The optimal situation within a family, is when both parents share the same religion. This avoids conflict, confusion, misunderstandings, and all manner of problems. When two spouses have two different religions, there are differences in world-view, priorities, goals, how to raise one’s children, how to live one’s life, the seriousness of the marriage oath, and all areas of your life together… For single Heathens, meeting another Heathen that you want to marry can be difficult at this time of Reconstruction for our Folkway. There aren’t a lot of Heathens to choose from. – Temple of our Heathen Gods
Finding a suitable partner is difficult for anyone. When you’re part of a minority religion the search for a compatible partner can be even more difficult. How do can that challenge be overcomed?
You could attend regional or national festivals. Have a co-religionist set you up on a blind date. Or, if you’re a Heathen, you could join a new online dating service created just for Heathens.
Asatru Dating was launched by U.K. resident Vincent Stagg on January 5, 2015. By the end of that month, he had over 200 members signed up. The service has some basic free functions, or members can pay £4.99 per month ($7.62 US dollars) or a premium membership.
Asatru Dating is available worldwide, and has members from the U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Turkey, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Norway and other countries.The gender split on the site is about ⅓ women to ⅔ men and allows for a third gender designation – gender fluid.
Heathen religions, like many other revived religions, place a strong focus on family and worship as a family unit. They honor their ancestors and want their children to continue in their ways. If your spouse isn’t also a Heathen, that could complicate matters.
It was for this reason that Mr. Stagg says he created the site to, “…provide a place where single Asatruars could find one another.” He says the process of joining is simple. There are features to make users more comfortable, such as being able to block or report other users for inappropriate behavior.
Kameron Smith, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, has joined the dating service. He said that he’s interested in, “…the possibility of finding a committed relationship with a woman who thinks and believes similar to me.” He says while it isn’t absolutely necessary to find another Heathen to marry, it would make the relationship, and raising children, easier in the long term.
Mr. Stagg hopes that by making it easier for Heathens to find Heathen partners, this process will also contribute to reviving Asatru as the vibrant religion it once was. He said, “We may be seen as dreamers but we wish nothing more than to see temples built to the Aesir and for people to recognise what Asatru is.”
No matter if you’ve already found your true love, or loves, or you’re still looking, The Wild Hunt wishes you a very Happy Valentine’s Day.
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“No matter if you’ve already found your true love, or loves, or you’re still looking, The Wild Hunt wishes you a very Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Personally, to be more inclusive, I would rephrase this thus: No matter if you’ve already found your true love, or loves, or you’re still looking, or if you have no interest in finding love, The Wild Hunt wishes you a very Happy Valentine’s Day.
Is that really possible?
I have been perfectly happy and single for 10 years now, and I have absolutely no desire to date, find a relationship, have sex etc.
You probably get a lot more done than the rest of us as a result!
There are asexual folks. I believe I lived next to one after I left college. There are “aromantics” who just don’t have an interest in having a life-partner style of relationship.
I sure know about that. I used to be asexual/aromantic for many years in my younger days but I found out that ultimately, it kinda sucked big time. But the fact that it proved not for me doesn’t mean that it can’t for other people of course.
Well, that just makes it sound like asexuality is a phase that someone moves in and out of, when most asexuals view it as a sexual orientation, like being heterosexual or homosexual, something that is part of who you are that doesn’t change.
I am not really able to fully understand it as an actual sexual orientation as I personally moved out of it but I certainly believe it is a valid identity for those who seriously associate themselves with it.
It’s kind of complicated by the fact that, as a label, asexual has come to cover a wide range of people who don’t desire sex for differing reasons., and even shades over as a spectrum into sexuality with labels like ‘demisexual’ (i.e. people who don’t experience sexual attraction unless they first develop an emotional connection with a person) or gray asexuals etc. People who are asexual in the strictest sense of the term are generally people who simply never, when they moved from adolescence to adulthood, developed any sexual attraction to people of any gender. The whole idea of desiring sex with people is a mystery to them. So it’s a sexual orientation in that those people were always like that and remain that way for their whole lives. In that sense asexual is different than someone who has a low libido for hormonal reasons, people just put off from dating and sex by a bad relationship/break-up etc.
For my own situation, I’m capable of experiencing sexual desires and attraction, I simply lack the desire or need to act on it, and I even actually don’t enjoy sex. In my case, it’s possibly an extension of being autistic in that I don’t like to be touched, I don’t really relate and form bonds with people easily, and I prefer to keep to myself (and I don’t really enjoy speaking and prefer to communicate in grunts and non-committal phrases…or is that just a Finnish thing??).