Where are all the Christian single men?

22 Replies

I was starting to wonder if this was just a Romeo phenomenon. But here’s the deal. For every eligible single Christian man I meet there seem to be 20 eligible women.

Seriously, Kristen and I talk about this all the time. In Romeo, our church had two bucket loads of intelligent, attractive, active, spiritual, employed, never imprisoned, not desperate, and eligible single women. We would scratch our heads and wonder… what’s going on here? Where are all the dudes? It would seem like a church with that many single women would attract single men but it never seemed to work that way.

Then we moved to San Diego to discover the same thing! Here’s where I’m going with this. Is it that there are no single men? Or is it that there are single boys who are the age of men? I think the latter.

Equal numerically

Having been in youth ministry for a while I can honestly say that it was never disproportionately female in high school. There were always, roughly, the same number of guys as girls. So I know there are Christian men out there.

And I know that in a church environment, especially a small church environment, men and women who grew up going to the same church look at one another more as siblings than as dateabl. I get that.

But seriously, where do all of the guys go when they hit 20?

Put Down the XBox Controller

This just hit me today. It’s not that there are significantly more Christian single women looking for love. It’s that the guys aren’t looking for love. Think about it… they are there on Sunday mornings… they just aren’t interested in love.

Here’s my observation, correct me if I’m wrong: A woman is typically looking for a man who will care about her, put her high on the priority list of his life, work hard to buy her nice things, and love to spend time with her. The men I know in that 20-25 year old category… that’s a great description for their video game system. They care about that, the work to buy nice toys, they put game time high on their priority list, and they love to spend time on XBox Live. For some reason guys miss the whole dating things because they long for a life of playing video games and not working… let me tell you guys, this is not a good singles ad.

SWM addicted to Madden 2009, unemployed and hoping to keep it that way. I shower weekly when my mom reminds me. Looking for knockout super model who loves Jesus and will pay my bills so I can be a pro at Halo 3.

So here’s a little unsolicited advice to the single men in my life. Pack away the controller. Get a job. Sleep at night. Build your relationship with Jesus. Start thinking about things that aren’t connected to a controller. And you’ll be like super hot to the single women at your church.

What’s the reward? Well, unlike video games a woman provides lifelong companionship, fulfillment, someone to hold your hand at movies, deep friendship, completeness… and if you are man enough to marry a woman… there are other benefits as well. I’ll let you read Song of Solomon to figure that out.

  • Pingback: Where have all the church boys* gone? -

  • AdamR

    Nice observation. It brought on a chuckle. Not sure ALL single men can be lumped into that description, but many could, certainly.
    Do older Men of Christ in the church host Bible Studies or Accountability Groups to further coach and lead these young adult men after they leave the awesomeness of Youth Ministry?
    As a guy, I can tell you from experience, men are SLOW LEARNERS and need to be shown the Godly way to live over and over. My experience is that after Youth Group and High School ends, most guys fall away from church for many reasons. Females tend to stay involved with ministry and relationships that have been built with older ladies in the church. Maybe it is an independence issue with guys. “I can do it alone.” I think the challenge may be for other Disciples of Christ to help these guys maintain and grow their relationship with Christ. Again, we’re slow learners.
    Good thoughts, Adam.

  • Andrea

    Amen. ha ha.

  • http://davelukedesign.com/blog Uncle Dave

    I would like to say that from my experience I have found the opposite in Ireland. From the churches that I have been involved in, it has been the women that disappear after high school, the guys tend to stay loyal to the cause. I wonder is this because of our history in regards to the church?
    So yeah in good old Norn Iron, there are plenty of Christian men in churches but a distinct lack of females.

    This explains why I am single. lol

    I have also found with some females within the NI church, that they like to keep a finger in every pie, and want to keep their church life along with their wild college life.

  • Andrea

    So the solution is: all eligible, Jesus-loving females should move to Northern Ireland! Hurrah! Let’s do it!

  • http://saredn.wordpress.com/ Sara

    maybe we should start dressing like xbox controllers? :)

  • Benjamin

    Well, I’m 24, love playing on the computer (over 20 hours a week normally), have a job, and married too… it’s just a hobby, just as my wife has hobbies. I just love my wife more than my hobbies.

    Also I find it strange you say there are as many Christian men as women. I would definitely say there are more women, maybe 60/40.

  • http://adammclane.com adam mclane

    Of course, I love hyperbole… so there is that in this post.

    Sara- great advice. Let me know how it works out dressing like an xbox controller. Just be careful as guys tend to get grabby with them.

  • Dawn

    Amen- Preach it brother!
    I totally agree with, “Build your life with Jesus!” Guys, we don’t care how cool you are – we just want to see your heart set right.

  • Dave Tucker

    About the equality of numbers. A few years ago I read that there are about 5,000,000 more marriagable females than males in the U.S. It might be fun to check out the stats on birth ratios.

  • Dave Tucker

    Re my last comment. They don’t start out that way. According to the infoplease web site, in 2003 there were 1034 live male births per 1000 live female births in the U.S. I guess that takes you back to the original question, “where are the Christian men?”

  • Andrea

    maybe they’re all getting martyred?

  • michelle

    Hey Adam, how do we get our husbands to put down the controllers? Mine managed to commit, is a great husband, but is seriously in love with his PS3.

  • http://adammclane.com adam mclane

    That’s totally true. And by way of confession… for a serious amount of time Kristen was a PS2 widow. But I think I play 1-2 hours of video games per month max now… so I’m not he perfect example.

    Couple thoughts I guess…

    a. I like to play games with Kristen. We have competitions with the Wii from time to time. Playing with a friend is always more fun than playing by yourself.

    b. Guys are stupid. See Sara’s comment about wearing controllers. :)

    c. In my own experience, video games get turned on when I’m bored. It’s something to do when there is nothing else going on. For Kristen and I it helps to have a regular date night, maybe that would help with you too?

    I know a lot of guys just like to veg out. I know I do, and video games are serious veg time. I think just coming up with a plan is half the battle. Like “honey, can we just make Saturday’s your video game day?” By having a whole day you can do that.. it frees up a lot more time the other days instead of trying to sneak in game time.

    I think the video game issue in a marriage is a whole different ballgame compared to 22 year old men chilling in their mom’s house, playing WoW all night.

  • Pingback: SWF « Loving Every Minute [of this thing called life]

  • Ron Martella

    Hey, are there any Christian single guys out there who are okay with being single?

  • http://adammclane.com adam mclane

    @ron- I think there are plenty. The point of this post is simply asking… Where the heck are all the single Christian men?

  • Ron Martella

    Hi Adam ~ That’s a GREAT question. I don’t get onto the internet very often yet, so I’m new to all this. What is an RSS feed??
    AND:
    When we find out where “we” all are, what then?

  • chris

    i hope you all have a good sunday :-) i am at work and just wanted to write a quick note and say, ‘hello’ from anchorage ak :-)

    take care,
    chris

  • LaDawn

    Preach it! This was awesome…..Also, to the single ladies .. as the Men put down the X-Box our expectations of a guy cannot be Brad Pitt looks and compassionate like Noah from the Notebook. It would be great if that combo comes but a movie can not be our measuring stick for a mate.

  • Eve

    We have the same problem here in Canada. The churches are always full of single women and the only women that have recently been married have found their men outside of church. They tend to learn the hard way when they find out that he really had no interest in God.

    I think I might have to go visit Ireland on a holiday!

  • Andrew

    Yeah, that’ll get the single guys in to date you ladies. Call them unemployed sloths that are addicted to videogames. Ya’ll are charmers, I can tell you. You realize that according to the census data for singles in various age groups, the differences are only a few percentage points off in income groups, mostly favoring men? They’re not unemployed bums, they’re making just as much cash as you all–or a bit more.

    Let me ask you something–let’s say for one second you’re half right, and guys aren’t at church dating because Sunday morning they’re on xbox live.

    What does that say about you ladies that guys would rather play video games than date you?