I met my perfect man recently. It was love at first sight. I was instantly mesmerised by him.
He was just standing there, smiling directly at me and he was just my physical type. As I slowly got to know him, I admiringly watched him socialise, surf, swim, skateboard – all completely effortlessly. In whatever he did, in whatever he wore, he was completely at ease with himself – there was always that same warm, welcoming, confident smile.
We met, of course, online. On iStock: I was looking for an image for a sermon PowerPoint, and we unexpectedly bumped into each other. I lingered in his presence, drinking him in, from multiple different angles and in numerous different contexts. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was the man of my dreams.
By this stage I had clearly passed from a natural appreciation of his physical beauty to a sinful consumption of him. What follows could pick apart when things went wrong (I started innocently looking for a sermon illustration!) but I want to ponder a slightly different question: Why him? Why do we have types that especially attract us? Why did this young man exercise such a hold on me?
I think it can be helpful to ask these questions, to probe what we find especially desirable in another, because of what it tells us about ourselves and how we can better appreciate ourselves.
I’ve always desired what I feel I’ve never had.
I have been falling for the same sort of man for years. They are always everything I was not, am not, and never will be: they’re the sporty, attractive, physically self-confident ones that always got to pick the sports teams and always (very wisely) failed to pick me. Ever since, I’ve instinctively been choosing them.
All of which begins to help me see what potentially helped forge my sexual desires: feelings around my own physical inadequacies and clumsiness, jealousy of others’ physical beauty and grace. I am drawn to what I feel I lacked. I’ve always desired what I feel I’ve never had. I want to be like those who rejected me: I want them to enthusiastically embrace me.
Why is it helpful to know this? Surely there’s next to nothing I can do about it now?! I’m never going to look or be like them. They’re never going to pick me for their teams!
Cue the obvious need for some therapy, according to some: I’ve found the wound that needs healing so that I can become straight. I need to head off to the nearest sports ground, get picked for some teams, associate with those I feel rejected me, and everything will be alright. That’s the sort of treatment that’s been urged on people like me – even though I’d still be in the same body with eyes that still can’t see where a ball is (the main reason for my lack of sporting prowess).
But that’s not why I’m pursuing this line of thought. Instead, I’m doing this because I think it helps me to recognise and slowly repent of the root sin that drives my same-sex sexual attractions. Which is not, primarily, the sexual desire to consume a beautiful young man, but, potentially, an ungrateful jealousy for certain physical and personal attributes that God has never given me. My main problem might not be lust, but covetousness: I want the good-looking, athletic body I never had.
It also helps me to see that it might be helpful to grow in my appreciation of the body I do have: not in sorrowful comparison with others, but in grateful appreciation of the unique gift to me that it is – and not just in what it looks like or can do, but in all that it contains. God, in his grace, chose not to give me the certain type of torso that I desire, but he has given me an ability to think and communicate in ways that others are jealous of. I need to be more grateful for the gifts I have been granted.
I think it also helps me recognise why a same-sex sexual relationship with the man of my dreams would not satisfy me. Because I would still be me, and he would still be him. Me lying naked next to him would just painfully highlight (once again) my felt inadequacies, not complete me or satisfy me. And let’s be honest: my guess is that his type still wouldn’t choose me, even as I persistently choose him. Back in the day I was the scrawny, ginger-haired boy that couldn’t catch a ball; now I’m a pot-bellied, greying, middle-aged man who still can’t catch a ball, he’s even less likely to pick me! This is a story of unrequited love that is not going to end well.
So, what do I do when I next meet my perfect man? Someone who is all I’ve always wanted to be? How do I respond when they are suddenly standing there, smiling directly at me and I can, briefly, imagine all my dreams coming true?
I need to remember and reflect on the reality that the source of all true and lasting beauty has chosen me and will, one day complete and satisfy me forever.
Well, I think I need to start thanking God for, in the words of the kids’ chorus, ‘making me, me’ rather than wishing I had someone else’s body. I need to embrace contentment, not covetousness. I need to name and expose the lie that my life would have been better with that sort of body. I need to remember that images online are not always accurate portrayals of inner reality, and that it’s far too easy for me to project total perfection from someone’s outside in. My desires are, to a large extent, a projection of my jealousies and they would not be satisfied but only grow in a relationship with him. I actually have plenty to be grateful for in who I am, and the relationships God has already put me in. A move from resentment to rejoicing would be a good journey for me to begin to make more often.
But, most of all, I need to remember and reflect on the reality that the source of all true and lasting beauty has chosen me and will, one day complete and satisfy me forever. The most beautiful and perfect man of all has called me by name to join his team. I have been uniquely created, inside and out, by him, to play a position that I am perfectly equipped for, alongside him. His warm, welcoming, confident smile will always be directed at me, and he regards me as beautiful and perfect too. The only perfect man I’ve truly met is him.