Twenty Something / Christina Capecchi

He’s just so into you

(Editor’s Note: With this issue, we begin a new monthly column, “Twenty Something,” by Christina Capecchi, a journalism graduate student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and a Catholic Press Association award-winning writer.)

The little pink book called He’s Just Not That Into You hit hopeful, female singles hard, delivering the truth about men unflinchingly.

For my friend Staci, the truth set her tears free. Tauna, meanwhile, could hardly stand to read it: The authors described one red-flag behavior after another that her kinda sorta boyfriend had exhibited.

The unavoidable verdict? He was just not that into her.

We women have a history of being forgiving to a fault with the men we date. We’ll justify their lapses and delays with the generosity of Mother Teresa. “Maybe he’s out of town.” “Maybe he lost my number.” “Maybe he mistyped my e-mail address.”

And our well-intentioned girlfriends fuel the delusion: He’s busy, he’s shy, he’s intimidated. We brainstorm a slew of euphemisms to mask the painful reality: He’s uninterested.

I once dated a guy who lost interest long before he bothered to tell me. As his contact grew more and more sparse, my excuses for him grew more and more creative. I was pretending to date him months after he had decided he was done.

My friends consoled me with the standard lines. “His loss.” “Don’t take it personally.” But I still felt like the loser. And how could I not take it personally? It was personal!

That’s when another paperback landed in my hands, delivering a truth that was much easier to swallow. In The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge’s words spoke right to me:

“In all of our hearts lies a longing for a sacred romance. It will not go away in spite of our efforts over the years to anesthetize or ignore its song, or attach it to a single person or endeavor.”

God pursues us with greater ardor and more persistence than any human could, the authors point out, and receiving his love brings us complete fulfillment—the kind that doesn’t snap with breakups and heartbreaks.

Here’s the best part: God doesn’t pursue you because you’re skinny or sculpted or skilled, not because you can read fast or throw far or jump high—just because you’re you. That’s reassuring to any young adult who has been trained to identify achievements and list them on resumes.

“Could it be that we, all of us, the homecoming queens and quarterbacks and the passed over and the picked on, really possess hidden greatness?” Curtis and Eldredge ask. “In other words, we are the ones to be called Fought Over, Captured and Rescued, Pursued.”

Admit it, girls: Isn’t that how you’ve always wanted to feel?

And guys, God is relentlessly pursuing you the way you dream the Harvard president or the Google CEO would.

Rejection hurts, but as young adults it comes with the territory. We’re trying to land a place on a team of choice, a date with a hottie of choice, a spot at a college of choice, a job at a company of choice. We’re setting ourselves up for some degree of rejection.

That’s why it’s important to remember God’s unwavering acceptance of you and his relentless pursuit of your heart. He’s the founder and director of the universe, yet he deems you worthy of his full-time attention.

He’s just so into you. †