Earned, Not Expected

There’s a quote that’s been circulating through my mind like a persistent echo: “The right man will be scared to touch you too early.” At first glance, it might appear rather old-fashioned, something your grandmother would whisper whilst adjusting your neckline before a church service. Yet here’s the profound realisation: after stepping back from the digital dating chaos that constitutes modern romance, I’ve come to see this sentiment holds more wisdom than all the dating apps combined. In many ways, it echoes the biblical principle that love is patient, love is kind, it doesn’t demand its own way in haste.

Not long ago, I reached the point where I deleted every dating app from my phone. Not in a dramatic, wine-fuelled moment of heartbreak (though there may have been a particularly robust Malbec involved), but rather in a moment of startling clarity. I was sitting in a coffee shop, watching a man across from me swipe through faces with the same casual indifference one might reserve for browsing a restaurant menu, occasionally pausing to show his mate a particularly attractive woman with the detached interest typically reserved for discussing the weather.

That’s when it crystallised for me, and perhaps why I see connection differently now: we’ve commodified human interaction. We’ve reduced the beautiful complexity of attraction to a binary decision made in 0.3 seconds based upon carefully curated photographs. Somewhere in this digital marketplace of desire, we’ve completely abandoned the art of genuine courtship.

We’re currently living through what I call the “love versus lust culture,” an era where physical intimacy has been positioned as the fast track to emotional connection, rather than its natural culmination. It’s as though we’ve collectively decided that vulnerability can be measured in inches of exposed skin rather than through shared thoughts, dreams, and authentic compatibility. This stands in stark contrast to the biblical model of courtship, where Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and “they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.” That’s the kind of patient, intentional love that sees beyond the physical to something eternal.

I remember one particular date from those app-mediated days, let’s call him James. Handsome, professionally successful, ticked all the superficial boxes. Within the first hour, his hands were wandering like a tourist exploring unfamiliar territory, and when I politely redirected his attention to our conversation, he looked genuinely confused. “But we matched,” he said, as though that digital thumbs-up constituted some sort of contractual agreement to physical intimacy.

The fundamental problem isn’t James himself. The issue lies within a cultural framework that has taught us to mistake lust for love, convenience for connection, and instant gratification for meaningful relationship building. This conditioning has created a generation that confuses physical chemistry for emotional compatibility, immediate pleasure for long-term satisfaction, and surface attraction for genuine understanding.

Here’s where that quote transforms from seeming antiquated to becoming absolutely revolutionary: “The right man will be scared to touch you too early.” Not scared of you personally, but genuinely concerned about potentially damaging something precious before it has the opportunity to develop naturally. Think about it: when you truly value something significant, you handle it with care. You don’t rush the process. You don’t push boundaries. You certainly don’t risk destroying it for a moment of immediate pleasure.

A man who sees genuine potential, who imagines a future that stretches well beyond the present moment, won’t want to rush what’s unfolding. This protective instinct isn’t rooted in outdated notions of propriety, but rather in a sophisticated understanding of relationship dynamics and emotional investment. It reflects the biblical principle of treating others as temples of the Holy Spirit, with reverence, respect, and recognition of their inherent sacred worth. When someone recognises your worth as a complete person, your intellect, your character, your unique perspective, they become more invested in nurturing that connection rather than risking its reduction to purely physical interaction.

I’ve seen this play out in real life. A friend of mine, Sarah, had been seeing Tom for two months, and I was convinced he wasn’t interested because, shocking revelation, he hadn’t tried to get her into bed. “Maybe he’s just not that into you,” I suggested with all the wisdom of someone still swiping through strangers at 2am. Fast forward three years, and they’re engaged. Tom later admitted he was terrified of moving too quickly because he knew Sarah was special, and he didn’t want to risk reducing their connection to something purely physical.

In our instant-everything society, we’ve forgotten the exquisite tension of anticipation. The stolen glances, the brush of a hand that lingers just long enough to make your heart trip over itself, those moments remind me how irreplaceable anticipation really is. They cannot be replicated in a culture of immediate gratification. There’s something sacred about the gradual build-up of intimacy, the slow revelation of attraction built upon emotional and intellectual foundations.

I think about my parents’ generation, where courtship was a genuine art form requiring patience, creativity, and investment. My father, during his Royal Navy days, would tell stories of writing letters for weeks before shore leave, then travelling hours just to spend precious time with someone special. The anticipation, the effort, the intentionality, it all mattered. Though my parents’ marriage didn’t withstand life’s storms, those early stories of deliberate courtship still resonate with me. There was something profoundly different about relationships that began with such intentional investment, even when life’s complexities later intervened.

There’s something deeply meaningful about earning intimacy through demonstrated respect, consistency, and emotional investment rather than expecting it as automatic entitlement. This concept challenges our contemporary understanding of relationship progression, but it offers something our instant-gratification culture desperately lacks: the opportunity to build something genuinely substantial.

For too long, we’ve been indoctrinated with the belief that our value lies exclusively in physical appeal, that keeping a man interested requires maintaining a delicate balance between available and unattainable. But here’s what I’ve discovered: the women who command genuine respect and lasting love are those who refuse to be reduced to their physical attributes alone. As daughters of the King, we are fearfully and wonderfully made; our worth isn’t determined by worldly standards of beauty or availability, but by our identity as beloved children of God.

This doesn’t mean becoming prudish or playing manipulative games, it means recognising your inherent worth beyond the physical and demanding others acknowledge it too. It means understanding that a man eager to explore your mind is infinitely more valuable than one focused exclusively on exploring your body. The former suggests long-term potential and genuine compatibility, whilst the latter indicates superficial interest that will inevitably fade as novelty diminishes.

I’ll be honest: stepping away from the instant validation of dating apps requires considerable courage. It means potentially feeling isolated whilst friends regale you with tales of their latest conquests. It means resisting cultural pressure to be constantly available, constantly seeking, constantly settling for less than you deserve.

And yet, there’s something rather wonderful about rediscovering authentic attraction, the kind that catches you off guard and leaves you quietly smiling long after. The type that doesn’t disappear with morning light because it was never exclusively based on physical attraction.

To the women reading this who feel like men only see them through a reductive physical lens: you’re not imagining it, and it’s absolutely not your fault. We’ve been living in a culture that has systematically reduced feminine worth to physical attributes whilst simultaneously shaming us for having bodies at all. It’s an impossible standard designed to keep us perpetually insecure and seeking validation from sources that can never truly fulfil us.

But here’s the radical truth: you have the power to change this narrative. You can demand to be seen as a complete person. You can refuse to engage with men who treat you as a collection of parts rather than a complex human being with thoughts, dreams, fears, and aspirations. This isn’t about playing hard to get, it’s about recognising your value and refusing treatment that doesn’t reflect it.

Lately I’ve realised this: when someone truly values you as a whole person, their every action seems to reflect it. They want to invest time understanding your complexities, to earn your trust through consistent behaviour, to build something substantial. They recognise that rushing into physical intimacy might compromise the emotional foundation they’re actually interested in creating.

The right person won’t hesitate out of disinterest, but because they recognise something rare, something worth protecting. They’ll understand that the most meaningful intimacy comes not from rushed physical connection, but from the gradual intertwining of minds, hearts, and eventually, bodies in natural progression that honours both people involved.

In a world full of digital lust and superficial connections, choosing to build real relationships is a radical act of self-respect. It’s choosing to believe you deserve more than surface attraction, more than convenience, more than someone who sees you as interchangeable with any other attractive face on their screen.

The truth is, the right person will be scared to lose you long before they ever truly have you, and if you’ve glimpsed even a taste of that, you know exactly why it’s worth waiting for.