It’s been a minute since I’ve had a chance to sit and write, but something has been nagging me for weeks, and of course, I have to speak on it. I have my good friend Charlie to thank for this one.

The last time I spoke to Charlie we discussed relationships and marriage. The conversation wasn’t too extensive or overly personal, but he called something out that I noticed a while back: Nothing is sacred anymore.

Think about it. Back in the day, a man and woman would court or date. They would take their time to get to know each other. The man wooed. The woman was coy. They generated an honest, genuine interest in each other before they took their relationship to another level. If all was well, they would eventually marry and share an even deeper level of intimacy with each other for as long as their lives would allow them.

Nowadays, however, any random guy can waltz into Wal-Mart and catch a chick twerking over the baked goods aisle while her homegirl records it on her cell phone for Youtube and WorldStar. Instant love.

Such romance.

Whatever happened to not giving it all away for free? What happened to leaving something to the imagination? What happened to making a man work for your attention? What happened to expecting your woman to have some tact? What happened to courtship? What happened to the sanctity of marriage?

I know that’s a lot of “whats,” but dammit I have a lot of questions.

It really pains me to know that in today’s society, we are so quick to fall “in love” with someone without really taking the time to get to know them. It’s almost nothing for two people to hook up today and say they’re in a relationship tomorrow. For love, we are fast to give all of ourselves without even thinking about saving something for that someone special. That’s probably because everyone we meet we perceive as a potential someone special.

And I don’t necessarily buy that whole love-at-first-sight excuse people sometimes try to use to validate their eagerness to fall head over heels in lust with a stranger. I mean, Romeo and Juliet seems like a really romantic, love-struck story on the surface, but underneath it all it was just a story about two horny teenagers who rushed into marriage so they can bone each other. That relationship lasted three days, and we all know how it ended.

Maybe a more modern exampled would be best to explain my point. My last date, if you want to call him that, insisted on taking me to his home instead of my own after the evening was over. By this time, I had very little information about this guy, and he clearly didn’t care to get to know me (he refused get my name right. Last time I checked “Chrystal” wasn’t short for “Kristen”). It wasn’t until I took a peek at the photos and trinkets lined up on his mantel that I even learned his full name, which was written across an old award. Also, that he had six kids.

Yeah, that type of information is pretty important. Probably should have been mentioned earlier in the evening.

Despite our lack of knowledge about each other, my date or whatever he was assumed I was going to let him bed me. He was so casual about the whole thing; it didn’t bother him at all that he was willing to sleep with a stranger on the first date, but still had the nerve to want a relationship in the morning.

That’s backwards to me.

Needless to say, I promptly took my ass home and left him alone with his hand and some lotion. That didn’t stop him from trying to get in my pants, though. But with all the energy he put out trying to have sex, not once did he display even a tenth of that energy trying to get to know me.

Charles made a valid point during our conversation. People are so used to giving up everything and pouring every piece of themselves into each relationship they enter into, that by the time they end up married there’s nothing left to give. There’s no part of them reserved only for their spouse because they already gave it up to some other Tom, Dick, Harry, and Jane.

Looking at how backwards my last date was, I can see how this is possible.

I would love to go back to the old days of courtship when a man took the time to get to know me, and I took the time to get to know him. I want to reserve a piece of myself only for my husband. I want to have a marriage that means something because I still have something to give. It’s possible, right?

You can’t afford to keep breaking off pieces of yourselves give to temporary people. Not everyone is worth it.

You’re too sacred.