Saturday, May 10, 2008

The One Ring


“You are the Ring-bearer, Frodo...to bear a Ring of Power is to be alone”,

I was in church one Sunday morning and I was testing a new hypothesis I had concerning my True Love Waits ring (TLW).

I didn't have it on.

I had noticed that many of the ladies who would talk to me continued to glance down at my hand in the midst of our conversations and it started to bug me a little. The ring, for one, made me feel like I had a name tag on which said: "Hello, My Name is Matt, I'm a Virgin"and while that is not a bad thing in itself, it isn't exactly the first thing I want people thinking when they meet me.

The other thing I noticed with the ring on was that many girls wouldn't talk to me at all. Sometimes, OK a lot of times, this has worked in my favor but it did bring up quite a dilemma when girls that I did wish to speak to quickly turned away because they thought I was married. All the while I thought maybe I forgot to put the deodorant on?

That Sunday I walked into the Barn (the spiffy name for our Sunday church building) and rubbed the naked finger on my hand. The ring did not adorn it this time. I made my way to the seats and started conversations here and there, nothing really out of the ordinary, just good old Christian fellowship! Then I noticed in the midst of the conversations, the eyes began to wonder again. Inside I smirked because there wasn't anything for the eyes to see. Then the young lady who saw my eyes watching hers quipped: "Matt, that's a nice ring you have there, what is it?" I smiled and replied: "Oh, what ring?" I waved my lanky naked hands. "I don't have one on today." She apologized and the subject was changed rather quickly. I smiled. Got yeah!

This is an interesting dilemma for men who decided to stick to commitments made back in high school. Do I wear the ring or not? If I wear the ring, then many girls won't talk to me because no matter what hand it is on they will think I'm married. Or do I not wear the ring and chicken out on the promise I made so many years ago to my spouse and to myself? Do I go the way of Frodo? A ringbearer who is alone? If I don't wear the ring, then I am no longer a ring-bearer and every ring-bearer is supposed to have a flower girl, right?

Funny isn't it? This is such a stupid post but it's something that happened. I did decide what to do with the ring but the problem still continues. What a game this life truly is!

1 comments:

revintraining said...

You have a True Love Waits ring too? I got mine when I was 12, and stopped wearing in when I was in high school. I started wearing it again in college, but I stopped wearing rings on a regular basis about a year ago because they were interfering with my piano playing. I find the reactions to you not wearing your ring hilarious; whenever I stopped wearing my ring, no one noticed at all.

"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." Matthew 7:13-14