I hate quickies.

Lately, my girlfriends and I have been talking a lot about the essence of time when it comes to building relationships. I mean c'mon, I won't deny the fact that I enjoy (almost) all things instant. Food delivery. Makeup. Online shopping. Telegram. No-bake-brownies back when I was addicted to sugar. You catch my drift. It wasn’t long enough until my fixation for all things quick and easy caught on with my desire for intimacy. When I discovered instant intimacy, man, like a kid having her first taste of chocolate, I knew I was #hookt.

I used to be so anxious of time. I always felt that I had to pull out all the magic tricks I could to impress the person I like. I was that kind of girl. I used to rush “friendships”. I wanted to seal the deal and make sure the guy I like has me on his messenger favorites in a few weeks’ time. I wanted to lock him in my network and make sure that people knew we were running in the same circle. It was exhausting, but I had to keep up or his attention towards me might break; I was afraid he’d turn his head, look towards the other direction, and walk away. I had to continuously draw the best cards from my hand, sometimes even dangle my body over him so his amusement is sustained and his gaze is constant. I would put my best foot forward to make him like me—stat.

As if these were enough to make the foundation of friendship solid. Of course these habits and mindsets were bound to fail. Duh.

Eventually I run out of tricks, and as much as I make myself believe he wants to stay, I fail and I stumble and my house of cards come tumbling down.

Girls often ask the classic, time-constrained question, “How many months should I date him before I say yes/give him a kiss/be the first to text/have sex with him?” We all know the clock plays an all too important role in relationships, without a doubt. Yet we insist in winding its hands and twisting them to our pleasure. With the instant (and counterfeit) intimacy we can indulge in with just one swipe of a finger, where do we draw the line? How do we handle this elusive resource and limiting and controlling factor? They say everything beautiful and worth it takes time. But what if we’ve reduced the definition of worthiness and beauty to shallow (and more often than not fake) friendships and bogus romance?

P A R A D I G M      S H I F T .
IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP, GROW UP, AND WOMAN UP.

We need to redefine our terms. We need to start clawing our way to the marvelous and wonderful depths of authentic, genuine, won’t-back-out-after-an-argument, life-talks-till-3-am, and I-don’t-care-if-this-gets-awkward-I-won’t-enable-you relationships, because oftentimes, we are far too easily pleased, especially in romance; even though we haven't scratched the surfaced yet.

Truth is, we have contained romance in chat boxes and text messages with a string of well-combined emojis but it’s the kind that won’t like you anymore upon the discovery that your morning face isn’t so cute and you take too much time ordering your meals.

We have reduced friendships into a bunch of young adults who look good on Instagram photos, doing crazy-fun stuff in cool 10-seconder Snapchat stories, but it’s the kind that won’t attend to you when you’re sick with a bad case of flu or won’t comfort you when you’re having deep, internal woes.

We have cheapened intimacy into guys giving us free cocktails, double-tapped hearts, and a few exchanges of physique-based compliments and “WYD? Wanna come over?” 2am texts, but it’s the kind that gets your body naked but refuses to undress your soul.

I’m disgusted. I’m disgusted at the shallowness of it all because it’s so far from how relationships are supposed to unravel; how relationships are supposed to function healthily. Now, I’m not discounting the fact that some people just truthfully and honestly have that spark of a connection, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the pretense, the delusion, the fooling of the self that one chooses when it comes to cultivating relationships, or the lack, thereof.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYTHING. E V E R Y T H I N G — a time for friendship and a time for romance, a time to kiss and a time to undress, a time for new beginnings and a time for sweet endings.

We have to realize that time is our friend—and a wise one at that. King Solomon says in Solomon 8:4 (coincidentally and interestingly the same author of Ecclesiastes) that we are not to awaken love until it so desires. Everything good, beautiful, and worthy takes time. Especially relationships. We have to acknowledge the progression of things. We walk before we run. We mumble before we speak. We doodle before we write. We simply cannot fully know the truest colors of a person in a short period of time, just as we also cannot share all of who we are in a minuscule time frame. The first few moments are always full of rainbows and butterflies. We must wait till the rain pours in.

Real Love is transparency.  Real Love accepts and chisels at the same time.

We have to let time do its job. When we dive in too fast, too soon, we risk breaking our necks as we spiral down the fall. We need to assess the gamble; check if it’s worth jumping into, because more often than not, the quick and easy ones with only very little required of us have higher chances of making us broke.

I’m done rushing relationships. That’s child’s play—a little girl begging for ice cream for dinner, eager to get a taste of the instant gratification that isn’t good for her in the long haul. Nope, I’ve had enough. I’m passing up on the quickies. No longer will I wind the hands of the clock only to find myself confused and befuddled of the true, actual time.

If I believe in the Author and Creator of time, if I truly acknowledge that my past, present, and future belongs to Him, if everything beautiful and worthy takes some seasons to happen, then wait I shall.



Time is our friend, beshie,
—D