It’s day five of Chuck Klosterman week, and today’s passage I have to say is personally the most entertaining of the entire book. The context of “Killing Yourself to Live” is a road trip Chuck takes to different locations of famous music industry deaths. One finds out quickly that this book really isn’t about a road trip, but about his past (and present) love life. Now this I can relate to. Chuck has an imaginary conversation with all of his girlfriends as if they were all riding in the car.

Quincy (Girl #1) says, “The year you spent ‘killing yourself’ to make me love you … I thought that was us being best friends. But you see that kind of behavior as the work you’re forced to do in order to sleep with people you want to sleep with.”
Chuck responds, “That’s not true, I would do anything to go back to that year when we weren’t having sex.”
Quincy responds: “You say that now, but you’d do the same thing if we went back to 1996.”
Lenore (Girl #2) pipes in: “I kind of have to agree with Quincy on this point. Chuck you do tend to repeat the same behavior over and over again, and all you really change is the person involved.”
[Skip ahead]
Dianne (Girl #3) joins the conversation: “Chuck, it really bothers me that you seem fixated on beautiful women in problematic situations, particularly women who are already in serious relationships.”
-Killing Yourself to Live (Page 117-121)

This conversation reminds me of high school. And let me put a little context. My high school dating life had something called the “Big Switch.” Sophomore year I dated someone name Emily, and Adam dated someone named Laura (although there is some dispute on whether or not they “officially” dated, but they did). Then junior year I dated Laura and Adam dated Emily: switch #1 (this is all while someone named Keenan dated someone named Teresa). Now senior year, I dated Teresa, and Keenan dated Laura, switch #2.

Now you say, wow, pretty incestuous, and you assume that we just dated around the circle of friends. But that is the amazing thing about all of this, that wasn’t the case. In fact, none of us were mutual friends (you could argue Emily and Laura were friends because they were both cheerleaders, but there is some dispute about if they were really friends before the “big switch” or because of the “big switch”).

But this was my angst during high school, especially senior year, because my life felt like the imaginary conversation Chuck had with his ex-girlfriends on the road trip.

Now you say, whippedy-do, what does this have to do with me. This all gets back to relationships. Why? Because of this. Jesus said that to understand Him you had to approach him like a child. Now this does not mean that he wants us all to be children for the rest of our lives. No, God designed us to grow and mature. However, as I have gotten older I have realized how true Jesus' words about faith are. The more childlike that faith can be, the “trueer” an expression of faith that really is. And sometimes I think love is like that too. Love never used to be complicated. It never used to play games. It was just love. And while we all need to mature out of high school, sometimes I think we need to de-mature in love.

Thus, parents (and youth ministers) shouldn’t keep high schoolers from dating, but rather use this time to cultivate healthy dating patterns that include trust and accountability. Realize that there is a lot to learn from these relationships about oneself, members of the opposite sex, and life in general. And if all my girls got together, they’d probably agree (or maybe that’s just the imaginary conversation in my head).

P.S. The photo above actually has all three of these girls in the photo. Can you spot them, besides the obvious?