How Not to Leave the Initiative to the Man

How Not to Leave the Initiative to the Man
RUTH 3:1-18

I was talking to a young man who had been dating someone for a long time, but she had then ditched him and broken his heart. For a while he had stayed out of relationships. He had gone out with a number of women friends, some mutual friends; they knew his story, and both parties knew these were not dates. Then his heart had pretty much healed, and he was ready to start again. More than one of the women were people he could imagine dating, but feeling he was ready didn’t translate into having the courage to ask one of them, “What do you think about turning this ‘friend’ relationship into something else?” What he said to me was, “It’s not fair that the man has to take the initiative.” It seems that in this connection we mostly still adhere to stereotyped gender relationships. Many men and women expect the man to take the initiative, and eventually it is the man who proposes. I know women who wish it were otherwise, but they don’t very often break with tradition...