Amateur Night

Back in college my best friend taught me how to play football games. Before I was taught how to play Madden Football, I was one of the worst. My friends use to say, “If you get beat by Dave you really stink.” I was an amateur, and did not know how to play the game.

One night I was playing another friend that did not need my best friend’s help. He lost by two touchdowns that night, and blamed his loss on the game favoring me. Later we played again, and after I beat him by three touchdowns this time, he decided to give up playing the game for awhile. He never asked for help on how to beat me, but my best friend could still beat me.

Pretty soon we were starting seasons and franchises on the game. We started out having the computer on the Amateur level. We soon found ourselves bumping the computer up to All-Madden, the highest level, and we still beat the computer. Somehow I could never beat my best friend.

On the amateur level we would beat the computer by 10 or 15 touchdowns, what’s the challenge in that. However on all-Madden, from time to time we would only win by a field goal or a safety. The game would not be that much fun if I did not have to put up a fight to win. What would be the point of playing if the result was always, Dave wins by 70 points.

When I watch a football game I always hope the game will be close. I get bored even when the Bengal’s smash their opponents. But when the Bengal’s beat the team that has an unbeaten record in a close game, I love it. There is a meter to my excitement in a football game; I call it the fall asleep factor. If I fall asleep, which I often do, the game is boring. However if I stay awake the whole time the game was great.

My best friends still have not taught me how to not be an amateur with women. On the friendship level, I feel I am fine. Every job that I have ever had all the girls laugh and hang out around me. The guys come around me for a joke or to chill out. However when it comes to the relationship that go beyond friendship, I am about the shyest and most amateur guy you can find.

I was working at a restaurant in Ohio, and a co-worker I knew from church growing up wanted to hook me up with one of her friends. Her friend called me the next day at 8:00 PM. I did not hang up the phone until 6:00 AM. Ten hours on the phone with a girl, and yes we talked the entire time. She was laughing and telling me stories, and I was being witty and funny.

Word leaked, by way of my best friend, about my phone call at work. The next time I worked in the kitchen, the guys were calling me a pimp and the girls were giggling and asking 20 questions about the girl I talked to. Now the pressure was on to go to dinner with her. Every shift everyone was asking when I was taking her out, and where we might go.

A couple days later I got up the courage to ask her out to dinner. Jeanie, a lady at work that treated me like her son, was helping me prepare for my date. Jeanie smelled the cologne, I had just bought, to make sure it was okay. She helped me pick out the restaurant, and ice skating downtown afterward. I was ready, but still nervous.

When I stepped up to her parents’ door I felt like, I can handle this, but what would I know. She had a great time, even though we did not go ice skating, it was too cold to take a girl out to do that. We talked at her parents’ house for awhile after dinner, and I went home. Another week went by of talking on the phone, but within two weeks we no longer talked to each other. We were both heading two different ways in life.

The last time I had taken a girl out to dinner was for high school dances, and those don’t really count, you’re pressured to do those. I was pressured to take that girl out too. Through out my life I have been pressured into relationships with girls that go beyond the friendship level. In a way I have entered this anti-pushing state. They push I don’t go, but still I am so shy in that area it could take a long time for me to build up the courage to ask a girl even out to dinner.

There has been kind of a running joke with me family, that hell will freeze over before Dave get married, thanks Grandpa, love ya though. One serving job I have had in N.C., some of the servers thought I was gay when they learned that it had been over a decade since I had kissed a girl. Also that I have only kissed one girl, a girl I knew since I was in elementary school at church.

I will admit it, when it comes to girls, I am a amateur. Madden football seemed so hard, before my friend taught me how to play. Entering a relationship with a girl that is anything other then a friendship, scares the daylights out of me. As my sister-in-law- April says, “You’re just shy; we’ll get you over that.” I have known April for at least six years, and nothing has changed about my shyness.

But how many of us feel the same way about God. After all God is so big, amazing, after all He is the best there is. There is nothing better then God. He calls himself the ALPHA and the OMEGA, Revelation 1:8. The Psalms expound on how great and amazing God is. A relationship with someone like that can be intimidating.

Just like with Madden Football, it is easier to learn how to have a relationship with God when you have someone show you how. Even though I grew up in the church, and attend every Sunday, lead bible studies, and even talk with many people about God, I still always try to have a mentor.

My mentor has always been someone farther ahead in life then I am. My mentor helps me keep my relationship with God in focus. He answers questions that I might have about life or what I have been reading in the bible.

At first Madden football seemed impossible, but I had a friend teach me the game. The idea of having a relationship with God was intimidating, but I had help to get me through my timidness. Now only if I could get over my timidness of a close relationship with a girl, because no amount of help has worked there.