What “the man should be the spiritual leader” did to me

Could you climb into a time machine for the sake of this story, and go back to the recent past? Think of an introverted bookworm who was sort of a late bloomer and, at 15, did not bloom yet. That is more or less Retha Faurie at age 15. As such, the pre-conversion 15-year old Retha have never dated, and it did not worry me either. I really was not interested yet.