Confidence and Zero Tolerance

Well, poppets, I had an interesting evening out.

To recap, I am in my native Toronto, visiting my family and my friends, old haunts and new dives. It's great to see my loved ones and to see the town from the perspective of someone who hasn't seen it in a year. I enjoy hearing people's news, and I enjoy having news for people. My literary friends are thriving: this one won a major award, that one's latest book has gone into its second edition. It's great.

Yesterday I went with a literary pal to a poetry night and met another one there. The joint, as they say, was jumping. To my surprise, the first poet to read was a former prof of mine; I hadn't seen him in almost twenty years, but I've always remembered the fascinating stories he told us in class about the Canadian poets he'd met. After he read his work, I went over to him, introduced myself and told him that I still remembered what he had said about Elizabeth Smart twenty years ago. We chatted amiably for a bit and then I went back to my friends.

What is remarkable about this is that five years ago (let alone twenty) I would have been too shy. I would have sat behind my table agonizing "Should I or shouldn't I? What if...? But on the other hand...?"

But last night I didn't feel a qualm. I didn't feel self-conscious. It just felt like the most natural thing in the world, to go up to a now-famous prof and say, "What you said then sticks with me even now." Maybe it's one of the gifts that comes with having real books with your name on them. Or maybe it's the gift that comes with age if you didn't have it young.

Other poets read. The open mic (as in microphone) performances began, and the featured speakers and their friends began to drift downstairs, out of the bar. My old prof waved to me, and I thought of my business cards in my little zippered card case. I keep all my cards in it--bank, credit, library--so I took them all out to look for the bright bit of cardboard. And the guy across the table from me, known to my friend but a stranger to me, made a sudden swooping movement with his head and plucked away my bank card.

This stranger looked in his fifties, bearded, balding, small, nondescript. He had an English accent; B.A. would have been able to peg "what" and "where" at once. He had been introduced to me, and told where I lived, and that was necessarily the extent of our conversation.

But I wasn't registering all this when he snatched away my bank card. My heart froze, and I made a lunge. He opened his eyes in playful mockery and held my bank card out of reach.

I hit him with a beer glass. No, I didn't. I gave him a look that melted his face--or certainly scared him enough to give my card back. I shoved it in my card case, shoved card case in handbag, picked up my coat and announced "I'm leaving." Then I left.

Downstairs I thought regretfully of my startled girlfriends upstairs, my beloved girlfriends whom I hadn't seen in over a year. Was I really going to walk out on them because they were sitting with the kind of man who thinks it flirty and funny to steal a stranger's bank card and hold it out of reach?

Yes, I was.

On my train, I pondered my hair-trigger reaction. Five years ago, I am reasonably certain, I would have smiled weakly and been "nice" about it. Perhaps I would have, as expected, made sad doggy eyes and mimed supplication, politely silent as the open mic poet banged on about what a rotten world it is, while my heart fluttered with panic.

But not now. Now I have zero tolerance for the inappropriate behaviour of male strangers. Just as I can approach a literary lion, I can walk away from a literary loser or any other man who evidently thinks he is being "playful" when he is simply being a drip.

Go and do likewise, my little Singles.

The New Look

Well, puffins, I hope you like the new look. Pink is pretty girly, but there is something about pink stripes that is just so...girly-girly.

When my thriller comes out, I will publish a contrasting blog in black, silver, geometric shapes and brooding photographs of Central Europe.

I have also decided to add a rotating staff of virtual bouncers, based solely on their looks. Errol may have not behaved particularly well when he was alive, but now that he is dead, he will serve as the kind of man that other men hate on first sight.

The difficult thing about writing blogs of this kind, blogs that deal with women's most personal feelings of faith, hope, love, eros, sorrow, confusion, fear, violation, disappointment and rejection, is that it leaves both women readers and the writer a trifle exposed.

Recent conversations with men have left me wondering if I should simply stop writing this blog or just do an extreme makeover. There are other blogs for (and also BY) Single women, so I sometimes I wonder why I'm still doing this.

But then I get emails from Single women telling me that I have really helped them, or an email from a Single woman who is frightened, tempted or heartbroken and wants my advice, or an email from a priest who says, in effect, "Spot on, Seraphic."

So here we are.

The Trouble with Dating Websites

Attention: Mention of sexual violence

Darlings, I will not harrow you with a link to the absolutely horrible dating-website-rape story in today's Daily Mail because the Daily Mail, and other papers of its ilk, emphasize rape. Rape is the bread-and-butter of the gutter press because the gutter press knows many women can't resist such horrible stories. We hate them but we have to have a read, perhaps in the hope that by reading we will learn how to avoid such horrors ourselves.

But I will tell you the basics of what happened, which is that a 20-something woman in England met a 20-something man on a dating website in England, and they chatted online for four days or so, and then they met for drinks at 7 PM. The date went well--the woman thought they had a lot in common. So they stayed out quite late, going out for something to eat, and the young man walked the young woman back to her apartment block. He leaned in for a kiss, but she pulled back.

And then he beat her to a pulp, raped her and stole her handbag.

What do you bet "I am a violent sociopath who goes ballistic at the slightest hint of perceived rejection" was not on the rapist's website profile? I bet his shoplifting offenses and assaults on policemen weren't there either.

Now, I know a lot of you are on Catholic dating websites, so I will say up front that she did not meet him on a Catholic dating website. But you know very well that not all the guys you meet on Catholic dating websites are either practising Catholics or good guys at all. All you can know about them is what they tell you, and they could be lying. Or they could have SERIOUS personality problems that they themselves are barely aware of. Anger issues, for a start.

So today I would like to remind you--once again--that any guy you meet over a dating website, Catholic or not, is a virtual STRANGER until you have met him in person and gotten to know him better. And I mean in person, not over text message or over the phone or over Skype.* And I mean over time, not over one coffee or one drinks date that goes well.

I met my husband over my blog. But that is because some of his blogging friends read my blog and I eventually, slowly, became their friends, after reading their blog and ascertaining that they were kindly, mentally healthy people. They got him to read my blog, and I began to read his blog. So I met my husband in a hybrid sort of way--half contemporary (blogs), and half traditional, through mutual acquaintances. At least five of my regular readers could vouch for him, for they had all met him and liked him.

That's quite different from internet dating, n'est-ce pas? Of course, since none of B.A.'s friends had met me in person, he was taking a bit of a risk in inviting me to stay with him when I visited Scotland, wasn't he?

And now I will tell you about how I lied my little red head off on a Catholic dating website. I have probably told you before, but tough. If a nice wee woman like me is capable of such shenanigans, imagine a real jerk.

It was the first time I ever sat down and tried to think about what it is that Catholic men wanted in a girlfriend. It was the first time I thought strategically and also the first time I paid any attention to all the bits of advice I had heard from married ladies and girls with boyfriends that I had rejected as unworthy of intellectual me. I also cynically faced up to the prejudice of many young "European"** guys in my town against the "mangiacakes" their parents or pals had told them were tramps, et alia.

My honest profile, in which I detailed with great pride my academic accomplishments, theological interests, sterling orthodoxy and mangiacake ethnic background, was not getting much of a response. It was definitely not getting a response from a lawyer in a neighbouring parish, who sounded very interesting indeed.

So I created another profile. Men, I had heard, loved kindergarten teachers. (And in Canada, that's a well-paid job with a pension.) So I became a kindergarten teacher. A half-Italian, half-Polish kindergarten teacher, a vegetarian--not militant, just loved fluffy bunnies--who bicycled to work, it was so close to her house, and loved The Godfather I and II but not III. (I had heard that all men everywhere hated The Godfather III.) I still accepted all the teachings of the Church, but I certainly wasn't reading massive intellectual tomes anymore. No way. I was a girly-girly girl.

And guess who, along with the rest of the crowd, appeared in the inbox? Ma, da certo, Mr. Lawyer, who longed to know which of my parents was Italian, for his parents were Italian, and blah blah blah.

I sure hope he isn't dreaming of a half-Italian, half-Polish kindergarten teacher to this day, for she never replied. Indeed, she disappeared because lies of that magnitude and complexity do not really suit your humble correspondent.

But there are people who love to lie, and there are men who will lie and lie and lie and LIE to get what they want, so look out, my little angels.

*These things can, of course, make you acquaintances, but it's still not enough to really know somebody. I'm starting to think that the only way you can know someone is in a crowd. You can't be sure you know them unless you have seen them interacting with others: service staff, their friends, your friends, their mother...

**SCENE: Toronto. Hallway of my all-girls high school, after a dance. Your humble correspondent, age 17, is in a black miniskirt, white lace tights, a sleeveless black turtleneck in a black and white print and has a 1980s haircut. She is talking by some lockers to a cute, cheerful boy with dark hair and dark eyes, to whom she was introduced by an former elementary school classmate.

(Yes, my memory can be that good.)

Cute boy: So, how you getting home?

Seraphic, age 17: Taking the train and then a bus.

Cute boy: You don't have to do that! My buddy has a car.

Seraphic: But I don't even know you.

Cute boy: Aw hey. You can trust me--I'm a European!

Dynamic Women of Faith Project

Okay, poppets, I am sure none of you are going to read this until Sunday when you, ashamed of your drunken St. Patrick's Day shenanigans of the day and night before, crawl to your computer swearing to be better girls. But what a better time than that for the Ontario ones to discover that there will be a marvellous Women's Lenten Retreat for them next Saturday where they can be inspired and grow in faith and goodness.

No, I am not referring to my own retreat, which is in Krakow in May, but to the Dynamic Women of Faith Project organized by fellow Catholic journo-blogger Dorothy Pilarski at the John Paul II Centre in Mississaugow. It is not for Single girls but all Catholic women, especially Catholic mothers who feel generally overlooked and spat on by sneering secular society and enjoy the gutsiness of such local Catholic heroes as Michael Coren. He will be there to explain Why Catholics are Right and, no doubt, add some caffeine to the cappuccino of life.

So have a look at the linky-wink, and please consider going if the trip is within reason.

Incidentally, I will most probably be there, possibly even with copies of Seraphic Singles, which I will cravenly flog to whichever ladies aren't actually married or nuns.

St. Cougar's Day

Okay, sorry, Saint Patrick, but as I was contemplating that today is Saint Patrick's Day, all that came to mind was that incident in Boston on Saint Patrick's Day when my pal Boston Girl met this guy in a pub and this cougar in a green shirt ran off with him. The incident is immortalized in My Book, and it looks particularly weird in Polish.

At any rate, I was only 36 or so at the time, and my feelings about La Cougar are rather more mixed today than they were at the time, when she was quite obviously the ENEMY and the COMPETITION. Of course, at 36, I was also considered a cougar, at least by this Canadian guy in my summer language course in Germany, who said that women over 25 were cougars by definition.*

For the sake of the homeschooled and other carefully brought up readers, I should explain that "cougar" is slang for an older woman who courts younger men. It is derogatory as it assumes that there is something menacing about older women in general, especially when we paint our nails blood-red and go about in the skins of murdered or fake animals. It also assumes that younger men never, ever, ever court older women as we sit innocently on our bar stools in the Voodoo Bar, wearing stilettos and slurping down Atomic Zombies.

This reminds me of a very funny story. I was 30-something and out with some of my girlfriends at a dance club in Toronto, and your humble correspondent caught the eye of some nice but probably drunk young man who eventually offered to buy her a drink. And your humble correspondent kick started the conversation at the bar by saying, "So, are you Catholic?"

This also works for men, by the way. Nobody standing by the bar expects anyone to ask "Are you Catholic?" so it has the charm of the unexpected. Don't try this in Belfast or Glasgow, however. In Boston or Toronto, you're good.

Anyway, as your humble and the hottie had a nice chat about our confirmation names and such other culturally Catholic topics one can shout about over the roar of the dance floor, I had a good look and realized that he must have been about 22. And when, before the admiring gaze of my pals, he asked for my phone number, I neglected to tell him that I was much too old for him. For some reason, the fact that I had to explain that the phone number was of the convent at which I was boarding seemed embarrassing enough.

"Random," said my admirer of the convent phone, which was the first time I had ever heard the word used that way, so much older than him was I.

But as a result of my craven silence, I got asked out on a DATE, not a daily occurrence in the lives of women in my M.Div. program. The downside was that I spent the date dodging indirect questions about my age. O heavens. The horror. A better woman than I would have just said, "Sugar-pie, I am 34 years old. Deal."

Possibly he thought elusive I was totally neurotic, for I never heard from him again. And it was just as well for our conversation revealed that he rarely went to Mass, and as we all know I eventually married B.A. and thus should have put every cent I ever wasted on getting ready for a date in savings bonds. However, he was pretty cute, and this is where I make my apologia for Cougars.

Men in their twenties are often much better-looking than men in their thirties and beyond, just as women in our twenties are often much better-looking than women in our thirties and beyond. I thought this in my twenties, when I was terrified of men in their twenties, and I think this now, when I'm not. So it does not surprise me at all when such older women who have managed to achieve the confidence which comes with age withoust losing their looks either go out of their way to charm a 20-something or accept the attentions of a 20-something with alacrity. I suppose it is incredibly shallow and masculine to value young men for their looks, but I am an ARTIST, darling, so I can see why cougars do.

There is also the "To hell with you, Systematic Marginalization of Older Women: I can still get guys in their 20s" factor.

What really bothered me about "the Devil in Green Shirt" was that the young man beside her looked scared. Sure, he quite obviously wasn't going anywhere she wasn't, and heaven knows how fast the friends he had come with had melted away. But St. Patrick's in Boston is not the kind of night that screams "One night stands" but the kind of night everyone simply gets off their faces drunk, starting at breakfast, and then brags about it the next day. Whatever else was going on was most probably not his idea, but hers. And she certainly wasn't drunk. Au contraire.

Now that I am over 40 and my maternal instincts are in overdrive, I suppose that I might have made an attempt to rescue the young man, even if he was unsure if rescue was something he wanted. That really would have been a good time to lean forward and, this time as a substitute mother, ask my very favourite bar question:

"Are you Catholic?"


*And who cares what some random Canadian guy in Germany says?

Spent the Day in Girl Talk

Gracious! I was completely free of jet lag all day, but now I have hit a wall of sleep. Zzzz. This despite drinking absolute vats of coffee at lunchtime.

I met my best friend Trish for coffee at 11. We first met when we were little baby undergraduates at the University of Toronto; I tried out for a play she was directing, and when she turned me down, she hired me on as stage manager. The rest is history. And today we sat out in the sun and ate all-day breakfasts for lunch and chatted, but also just sat there, not talking very much. Sometimes you don't have to talk when you sit with your best friend of twenty years. You can just sit and be together.

Then Trish dropped me off to another friend's house--the friend I call when it is 1 AM in Edinburgh, but only 8 PM in Toronto, and I have just realized that the reason why I am mad at B.A. is because he doesn't know how to listen like a girl. And my friend was at home, and she gave me a glass of water and her toddler lunch, and we three went for a walk to the "park with the castle." And we talked and talked and talked, and I can't tell you a word, for it was all Girl Talk.

All I have to tell you, now that I am utterly stricken by jet lag, is that female friendship is so very important to most of us, and this is still true after a woman is married. You might think that the Love of Your Life will serve as a sort of one-stop-shopping department store of the heart, but this is actually unusual.

Actively Auntie

Like my ancestors, I have survived the Atlantic crossing. Here I am in Canada, visiting my family and yet typing away. (I now have access to youtube, so I will finally be able to see the cool videos readers keep sending me.)

It is March Break, so who was waiting for me at the airport with my parents but my famous nephew Pirate. To my surprise, he was wearing a suit and tie. Apparently, this was his idea, and it suddenly occurs to me that he may have been influenced by the Young Fogeys of my parish. (Just say "No" to pipe tobacco, Pirate!)

"I wrote a book!" said Pirate.

"Excellent!" I said. "How many pages is it?"

"Two or three," said Pirate.

"Is it fiction or non-fiction?"

"It's autobiographical," said his grandmother.

It occurred to me that the autobiography of a seven year old could potentially be extremely cool. ("It was when I was three that I became conscious of the very great importance of my beloved aunt in my creative, intellectual and spiritual life. Although not then a Christian," etc.) Actually, the autobiography of Pirate would be particularly cool, as he has spent about a third of his life in Latin America.

"I didn't put it in," said Pirate, when I mentioned this. "But I put in Scotland."

"You can save Latin America for the next volume," I said.

"I think if I write very well, I could be elected Class President," said Pirate.

This seemed like a non-sequitur, but suddenly I recall an American junior senator who kind of sort of thought the same thing.

"In politics, it is more important that you get along with everyone," I said, ever happy to bestow advice. "Of course writing is very very important, but to be elected Class President I suggest you hand out sweeties and then promise more after you are in office."

"You can give out buttons, too," enthused Pirate, and explained the button-making machine. He seemed to think the buttons more important than the sweeties, proving that he is still young and idealistic.

When we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's House, I thought I would see Pirate's memoirs, but instead he suggested that we go to the park. In my extreme jet lag, I agreed to go to the park. So we went to the park with a baseball bat, a baseball glove and a nerf ball. (Pirate changed out of his jacket and tie, first.)

After a session of two-person baseball, we sat on the swings. I don't really like those swings, for I so often sat on them on my youth, dreaming too many dreamy little dreamy dreams that died. But--I pointed out to myself--actually some of my little dreamy dreams have become reality, and I cheered up.

We swung. Pirate asked me a complex question about adult social dynamics, and I explained that adult men hate being bored even more than little boys do, which was why they are more careful when they make friends.

Pirate agreed that it was more difficult for grown-ups, and that when you are a little boy, you can go up to anyone and say "Hi, my name is Pirate! Do you want to play?" But, he added, adult men can't do that because they scare people.

"The people are mostly scared they'll be bored," I said.

"I think a lot of adults are boring," said Pirate.

"Which adults are boring?" I asked.

"Priests," said my nephew-godson. "All priests are boring."

"Not Father [Edinburgh Parish]," I said. "He's not boring."

"No, not Father [Edinburgh Parish]," said Pirate, with an enthusiasm that would have touched that tradition-loving heart. "I wish we could go to your church."

"Er," I said, weighing Church Unity against the liturgical horrors of Pirate's parish church. "It's the same as your church actually. It's just in Edinburgh and, uh, has Latin."

"Auntie Q---? Oh!" laughed Pirate. "I almost called you Auntie Quinta. It's because you live in Scotland. When you're away, it's like you never existed!"

Ahem.

"But of course I existed," I said. "I have been your aunt since before you were born."

"Oh yeah. You took care of me?"

"Yes."

"Not before I was born!"

He giggled at the thought.

"Well, no," I said. "But as soon as I knew you were coming, I became your Auntie. So I was your Auntie even before you were born."

"Yeah," said Pirate.