How do you avoid falling in love with a jerk?

That’s a million dollar question if I’ve ever heard one!

We’ve had Dr. John Van Epp on our campus multiple times, as a part of our campus-wide, Sex & the Soul emphasis. Dr. Van Epp has 25 years of clinical experience in private practice and has taught on both university and seminary campuses. He is the author of: How to Avoid Falling in Love With a Jerk: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind.

Dr. Van Epp is also the innovator behind the Relational Attachment Model (RAM). I think this model has the potential to really help us mentors explore and unpack relationships and relational issues with our students — as well as point them towards a better way of approaching relationships all together.

Van Epp points to 5 key ways of connecting (or bonding) with others that need to be understood:

• Know — this has to do with the facts or truths we learn about the other people. This is very important — and should be the first way we connect with others.
• Trust — this has to do with what we believe about others. Strangely, we can put our trust in people we don’t actually know. Think about it… we can probably all identify some well-known author or actor that we think would be a kindred-spirit, or fast-friend… or we believe that they’re a great person… but we don’t really have anything to base this belief on. We’ve seen them from a distance, but have no real knowledge about them — does this sound familiar? Our levels of trust in others should be in direct correlation to what we know about them.
• Rely — this has to do with our levels of dependence on others. Does it make sense for us to rely on people we don’t know or trust? Strangely, some relationships start here — and attempt to bond at this level — without going through the important steps or stages of knowing and trusting first.
• Commit — this obviously has to do with our ability and choice to be committed to someone else. A natural place to arrive if following the progression from knowing to trusting to relying… but a very odd and awkward relational point to start off at. Yet some do.
• Touch — this has to do with physical touch and intimacy. Again, a natural part of the progression when really getting to know someone — but this is where far too many students today are starting. This is the hook-up culture… connecting and bonding at a stage the lacks knowledge (besides the basic physical attraction), appropriate (yet oddly, some — unwarranted) levels of trust, and virtually no level of reliance or commitment.

Van Epp points to the fact that as these “levels” increase, no level should ever get “higher” than the level that proceeds it — meaning that we should never place more trust in a person that we have knowledge of them… or we should never be more committed to someone than our levels of reliance, trust or knowledge warrant.

I think this model can assist us greatly as we walk and talk with students who are engaged in the messiness and joy of relationships.

What do you think?