When There Seems to Be No Fish Out in the Sea

by Orlando Gonzalez

The Western World widely sees the month of February as a time for love, a significant period in the year to celebrate romance, to be more specific. Romantic relationships have become a primary focus for many (no surprise there), especially for those who are single and sincerely want to take the next big step. After all, loneliness isn’t something to be proud of. Many do manage to succeed in the end, but unfortunately, many others don’t. From what I see, it seems that things don't pan out no matter how much single people try to put themselves out there or how hard they try to make a relationship form and work. 

The most common reasons for why this happens include the following: 

• Using the wrong methods (whether they are inefficient or downright harmful).
• Having a job with low income, whether it is stable or not.
• Being in the wrong location that doesn’t offer many (or any) good potential partners.
• Lacking any knowledge about how the opposite sex thinks.
• Large negative changes affect their society, severely hindering their search for a partner while in the dating scene or the marriage process.
• The family of either party gets in the way.

All of these can feel painful when they occur. Still, it becomes even worse when you know that you have someone at your fingertips (and that they are interested in you as well), but then suddenly, something abruptly occurs that is beyond your control and forces you two to separate. Not being able to experience something like a marriage blossoming fully is one of the greatest tragedies a human being could face. 

I’ve been trying to find a suitable wife for over a decade, but I’ve had no luck for various reasons. My early attempts during middle school and high school were full of massive blunders. I was far from the type of guy anyone would like to be with, and I can’t blame them because I was such a huge oddball. I lacked knowledge of boundaries, had limited emotional intelligence, carried zero basic common sense, and lacked good social communication. 

The good news, however, was that once I had left New Jersey and moved to Nebraska to become a Christian and tackle adult life, I began to drastically change my character, intelligence, and wisdom over time. To give you some perspective, if you compared myself from January 2019 to how I am now, you would have two completely different people. Anyway, a couple of the areas in which I improved my knowledge were learning how women operated and how to seek and maintain various relationships, including romantic ones. There were two things that I was forced to confront when I was researching these subjects: 

1. God works in His own time, not man’s. 
2. Life can not only be brutal but be incredibly unfair as well. 

You see, I know that my being neurodivergent, introverted, having a basic, low-income job, and still being stuck in a “less than optimal” financial state over the past five years can heavily affect how women might see me. Those things alone are enough to discourage many women, and I’m fine with it. It just happens because everyone has different standards and tastes. But what about me having a good character, good health, conservative values, being a genuine Christian, and promising to stay committed to my wife no matter what life or Satan might throw at us? Surely, that should pique the interest of some women out there who live in my local area, right? 

Well, actually, no. I learned some time ago that all those things mean very little to many women nowadays. As a matter of fact, many of those women out there seem to actively avoid men who give strong hints that they’re deeply religious or who openly state that they support and enforce the God-given roles that are assigned to both men and women. It has gotten so bad now to the point where I’m now seeing posts such as this one on Reddit, which talk about the abundant amount of males in multiple churches who are still single and over thirty years old.  

How could this be? Isn’t it best to find someone who not only possesses plenty of good spouse-like qualities but also provides proof to you that he is a strong, religious person who puts God first in everything he does and openly accepts the natural, traditional roles of each sex, which have benefitted entire families and societies?

Indeed, it is, but unless you've been living under a rock, you should know very well by now that the U.S. has been suffering immensely through what could best be described as a “great divide,” a divide that is infecting all aspects of our once great society. You name it, and I almost guarantee you that it has surely done some damage to it by now. Politics, economics, culture, socialization, communities, public education, businesses, entertainment- the list goes on and on. This debacle that we’re in, this absolute monumental cesspool full of bickering, fighting, complaining, slandering, spiritual destruction, and blindly open acceptance of clear lies, has become so out of control that there is now a great “gender divide” upon us. It is infecting the very relationships we have between men and women. Worse yet, this isn’t just happening in this country. This is occurring worldwide, and I believe this contributes greatly to what is commonly referred to as the “Loneliness Epidemic,” which has gotten so severe now that it has even attracted the Federal Government’s attention.

A short time ago, browsing my Reddit feed, I came across a post on the r/GenZ subreddit that caught my attention. It was titled “Gen Z girls are becoming more liberal while boys are becoming conservative". It included a line graph featuring an ever-increasing ideology gap between young males and females in various first-world countries. This graph (as shown below) originated from the Financial Times article “A New Global Gender Divide is Emerging.” 

As you can see, this gap isn’t something to take lightly. It’s massive. The article's author, John Burn Murdoch, explains this graph by saying, “...after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across liberal and conservative world views, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries. That gap took just six years to open up. Germany also now shows a 30-point gap between increasingly conservative young men and progressive female contemporaries, and in the UK, the gap is 25 points…”

Another section states, “In South Korea, there is now a yawning chasm between young men and women… Notably, in every country, this dramatic split is either exclusive to the younger generation or far more pronounced there than among men and women in their thirties and upwards. The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices… Korea is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and the birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world. Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion, the gender divergence in attitudes has become self-sustaining…”

Murdoch then concludes with this statement: “...It would be easy to say this is all a phase that will pass, but the ideology gaps are only growing, and data shows that people’s formative political experiences are hard to shake off…this shift could leave ripples for generations to come, impacting far more than vote counts.”

As you can see, conservative and liberal ideologies have specific characteristics and goals that naturally appeal to each sex for vastly different reasons. Generally, one side favors men more in maintaining their “masculinity” and becoming strong, religious, hardworking, feared, wise, and intelligent protectors who must make their presence known and respected by their wives and everyone else in the household. The other side, however, is the complete opposite, for women are encouraged to separate themselves from men to stop being “breeding machines” or “slaves” to them, become completely independent to stop relying on them for income and security, to believe that they are “just as good and equal” as men and that they can do whatever they want with their own bodies, especially with their unborn children. Oh, and let’s not forget that these “feminists,” as they are widely referred to, also tend to be heavily against religion, especially Christianity, due to verses such as Ephesians 5:22-33. 

Do you see how this could heavily impact not just the dating scene but marriages as well? It’s no wonder why marriage rates are so low right now because men and women are struggling to find people who think just like them! This has to be one of the main contributors to men and women struggling to find a good mate, if not the main one! Each sex can’t see eye to eye, set aside their differences, find common ground, or find people who agree with their own personal beliefs. It is unfeasible to follow a belief system that allows everyone to be equal on the playing field because everyone is inherently different. If someone wants to be in a great relationship with another person, that person has to give up something (usually their independence and their level of say) to make things function. You cannot have two leaders or two helpers in one relationship. You must have one leader type (the male) and one helper type (the female) (Ephesians 5:23; Genesis 2:18). However, many women struggle to accept this fact because it is the man who (technically) benefits the most in this relationship. One sister in Christ told me at the end of one Bible study that women struggle more than men because they know that they have to give up the previous two things that I mentioned before and become submissive towards their husbands. Despite knowing this, however, plenty of women out there still proceed to marry their husbands and accept the limitations that they’ve been put in because their love for their husbands is greater than their love for themselves. Genesis 3:16 (NASB95) states: 

“To the woman, He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall deliver children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

It is theorized that God proceeded to tweak the programming of females to have a strong natural desire to be with a man and bear with him despite knowing all the emotional and physical pain that the bad actions of a husband or giving birth could give to them. If this is indeed the case (and I highly suspect that it is), then it would explain even more why liberalism hates the Scriptures so much and why its supporters think it’s a good idea to either completely reject it, interpret it in another way, or completely alter the teachings of it (which is why you see female pastors and preachers nowadays). Meanwhile, conservatism is the complete opposite of this, for the very idea of the ideology is to “conserve” traditions and laws that have been proven to benefit both the individual and the society in which they live. This is why you can’t have a conservative man marry a liberal woman or vice versa. They will eventually get to each other’s throats and will eventually divorce, or worse. 

With all that being said, what are our options now as men? Do we continue trying to find that right fish somewhere in the sea, or do we give up, blame ourselves, blame others, or worse, blame God for all our efforts ending in futility? Will we find that special wife or not? 

I can only speak from my knowledge of the Scriptures and personal experience, but I strongly believe men (as well as women) will benefit from what I’m about to tell you. 

You see, after having no luck so far with trying out dating apps and visiting other churches of Christ, I decided to try my hand at long-distance communication instead. There was a young conservative sister in Christ whom I came into contact with one day through email. She currently resides in a foreign country (yes, that kind of long-distance communication). I wasn’t the one who approached her, though, but rather, she was the one who wanted to talk to me. Much like me, she was extremely high-functioning on the autistic spectrum, but while I was diagnosed at around three years old, she, on the other hand, was recently diagnosed. Fortunately, she found out about Jeffrey Hamilton’s site and contacted him to see if he knew anyone who could help her. Jeffrey, of course, knew about me, for we have known each other for over six years, and he decided to direct her to me, and the two of us proceeded to converse with each other for about two and a half months, and we had gotten along real well!  

Over that time, I began to learn a lot about her and vice versa, which led me to be convinced that she could very well be the right one – that I had finally found my future wife. What was even better was that she also had given some heavy signs that she was into me, too. She wanted to move to the U.S. and meet with me, and she even expressed worry about me when I hadn’t replied to her emails as quickly as usual, and that was because I was busy, and our emails take a long time to write.  

However, life had different plans than we would’ve liked to have hoped. As a matter of fact, it threw a curveball at us and ruined everything. The sister was already open to me visiting her home country someday, but when I went and told her that I had a good chance of traveling there in the summer after reviewing my finances, my vacation hours, and the traveling expenses, she went to speak to her parents to make sure they were okay with it. She had told me earlier that she was still living under their roof due to her job not paying her much and that inflation was rampant from where she lived. By her parents’ love and hospitality and their knowledge of her diagnosis, she was still allowed to live under their roof, but at the same time, she still had to abide by their rules. 

So, when she went to talk to them about me potentially visiting, they expressed heavy opposition against the idea. So much so that they had formed great distrust over me because the sister in Christ had a biological sister who had bad experiences with long-distance boyfriends in the past, which likely caused her to have depression and go to the hospital not too long ago. 

The sister in Christ tried to argue my case, but her parents didn’t budge despite her best efforts. They didn’t want to repeat what occurred with their other daughter or worse. As a bitter result, they forced her to cut contact with me for the foreseeable future and went to monitor her internet time. Two other things I must add are that her parents were Catholics, so they weren’t part of the church. While they still permitted my friend to attend services at a nearby church of Christ, they hoped to have a native man marry her, for they don’t speak English, unlike their daughter. The other thing to mention is that in the culture of my friend’s country, families are extremely tight-knit and heavily follow traditions, such as a man going to his girlfriend’s father to ask for permission to marry her. Therefore, it would be difficult for me to make a good impression on them if I didn’t know their society's language or the important customs. 

However, she was forced to agree with it by the end. When she told me the news, she sounded very angry and distraught. Then she wished me farewell and hoped I could find a wife in my own country someday. So now, I’m back at square one again and have two options. 

I could either 

• Mope, groan, be angry at the situation, blame God for not giving me a girlfriend despite all the prayers and efforts that I’ve made to this point, and risk my salvation. Or,
• Just suck it up, accept the fact that life is just that unfair, and move on. By the end of the day, people have free will and are responsible for making their own decisions, no matter what kind of situation they are in or what they know. Often, they unintentionally make things worse for themselves and those around them, even if they had noble intentions at the start.

So, who knows? It could very well be that God may have known from the start that my interaction with that woman thousands of miles away would end that way, but He had other plans for my meeting her. It may be for me to help her understand herself better. For now, I believe it’s in my best interest to thank God for letting me meet someone like her, as well as to remain faithful, to continue putting in the effort, and to keep praying for a wife. My interaction with this wonderful young sister in Christ is probably a taste of what I’m about to encounter in the near future. 

Hope and prayer are powerful things. Yes, the dating scene is absolutely abysmal right now, along with society as a whole rapidly decaying around us, but these are of no issue to God. He knows everything about me and you, what we need, and how this world works. The Lord will go out of His way to tweak certain things here and there to help us meet our future soulmate. He is the one who is in control and knows when the time is right to answer our prayers. But, what we must do on our ends is not to give up, keep putting in the effort in searching, and keep asking for His help. As Matthew 7:7-11 puts it: 

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”

After all, God knows how important women are to men and vice versa. Proverbs 18:22 (NASB95) says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.” The CEV Bible states the same verse as: "A man's greatest treasure is his wife — she is a gift from the Lord.”

I will continue to travel to the neighboring churches of Christ to meet the love of my life someday. As for that foreign sister, I hope she finds her man someday. 

I love you, and God loves you.