered monks and nuns when it's not practical for them. In this case, the wisdom of maturity actually works in Harris' favor here, along with a clearer and deeper understanding of human nature.

It's also worth noting that Josh Harris also gave a complementary blurb to a book that was written as a reaction to "that one" - I Gave Dating a Chance, by Jeramy Clark, which seeks to provide "a Biblical perspective to balance the extremes." I did read the Clark book, too - and that one's for another entry - and I found it to be a better companion book for Harris' Boy Meets Girl than it is for "the other one." For all of Harris' talk about "courtship" and chastity, I found Clark's approach to relationships and romances to be more true-to-life: It's OK, he says, if you want to hang out with somebody from the opposite sex, as long as you know where the boundaries are. It's not just a matter of keeping Tab A away from Slot B, but a matter of knowing where you and the other person stand with each other - otherwise one (or both) of you will get the wrong signals, and that's just more trouble than it's worth.

Which is not to say that I don't recommend I Kissed Dating Goodbye for anyone who wants to read it. In fact, I actually think it's a great idea for young people to read it, talk about it, reflect on the "lifestyle" that Harris has presented. I'm just saying that, as somebody who's well past her 21st birthday, I'm not sure if this book is going to speak to me any more than the other ones have done already.

And here's where we get to my main problem with "that book" - Reason #3, if you will - which I'm sure a lot of Christians my age have encountered: It's not the book itself, but the people who insist on making me read it.

Now we're talking. Surely the Meimei, she doth protest too much? Maybe I am. But I can't just sit there letting some "church" lady tell me that I should read this wonderful I Kissed Dating Goodbye book and how it should help me live my single life.

Well-meaning, yes. Pushy as heck? Oh, hell yes. Borderline hypocritical? Do the math. Add to that Reasons #1 and #2, and you've got somebody who doesn't even want to think about the shiny, happy, Christian relationships that have emerged from taking Josh Harris' advice.

Didn't God give us the concept of free will in the first place? For crying out loud. I'm not saying I won't read it, but really now. Let me think about it, pray about it - come to think about it, if you're so inclined, why not pray with me instead? God does speak to us in our own language, after all, and He - of all the authors in this whole universe - would not want His message to be used for bludgeoning and coercion. If He thinks this will help me, then so be it.

I think it goes without saying that the words of the backpacker Chad about the Lonely Planet guidebooks - encountered by Franz Wisner in the Indonesia chapter of Honeymoon with My Brother - sums up how I feel about I Kissed Dating Goodbye: "Excellent source of information. Use it as a reference, not as a bible."

(And, yes, I do have the New American in my bookshelf. Read it pretty regularly, too. Thanks for asking.)

Elizabeth Gilbert Will Have Her Revenge: Battle of the Oprah-Endorsed Books, Part 2

Don't get us wrong. We at NBLB enjoyed reading Eat, Pray, Love. We both had so much fun recommending this book to each other, and to our friends as well.

I, personally, would like to invite Elizabeth Gilbert to sit down with me and talk about our travels over a never-ending array of coffee drinks and chocolate pastries. I honestly believe Liz when she tells me that she never intended her little memoir about chucking it all to see the world to turn into a "self help" phenomenon, and she never intended for people to copy her story to the very letter.

(I also think that my friend from Cleveland should really ease up on reading gossip blogs writtten by bitter gays... but I digress.)

That said. If I were to put EPL in a deathmatch against another Oprah-approved book, I'd put it on equal footing with yet another memoir about a selfish, broken-hearted, well-to-do American who chucked everything to travel the world and find one's self in the process. In other words...

I'll admit, I read Honeymoon with my Brother before I read EPL because I was aware of the inevitable Liz Gilbert backlash. (And also because I found a harcover copy from a neighbor's give-away stash while waiting for the Gilbert book to arrive from Amazon.) I'll also admit that Franz Wisner's writing doesn't exactly compare to Liz Gilbert's, especially when you consider that Gilbert is a professional, published writer with years of experience in the book business, and Honeymoon was cobbled together from a series of emails that Franz and Kurt Wisner sent to their (equally powerful and well-connected) friends during their ongoing trips all over the world.

The similarities are striking. Gilbert embarked on her "I, I, I" journey after a wrenching divorce and subsequently wrenching rebound romance; Wisner embarked on his year-long journey with his brother after his fiancee called off the wedding and left him clutching a non-refundable trip to Costa Rica. Both of them did end up in Indonesia at one point; in fact, both of them ended up traveling to both Bali and Gili Meno. Both of them supported themselves with visits to friends-of-friends, unexpected financial support, and the joy that comes with new experiences. Both of them even ended up with Brazilian paramours at some point of their journey. Both of them ended their journeys with new relationships, a new-found sense of self -- and the kind of exposure that any writer would kill for, starting with guest appearances on Oprah and the inevitable movie adaptation development deal.

And, look, both of them even have lovely meditations on the Brazilian Portuguese language!

Gilbert:

In bed he slips into adoring me in Portuguese, so I have graduated from being his "lovely little darling" to being his queridinha. (Literal translation: "lovely little darling.") I've been too lazy here in Bali to try to learn Indonesian or Balinese, but suddenly Portuguese is coming easy to me. Of course I'm learning the pillow talk, but that's a fine use of Portuguese.

Wisner:

"We loved Pau de Acucar," I said, pronouncing it as "pow day a-Sue-car." "Took the tram up there yesterday afternoon for the sunset. Beautiful, just beautiful, Pau de Acucar."

Claudia began to chuckle, prompting Deborah to shoot her a glance [...]
Her father grabbed his plate and started back to the kitchen. I thought I heard him laugh as well. I know I heard Claudia giggle some more. Ana Carolina, too. Deborah grabbed my arm, pulling my head below table level for an emergency conference.

"Do you know what you're saying?" she whispered. "You're telling my parents that you think your penis is stunning."

"What did I say?"

"You said pau instead of pao. Pao means bread. Pau means penis."

"So Pau de Acucar means sugar penis? I've been raving about my sugar penis?"

Portuguese pillow talk aside, it's not like either author is recommending that you should do as they have written, almost to the very letter. (Especially not the Wisners, whose unwise purchase of a Saab figures prominently in their adventure throughout Eastern Europe.) If you ask me, I'd rather watch the movie adaptation of Honeymoon than EPL - but only because I thought that Wisner's narrative lends itself more easily to a screenplay*, whereas Gilbert's is so rich and befitting of her literary experience that I'd hate to see people like Felipe or Richard from Texas get retooled as mere back-up characters next to Julia Roberts-as-Liz.


I also think that Wisner also has a slight edge because he doesn't even pretend to be anywhere near enlightened about the journey he has taken; he does acknowledge that he wants no pity or sympathy from the dear reader for anything that he has gone through. He doesn't even pretend that his breakup has changed his view of women and relationships, either - as can be seen in the sex scenes strewn around the book involving the women he meets up with in his travels, and the (admittedly) bittersweet nostalgia he held for his ex.

Readers who were worn down by Gilbert's insistent chorus of "this trip is for meeeeee" may actually find some solace in Wisner's take on family values; aside from the titular brother and the friends they encounter along the way, there's also the presence of the Wisners' grandmother-figure LaRue, whose loving relationship with the boys provide a much-needed contrast to their bumbling adventures. Perhaps, then, it won't come as a surprise that Wisner's story does not have the stereotypical Hollywood-style happy ending, especially when you consider that the woman who does become Mrs. Franz Wisner doesn't even show up in the book at all.


This isn't to say that I'd recommend one over the other; again, while I think that EPL is better-written and more contemplative, Honeymoon still stands as a solid travelogue, and Wisner's lack of polish as a writer actually complements the book. What I'd recommend, then, is to do as I have done: read both books, back to back, as a "double feature" of sorts. Treat both books as two halves of the same universal story, and then use them as an inspiration for your own travel plans.

++++

*Also because, as I have mentioned in Domesticity, I already have some casting ideas in my head: As much as I would kill to see Paul Rudd and Peter Sarsgaard redeem their careers as the Brothers Wisner, I won't mind at all if Hollywood went the obvious route and cast George Clooney and Aaron Eckhart instead.