I can absolutely relate. I have dated Catholic woman after Catholic woman and many head for the hills as soon as they find out that I am “one of those Catholics”! Not eating meat on Fridays, preferring traditional mass formats, and disapproving of movies/books that contain fowl language or immoral content are all pretty big deal-breakers with most Catholic ladies whom I have dated. Let’s not even mention my desire to meet somebody who doesn’t just believe in the bare minimum with regards to chastity, but who actually wants to help me push the bar in being pure before marriage (is it even possible to find someone who doesn’t believe in kissing before marriage anymore)? From a purely statistical point of view, my odds of finding somebody sound pretty bleak!
Your complaints do give me hope though: SOME good Catholic men are out there, looking.I suggest you may need to step out of your comfort zone. You will also need to seize opportunity whenever you see it (although without acting too rashly, i.e. jumping head first like a lemming; as long as you break something that will grow back together with minimal professional assistance, you’ll be fine).
It’s probably not easy for anybody. And if it were easy for somebody, I’d worry for him. I believe if you’re taken with a girl, if she’s made a strong impression on you, you’re supposed to be impressed and that’s supposed to make you something else than casual or fully confident.
Perhaps cast your network somewhere else than you have so far.
You do need to remember that, as long as marriage is your calling, you will need to get a house, have a job, start a family, take care of it all, be dependable and solid, responsible and mature. You’re probably better off investing in that than looking for a girl to spend time with. Which is not to say that should you really fall in love with someone, or something equivalent (whatever it is to you), then you should ignore and move on. Absolutely not. But you can’t really not make the investments of time, effort and attention in what you need to achieve in terms of becoming able to start and keep and feed a family.
Hey brother Ive had a similair expierence to you… Ive met some interesting women but I as soon as I reveal my catholicism it goes south. I evangelized a bit and felt great about it, and also a few times felt that i was going astray. I had to stop and decide that this is deifnatly not what god wants, for me to go astray. I like you would be perfectly happy being single the rest of my life. Unlike you im not sure if i am called to marriage, i mean i think i do, i have alot to offer to a women and enjoy their prescence… but i need to pray more. I am going to try to do less myself in terms of dating, and pray more, and let god bring someone into my life and i will recognize that when it happens
Do get a job right as you leave the walls of the academia. Make sure you’re prepared adequately with whatever you can do during the last year to enhance your credentials for when you leave (publish whatever they agree to print under your name, and type that stuff until you collapse unless you’re massing internships). I’m talking from the experience of having neglected those things and having had to make up for it later. Jobs are hard to find, negotiate and keep these days. Skirt chasing is really not a priority when you are, for example, self-employed and wondering how to pull the health/social insurance premium or the tax prepayment out of your hat, or when you can’t find anybody who will put you on a salary and until then you don’t have access to health care. Life is a warzone, you know.
I guess I should re-phrase part of my original post. It wasn’t an instant deal-breaker when I brought up my traditional Catholic leanings with these ladies, but these values were not shared and there was a certain resistance that almost made me want to hide this aspect of my faith. My thoughts stopped lingering on the prospects of these ladies being people who would push me to be a future Saint and the question started being whether my authentic Catholic faith and these potential relationships could even coexist.
