A Talk not-So-Much About Dating.

Last Thursday night I went to my brother floor for an event titled "Q&A with Amy". As far as I knew, we were going to sit in the lounge, eat chocolate chip pancakes and talk about dating [I mean, we do go to Moody]. But man, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The first few questions were simple, like who's the most influential person in your life, or what's your major and what do you want to do with it. Then they asked about what women on Moody's campus struggle with most. I answered with body image, vaguely, assuming they wouldn't really want to get into it. But they did. They got into it. Deep.

They asked questions about how and why women struggle with their bodies so much. I shared with them some of the few statistics I knew and some of the studies I've heard. Like the one I heard on NPR the other day. They showed a group of women a series of silloettes of women's bodies and asked them to circle the one they thought they were and the one they thought men most desired. On average, they circled three to four sizes bigger for what they thought they were than what they actually were, and seven to eight sizes smaller than what they actually were for what they thought them wanted. So, overall, they believed that men desired bodies ten to twelve sizes smaller than them. How tragic. We talked about media and how women in commercials are perfect. We talked about how women desire to be desired, and how some will do whatever it takes, whether that means they dress inappropriately or throw up their food.

And then they asked how they could help. They asked how they could pray for the women on campus. But what could they do? One of them asked how they, as future dads, could help their little girls grow up differently.

At the end of the night, there were 23 guys in that smelly little lounge. They gave me flowers and told me how blessed they were by it. But as I rode the elevator down, I was pretty convinced I was more blessed than they were. I didn't know they cared. I didn't know they thought like that. I didn't know they wanted to help.

And that changes everything.