Religion vs. Relationship: The Time I Dated Someone Who Didn’t Share My Faith

I had a thing for Usher back in the day. Any brother with his nose curvature or flat rounded face would get a second glance. Mark could’ve been his twin. Sans the purple silk shirts and skully caps, he stood at an arresting 6’5—beautiful and godly to all who dared to look.

We met the usual way, through a friend of a friend, and found ourselves chitchatting often and eventually going on dates. I found myself holding hands with a newcomer, listening to his every word and getting to know his depth.


Politics.

Ex-Loves.

Cartoons.

His momma.

My momma.

Religion.

I was a Christian and he was Jehovah’s Witness; his face slightly cringed at the news, but I dismissed it when he kissed my cheek and said he couldn’t wait to see me again.

Dismissing gets you nowhere.

We met for the third time at Bryant Park for an evening stroll. It was the first time my lips found his own and a whirlwind grew inside of me. You know the questions that float through your mind when you’re tiptoeing close enough for his heart but aiming for his mouth: Is this it? Is this the one? Are you him?

We said nothing after the kiss. The silence was far from awkward, but too sultry to be broken. The pavement against our footsteps collided with the city’s hum and we found ourselves in front of the Virgin Megastore that once was.

“I really want Erykah Badu’s album.” He smiled in my direction.

I dug his affinity for music.

We clasped hands once more and headed for the long escalators. I turned to sneak a look at Mark as his brown beautiful eyes flew open with familiarity of a view in front of him. My palm was suddenly flung from his, he stepped two mechanicals stairs back, and his eyes wandered rampantly.

The hell?

Before I could call him on it, a security guard spoke. “Mark! What’s going on Brother Mark?” The two flew into an embrace once he’d reached the top of his ascent, as I stood witness from a nearby “New Releases.”

“I’m good Brother Anderson. Just checking out some tunes.”

The security guard quizzed him, “Alone? Isn’t that young lady with you?”

Mark stuttered, “Yeah….she’s a girl I go to school with. We…um….we’re working on this music project.”

The security guard nodded in naiveté, “Oh alright. Have fun now, but not too much fun.”

They embraced once more and suddenly Mark was back at my side. He insisted that we leave and he’d explain everything later.

When we were a block away, he spoke hurriedly on a blurred corner.

“Um see that security guard we just saw? He’s a brother in my church. Technically I’m not allowed to date women outside of the church. It has to be arranged and we have to start as friends—inside of the religious family. We’re not even allowed to date unless we’re set to be married.”

It was my turn to quiz, I asked in my best hypothetical-I’m-not-crazy voice, “So let’s say we got so deep into this that we wanted to get married, you’re saying you wouldn’t or couldn’t do it?”

He hesitated, “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that we should figure that out when we get to that level.”

And of course I stayed, like the young fool I was. Back then levels meant something. I was too immature to realize that every notch had its glory and consequence. If I was going to lay down with someone—I better be damn sure I could see him as a father. Accidents happen. If I was going to date someone—he better be worthy enough to bring home. Parents ask questions. Every level has a consequence.


He called on a Tuesday, just as I was beginning to wrap my eardrums around the soothing tempo of his tone. I’d become accustomed to three months of early morning and late night phone calls, dancing banter between space and time. We’d just spent our last date watching a Broadway play and twiddling our fingers together before the curtain rose.

He spoke, “A few of the sisters at my church were at the play we caught. They told the church about my affair and now I have to pay for it.”

I knew nothing about his religion, only the little he’d told me. All I knew was the relentless women grasping pamphlets, adorned with Watchtower, and the 7am knocks on my front door.

“What do you mean you have to pay for it?” I asked.

He explained, “When you’ve done something wrong, in my church, you’ve got to confess to it and then you’re on probation until they feel you’ve earned your right to join the community again. That means I have to go to weekly classes and hang around my congregation, so that they could know that I’m true.”

I didn’t understand. We hadn’t done anything wrong, we hadn’t gone all the way; shoot our kisses rarely involved tongue.

I hissed my teeth, “So what does that mean for us?”

“Well when I’m off probation, we could be friends. I can’t really risk getting caught again. I value my faith. I need to keep peace with my church.”

My morale threw a temper tantrum inside of me. I was proud of him for standing by his beliefs but angered that he’d known from the start that I was just a mere experience and nothing more.

I hung up and moved on with my life.

I heard from him once more in a text laced with apology, years later, “I miss you. I think about you often. I really enjoyed the time we spent together. How have you been?”

But I know rapture—it’s something you don’t fiddle with in love or religion. By then I knew better than to drown by the hands of what-ifs.

I’ve been on a few dates since then and even found myself a brother that might answer all those tiptoeing questions. I’ve learned that love has no hesitation and is a sacrificing jester. Love is a person who’ll drag you along or amend to keep you.

Too often I walk into the midst of a story too similar. A Baptist brown boy who loves a Middle Eastern Muslim girl, infatuated by the shade they both render but torn by the God they abide by. An Asian girl sent home for laying in the arms of a man whose ancestors had them in tenement camps—an angry and old-fashioned mother will say. The Kenyan scholar who is afraid to bring his Brooklyn native girlfriend back to his motherland.

Where there is love, there is no stumble; only assurance.

Have you asked all the right questions?

Are you here to stay?

Are you strong enough to defy boundaries?

Are we a unified front or a burning bush?

Am I nothing, but smoldering leaf and blazing brush?

Are we just fire and flame?

Or do we solidify like the earth underneath our feet?

Ask the right questions. You are no out-of-the-box experiment and for-the-moment.

Source: Madame Noire