When I was a year or two out of college, I went on a retreat that profoundly impacted my understanding of men.  The theme of the retreat was "Relationships," which as you can imagine was of great interest to a group of single young adults.

For the very first session, the retreat speaker divided the room in half and placed the men on one side, women on the other side.

"I'm going to ask you to choose between two bad things,"  he said. "If you had to choose, would you rather feel alone and unloved in the world OR would you rather feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone?"

I remember thinking, What kind of choice is that?  Who would ever choose to feel unloved?

The speaker then turned to the men's side of the room.  "Okay, men.  Who here would rather feel alone and unloved?"

A sea of hands went up, and a giant gasp rippled across the women's side of the room.

He asked which men would rather feel disrespected, and we women watched in bemusement as only a few men lifted their hands.

Then it was our turn to answer and the men's turn to be shocked when most of the women indicated that they'd rather feel inadequate and disrespected than unloved.

More to come later

In Him

Cysco