"...will take your life and use it for her gain.
Don't trust her or you'll end up with the fools who are in chains."
Or so go the words of a fun, old song that I heard often
growing up, Run Samson Run. Similar words were also
spoken by people giving me advice about relationships.
If I didn't take their advice, not just in choosing a significant
partner, but even in choosing any companions, I was
warned about my own naiveté and foolishness: I trusted
people too much and too easily, I was told.
Unfortunately, accusations of this kind did little to guide
me away from friendships with such people, for often I
believed them to be in reality the kind, good-hearted
people that I perceived them to be. As a result, my level
of confidence in the people who advised me against
such relationships began to fade. If they thought I was
so foolish that I couldn't tell an evil person from a good
one and if the people that they thought were evil were
actually decent folk, then how right could they be?
What I have learned over the past couple of years, however,
has shed a little light on the subject, possibly garnering
me a fraction of understanding.
My primary conclusion is this: in most (if not all) of
my personal cases, non-Christian associates of the
opposite sex were not attempting, overtly or covertly,
to corrupt, hurt, or use me. It is my believe that they were
pursuing happiness in whatever way they thought best.
The reality is this, however: they didn't have to try. When
one has the nature to go against God, the result may
sometimes be the corruption of others, but most often, I've
found that it results in hurting those around them, and
themselves. Their identity is anti-thetical to mine: they
cannot help but to do me harm in one way or another, and
perhaps never fully understand how because it is who
they have chosen to be.
Through all this, I re-learned an important lesson: don't try
to judge another person's motives. In most cases, it's just
not possible and attempts to do so will only confuse the real
issue. That is the second lesson I learned: motives matter
most to their owner — in the end, it's the result of those
motivations in behavior and lifestyle that affect others.