Is it a question of lust?

I must apologize for not posting the other day, I have been working hard at finishing some 73 labs and their accompanying write ups and haven't been near an internet connection the entire time. I admit it, I am all labbed out now.

Today, I sat quietly eating my lunch while listening to a group of christian college students discuss living arrangements that others they knew had made prior to marriage. They also asked amongst themselves how one could be with someone and not have known that person intimately before marriage. One question that struck me was this: Would you marry someone without having sex with them beforehand?

Am I a try before you buy type of person or one who walks unkowingly in to a permanent engagement? I honestly don't know. If I met someone who I was adoring entirely but wouldn't have sex with me until after we were married, what would I do? Seeing as I am currently unattached, it would be merely an exercise in What ifs. There is no knowing for sure until I find someone like that.

I imagine that there would have to be something truly compelling about the person for me, an allure that causes me to trust that my interest and eventually my love will more than compensate for any issues in the bedroom. Yet, in the current culture where it is so easy to get divorced and one of the major reasons for divorce is adultery caused by the lack of satisfaction in the bedroom, is this an untenable tenet of morality? Is saving oneself for that special person a good reason anymore? Is the philosophy that there is only one person in your life valid?

I have always believed that every single person who enters your life teaches you something. Whether you realize what that is immediately or years down the road of life, something in your meeting was a reason to learn something new. I have learned what it is like to give without asking for something really is like from someone who passed briefly through my life. I learned the true meaning of friendship when a friend stood behind me when I was wrong. I learned how petty I can be when I am irked by some stranger. Sometimes, it takes many years to recognize that anything was learned in a chance meeting.

Which brings me to my point: What if you are missing out on learning something new by avoiding intimate relationships before meeting that special person? What if the lack of relationships with the opposite sex causes you to never develop the ability to have a close relationship in the first place? No philosophy can give the experience of having to overlook the faults in others better than being with someone in close quarters for more than passing minutes in one day.

So, in all of this, is having an intimate relationship prior to marriage with anyone merely a question of lust?