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I completely respect Mike's religious strength. However, you literally don't drop it in front of someone the second that you meet them.
There's Militant Zealots in everything: religion, wealth, sexuality. Mike making the announcement is akin to meeting someone for the first time and saying, "Hi, I'm Robin and I'm Gay." Just how are you to respond to that?
Sounds too much like an intro at an AA meeting for my tastes!
It's interesting, though, that one of the things Mike said he tends to do is subconsciously try to sabotage himself. If I remeber correctly, didn't he say to Larissa that he felt his "dropping the J-bomb" was some sort of attempt to do that? So maybe it was not wholly zealotry but some type of compulsive reaction he has that helps him "opt-out", as it were, if he thinks there is a risk of getting hurt.
Or maybe I'm just projecting...
No. I think you're right. Then later...we saw Larissa tell him, "I can make my own decisions"..or something like that. She basically told him not to sabotage himself... I bet he said something else to her to elicit a response like that.
He sure is in good shape!! The "iron man" race was a great accomplishment, and he didn't look like he was "spent" at the end either.
It was cute how he went in for the second kiss on Larissa.
Originally Posted by Candybar
Oh Lambikins you misunderstand why a Christian would put their belief out there early. It is to not mislead the other person. As a Christian he would not be dating as sport. His intentions would be known early. He would be unlikely to pursue a relationship with a non believer.
Yes it is unusual that he would be on this show. He has put himself in a difficult position.
If you want to private message me I will try to explain better because I don't think this is the best place to do that but I will try if you wish. I am no theologian but I am a Christian.
I agree. I think it was pretty brave on his part of what he did. He might have put himself in a hard spot but he did it because he wanted to. I he single by the end of the show I'm always avalible.And I think he should be one of the hunks because some of them are really ugly and by the commerecials their attitudes are pretty bad too.
I don't doubt his bravery, but I do doubt his judgement. Also, more importantly, I doubt his technique. He used a thoughtless and seemingly rote method of informing her of his religious beliefs instead of giving it to her in a context.
If someone walks up to me and spits out a meaningless sales pitch-sounding explanation of their faith--"Jesus saved me" or "the lord guides me" or anything in any of those veins, you know what I think? "Nut".
If someone instead comes up to me and talks me with me about how he went through tough times but his religion helped him... I might buy it. I might be tempted to ask "why are you telling me this", but at least in HER case he could answer that--with something like "because I don't want to mislead you about who I am or how I approach relationships." Love before sex, etc. etc.
He blew it. And when he finally DID give her the speech about HOW his religion saved him it wasn't nearly as effective.
I agree with you about how a sales pitch is received versus a persons story of change in their own life. What we saw on AJ however is an edited version of their conversation. We don't know what context he placed his statement in. Editing is done to tell the story the producers want to tell and to create the characters the producers think will carry the show.
I'd say both her reaction and his feeling of discomfort afterwards help tell us that in this one case the editing may not have been that far off. And I hardly think you'd refer to it as a "J bomb" unless you knew it was being laid out in an explosive way--the very term is highlighting it as something it shouldn't be.
We've all seen people who have done this at least once in our lives--maybe not in a dating situation but at work, ringing our doorbell, and heck, yes... on TV before this. The "approach" he took is hardly unfamiliar. But if you lead with the Jesus and THEN talk about the reasons at some unconnected time, it becomes less about expressing your growth as a person and seemingly more about making sure that Jesus gets his two cents into the conversation.
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