Beyond Rubies

I am thinking again about my friend Calvinist Cath--dear me, how embarrassed she would be if she realized she was becoming an official Good Role Model--because of how she found a husband without doing anything. This is someone who completely rejects what the world says about women, looking instead to the Gospels and Saint Paul. She doesn't wear lipstick, let alone fake tan, and her clothes, though feminine, are modest, unpretentious and plain. No miniskirts on our Cath, ever. And if I remember correctly the only reason she never cut her hair short is 'cause St. Paul said women shouldn't. I assume she is as slim as she is because she doesn't overeat and she does a lot of walking, especially on Sundays, as she would never take the bus on a Sunday, as it would entail participating on someone else's wrongful Sunday labour. At any rate, I think we can safely say that Cath never practised any mean arts of attraction--as they would have been called in the 19th century--quite unlike your humble correspondent, who got her first lipstick at twelve.

But my friend is no shrinking violet. Naturally studious, she achieved a doctorate in a difficult field. Laudably hard-working, she won a good post. She is a pillar of her church community and corresponds with other members of her ecclesial community worldwide, expounding on theology and recommending theological tomes. She also serves in more traditionally feminine ways, until recently by helping her minister's wife serve Sunday supper to guests, which is how she met the handsome young man who has recently become her husband.

In short, she lived her life according to the tenets of her Calvinist creed, in total contrast to the great majority of Edinburghers her age, even when it looked like there may never be a husband on the horizon. Action and belief were totally consistent: Simone Weil would have admired her greatly.

Now, to shift to a Catholic point of view, if a Protestant lives with such integrity, who are we as Catholics to justify wearing immodest clothing or keeping bad company or "making mistakes" or stuffing our bodies with silicone, all in the hope of winning a husband? I see no reason to wear our skirts to our ankles, but perhaps the hem ought to skim our knees? And who are we to complain that the boys pay attention only to the girls who wear the trampiest costumes to the college Hallowe'en party? You wouldn't find Cath dead at a college Hallowe'en party.

Spiritually speaking, I am very lucky I was not a beauty in my youth, for I never had the opportunity to develop an addiction to male attention. However, from an early age, I certainly wanted to get it, which I thought I could do by wearing short skirts and a lot of make-up and cutting my unusual hair short and actually calling boys up on the phone and laying in wait for my crush objects after school at the bus station--poor little creature. Little did I know I would not meet the Love of my Life until I was thirty-seven. What a lot of expense, effort and sorrow I would have spared myself if I had paid more attention to Scripture and behaved more modestly.

Thanks to Cath's good example, I have given up blogging (if not emergency grocery shopping or taking the bus) on Sundays, but I don't think I will give up make-up. I enjoy the theatricality of make-up, even though B.A. thinks he likes me better without it. And I will continue to suggest that women choose pretty over plain clothes, and not feel that the calves need always be covered up. Short of bikinis and push-up bras (I am not a fan), I think a good rule of thumb is that if a piece of clothing would have been okay in 1962, it is okay now. But flying in the face of all my "You should look like this" and "You should do that" is the image of Cath, who did nothing but live her life as a Christian with integrity and service and attention to what St. Paul said about women's appearance and thereby, thanks to God's inexorable plan for her, found a husband.

Picture: That's Lady Jane Grey, who in this rendition looks surprisingly like Cath. Gracious! What a coincidence.

P.S. As far as I know, I am Cath's most frivolous Catholic pal. Two of the others became cloistered Benedictine nuns, which is a great comfort to my lipsticked self.

A Clarification About Clothes

Well, it has come to my attention that there has been some grumbling on the internet regarding my attitude to clothing and girliness. It occurs to me that I have perhaps been a too bit "wear this, wear that" so I will try to make up for it.

If you are a Serious Single, and honestly, hand on heart, would just rather not be bothered with men, let alone get married, you go ahead and wear any old thing. Obviously, you'll need to wear professional clothes to work, and I can think of many modern nuns who look very professional. They have short professional hair, sturdy professional glasses, professional pantsuits, sensible shoes, and maybe a pin that signals to those in the know that this is a Sister [of community X]. Naturally they don't wear makeup, perfume or sparkly earrings. They look tidy, capable, comfortable, professional, no-nonsense, and if a man ever tried to chat them up on the bus, I would fall over from shock.

If, however, you are a Searching Single, you might just want to consider telegraphing "Hello, I am an attractive woman who would love to get married one day" through your clothing.

Again, really, honestly, truly don't care what men think? Then practical haircut, pantsuit, denim overalls, mohawk, shaved bald, nineteenth century ballgowns with denim jackets, days-of-the-week tracksuits --whatever. Go for it. And good for you--Saint Augustine, were he still alive, would totally approve. Saint Augustine thought that trying to attract a man was the worst part about being Single, if you couldn't become a nun, which naturally he thought was the best person you could be. After a martyr, of course. Presumably Saint Augustine would have extolled Elizabeth Taylor had she, at the last minute, proclaimed the Gospel in Tahrir Square and been shot.

Ah, Elizabeth Taylor. Now there was a gal who dressed for men. She claimed all those jewels were presents, although apparently she sometimes gave her husbands the money to buy them. Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle!

Now, as I wrote not too long ago, one of my teachers counselled my punker classmate Kathleen that if she persisted in dressing like that, she'd attract punker guys. He thought this a terrible fate. Kathleen thought it wonderful. I think it one of the few sensible things that teacher ever told us.

If you are interested in attracting and marrying traditional men, e.g. men who are willing to get married without a test drive, then I recommend dressing in traditional women's clothing. This does not necessarily mean the dreaded denim jumper of doom. I mean blouse & skirt or dress, tights, cute shoes. In the UK, a nice tweed jacket would not go amiss, if you're looking for a tweed-wearer. In the USA, a string of pearls sends a message pleasing to the eye of Young Republicans and not so much to the Young Democrats, apparently. (One of the useful things I learned at Boston College.)

That said, I have known tall, slim young women who looked great in denim jeans, pairing them with rather more hello-I'm-a-girl stuff, like pink scooped-necked T-shirts and silk scarves.

Again, I am addressing Searching Singles here. Serious Singles don't have to care. Except on the job, naturally. On your off-hours, anything. Star Trek uniform. Actually, I bet you could meet guys, especially computer programmers, if you wore a Star Trek uniform in public. So if you don't want to be bothered, comfy sweatpants. College hoodie.

If you love poetic beatnik guys, go to an Open Mic and see what the popular girl poets are wearing. Get the general idea and make it your own. If you love athletes, see what girls popular with athletes are wearing and, if you aren't flat-out embarrassed by their outfits, get the general idea and make it your own. If you love male feminists--the kind who actually read Kate Millet, Gloria Steinem, Naomi Klein et al--then dress like a teenage boy. This probably works best if you have the figure of a teenage boy, mind you.

The whole point of this piece is not to TELL you what to wear but to REMIND you that men can see you and that your clothes send a message. Whether you want them to or not, your clothes gossip about you to complete strangers. They say "She belongs to your club", "She's a real professional--24/7", and "Ideally, she'd like to be invisible." Naturally, your clothes might be lying about you. There are probably a lot of soccer moms who are goddesses at heart and are puzzled as to why no-one can see this. And the girls of Edinburgh who wear tight blue denim shorts with black tights are probably not trying to show off their bottoms, although that's what their lying shorts are telling me.

I earnestly believe, that as the differences between men and women are ignored more and more, one key to attracting men as suitors is reminding them, primarily visually(since men are extremely visual), that women are different from them. And since religious women naturally dislike doing this through clothes that scream I HAVE BREASTS AND BUTTOCKS, clothes-or-accessories-that-straight-men-would-never-wear strike me as the way to go.

Incidentally, your clothes gossip about you most loudly in uncrowded churches, e.g. at the Trad Mass. Woo! During my EF Mass, the tight jeans simply do not shut up. The priest is, like, "Oremus" and the congregation is like, "What did you say, jeans?" Don't get me started on the sports bra that spelled out "Sexy" in rhinestones. Fun at that nightclub no-one will take me to, no doubt, but not good for making friends at a church people travel two hours to get to because their parish mass depresses them in its modernity.

By the way, I haven't finished reading it, but I finally got my hands on a copy of Verily. Verily does not airbrush models and photographs clothes on non-models, so ordinary women can see how the clothes under discussion might look on them. It treats women as if we have both brains and limited budgets. It is a breath of fresh air, but more on it anon.

Lonely

If there is one thing that ex-Singles are going to forget, it's how deeply lonely the Single life can be. People tend to forget the icky stuff of their youth and remember only the good stuff. That's one explanation for why adults tell teenagers their high school years are the best years of their lives. (What nonsense. Spots, angst and curfews. Hello?)

So when the other day a Single friend told me how lonely she or he felt at night, I had to jog my memory and say, "Oh yeah. I was incredibly lonely when I was Single."

I really was. I hated how, after work, my workmates would walk in one direction, and I would walk in the other to my empty little apartment. Urgh. When I went back to school, I moved in with my parents, and I made a gazillion friends, and I had so much work to do, I didn't feel lonely, although a bit panicked about "What if I never get married?" That gave me a three year respite though the summers were really tough.

But then I went down to the USA to do a PhD and the loneliness just about killed me. I could keep it at bay by hanging out with my one (1)local girlfriend or with my very-soon-to-be-ex boyfriend and for two hours at Sunday Mass and Coffee Hour, but that was it. It didn't help that everyone in my program seemed to think I was a scary right-wing conservative when I thought I was a very nice center-left kind of gal.

There's no lonely so lonely as being lonely in a crowd, as they say. Wait--I take that back. There is a worse one, and it is when you are in a terrible marriage in which you can't tell your husband what you think and feel and believe because then he will shout at you. Even ordinary statements can trigger disappointment. You say, "I'm off to see my friend" and he says, "Your friends are all degenerates or religious maniacs."

Yep. The biggest loneliness is being married to a guy who is quietly, possibly unconsciously, trying to alienate you from your family, all your friends and you yourself.

But if you are Single, that is not your problem, so thank God for that and let's get down to how to deal with ordinary Single person loneliness.

First, most Single people feel lonely sometime. If you think your other Single friends have got it all together and are living blissfully 24/7, you are wrong. They aren't. Possibly a lot of married people feel lonely from time to time too, although to be honest, I don't if there are other women around and if B.A. is only a mobile text away. I'm not going to lie: a happy marriage is a great cure for loneliness.

Second, being part of a great community is tremendously helpful. If you are Single it is so important that you really enjoy your workplace or your school because that is where most of your social interactions are happening. Church, in my experience, is not enough. It might be enough for married people, but I don't think it is for most Single people.

Third, this makes me sound like my grandmother, but keeping busy is important, too. And by busy I don't mean working around the clock, but doing things you really enjoy, or taking on challenges that absorb your mind and/or truly leave you tired at night. The best way to approach an empty bed is half-asleep and with gratitude. "Oh, thank God for my empty bed because I really need some sl...zzzz...."

Fourth, without turning into a princess about it, you owe it to yourself to treat yourself really well. Nobody else is making sure you have a beautiful bedroom and clean sheets and the occasional breakfast in bed and a nice DVD to watch on a rainy day and a beautiful silk kimono to watch it in, so you had better be doing it.

Fifth, do not assuage your loneliness with food or you will regret it. When I was 27, employed and lonely, I worked out at the gym and ate only 1500-1800 calories a day. But when I was 36, studying and lonely, I could no longer afford a gym and developed a Ben and Jerry's habit. To this day I have not gotten back into a gym habit or shifted the weight I got from Ben and Jerry. Thanks so much, Ben and Jerry.

Sixth, there are spiritual benefits to just sitting on your bed letting loneliness wash over you and crying your eyes out. I am not actually sure what they are, but my shrink and various priests have told me that such spiritual benefits exist, so go for it. Sit with the pain and have a chat with it and cry. Only then turn on the TV or reach for the phone or check Facebook.

Seventh, don't sneer at Facebook as shallow. It's okay if you don't want to be on Facebook at all--you may have very legitimate concerns about privacy--but if you are on Facebook, don't dismiss Facebook interactions as shallow. They are a great way to keep in touch with friends of auld lang syne or friends who now live far from you.

Feel free to add your own tips in the combox for keeping loneliness at bay.

Suddenly Over Online Romances

My poll was even less scientific as usual, for I forgot to leave room for control groups. Alas. Well, anyway, 40 people (not a big slice of my daily readership) responded to the "Online Romance Suddenly Over Without Explanation" poll, 36 of them women and 4 of them men. Of the women, 28 have suddenly discovered internet silence where a man used to be, and 8 have done disappearing acts themselves. Of the 4 men, 3 have been abandoned, and one did the abandoning.

For readers' take on internet dating, see most of the comments here.

I am not sure what to say other than that unless you are actually frightened of a person, it is very disrespectful behaviour to abandon a friendly relationship--even an online friendly relationship--without an explanation. "I'm just not feeling a spark" counts as an explanation. "I'm not comfortable with your anger" does, too, if that's the problem.

If a very embarrassing situation has cropped up, like you have discovered that Mr Perfect was your little sister's hapless prom date, well, this is the sort of thing that separates the women from the flibbertigibbets. You should explain the situation, being straight to the point. Men tell me that they'd rather be told the truth then left hanging. So tell them the truth.

But don't tell them everything about yourself online. A lot of women have the bad habit of telling strangers our business, and online it strikes me as the equivalent of telling a man the end of a thriller just while he is absorbed in Chapter 2. If he really wants to get to know you, and if you really want to get to know him, you can darn well meet down at the doughnut shop. If you live in South Bend, and he lives in Boston, well, you're going to have to compromise on which doughnut shop.

There was a comment that worried about leading a man on by accepting three dates with him. I don't think that is leading a man on. Making a man think you might go out with him when you know you won't is leading a man on. Making him think you might sleep with him when you know you won't is leading him on. Making him think you might marry him when you know you won't is leading him on. Everything else is just you saying "Yes" to stuff you actually want to do. As long as whatever it is (e.g. going to a film) is morally licit, there's no problem.

One of the odder things about women, I have noticed, is that we tend to feel guilty about stuff we shouldn't feel guilty about and then not guilty about stuff for which we should feel guilty. If a man flies to your city to meet you, and then you don't fall in love with him, you shouldn't feel guilty about that. If a man flies to your city to meet you, takes you to dinner, you are smitten, he regretfully confesses he isn't smitten back, and in your hurt you tell everyone he led you on, you should feel guilty for that.

Games in Preparation for Thanksgiving

Okay, tomorrow is American Thanksgiving, so it is time to batter down the hatches and talk frankly about emotional survival plans on behalf of the American readership. (Strangely, some British people have adopted American Thanksgiving themselves which, as a Canadian, I find very strange, yet another example of the bizarre British fascination with the USA. You should see BBC4 this week--absolutely mental.)

The essence of being rooted in reality is looking unpleasant facts in the eye and standing up to them instead of cowering behind a wall of dreamy-dreaminess. Therefore, if Great-Aunt Tilly has asked you every Thanksgiving for the past ten years if you are a Lesbian, don't think she won't ask you again this year. Turn it into a game. Make a bet with your friends when she will ask. In fact, run a pool. Your friends all give you a quarter, and whoever guesses right gets the pot. If she DOESN'T ask, the pot goes to the poor box in thanksgiving. I guarantee that, this way, when Great-Aunt Tilly asks the dreaded question, you will not want to die but to cheer and write down the time she asked.

Great-Aunt Tilly: Tell me, dear, are you a Lesbian?

You: Yay! OMG! What time is it?

The game can apply to any prediction based on past family Thanksgivings. Another game would be to agree beforehand with Single friends to write down the hour and minute you are first asked about your Single status. ("Any boyfriend yet, dear? Well, never mind.") Then when you can meet up, you all produce your pieces of paper.

And then there's simply collecting points for every time your Single state gets mentioned. I suggested this last year, and much hilarity ensued.

Obviously you need a quirky sense of humour for these games, although come to think of it, if you read this blog, you probably do have a quirky sense of humour. And the games also assume your families are functional enough that Thanksgiving Dinner does not mean a slide into dysfunction and depression. If Thanksgiving Dinner has for the past ten years meant a slide into dysfunction and depression, I heartily urge you not to go. And if you do go anyway, I urge you to have some lovely treat waiting for you as soon as you can escape. Do not exchange this lovely treat for the questionable joys of feeling like a martyr.

I also urge you not to compare yourself to your little sister, who has brought her boyfriend this year, or to your cousin, who married a millionaire, or to anybody else. I usually found it salutary, when envying a pal her girlfriend status or diamond ring, to ask myself if I would want her man. The answer has always been NO, although I did have to admit that one pal (one pal in 35 years of having pals) did have a very fetching fiance. Now he is her very fetching husband, and I really should stop mentioning how fetching he is. Fortunately, my own husband is pretty fetching in his own right, B.A.

Sorry to mention B.A. at a time like this, but if married women write about the beauties of other men, we sort of have to mention our own beautiful husbands in the next breath. And I suppose that this is a good opportunity to remind the majority of my Single readers who will actually marry (according to American statistics) that I didn't meet B.A. until I was 37. This may not cheer you if you are 27 or 47, but the point is that just because you haven't found Mr Right by this Thanksgiving doesn't mean you won't ever find him. Maybe you won't, but maybe you will. The ways of God--and of Mr Right, if he exists--are very mysterious.

By the way, if any of my readers thinks the way to cope with the holiday is to curl up with a bottle of vodka, I am here to scold you and tell you that it isn't. If it even crosses your mind, I will be very mad, and if I ever find out, I will block you. So don't. Choose friends and fun instead. If you can't be with your own friends or make your own fun, then pop down to the nearest shelter and spend Thanksgiving serving the homeless.

Congrats to Rosario...

Rosario Rodriguez won The Crescat's Seraphic Giveaway contest. She gets a copy of The Closet's All Mine. If you don't have one, you can of course get one from Amazon or (even better) if you are in the USA in the nearest bookshop run by nuns. If the nuns don't have it in, they will get it in. I think it is nicer to buy books from nuns than from Amazon if you can.

Otherwise, in Canada the book is called Seraphic Singles and in Poland it is called Anielskie Single and the whole reason this blog is up is to promote it/them. This is vaguely amusing because now the blog is longer than all three editions put together. And I hope this is not the literary equivalent of "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"!

Although this is a blog for feeling good about being Single, I am sometimes tempted to have a Bachelor Giveaway contest. Now that I am married, I meet nice twenty-something bachelors all the time. I wonder if this is because they are far, far away from their mothers and feel the need of an auntie; it is not like I suddenly became more beautiful than I was in my twenties. It could be that I care less; when I see a twenty-something bachelor standing around shyly in the parish hall, my first thought is not "Is he cute?" but "Does he know anybody?"

I don't care what they think when I come up to them and say, "How do you do?" I don't mentally skip to the chase. There is no chase to skip to. Well, actually, I suppose B.A. might succumb to scarlet fever and leave me a youngish widow, but you know, I don't think, when I see some wilting undergrad in tweed, "Oh! I wonder if that could be my third husband!" No. My motives are entirely pure, and then when someone vaguely their age is in earshot, I introduce them to each other, and push off.

In general advice-givers suggest young women not approach men directly, and I agree with this except when one new man is surrounded by people he doesn't know but you do, especially in a parish situation. I think in this case the corporal work of mercy of welcoming the stranger takes precedence over all other considerations.

That reminds me that if there are any Catholic girls living in south-east Scotland who read this blog, our Latin Mass community could really use some more twenty-something girls and thirty-something ladies. Hint hint hint. See the strawberry blonde lady in green tweed in the parish hall after Mass.

"Young Nuns"

In a rush, poppets. Read what I wrote over here, come back, discuss in the combox.

All I want to add is that the French nun who spoke to Catherine and the cameras stressed that a vocation can be judged by how much you want it. It is a falling in love.

"Falling in love with Jesus" does not necessarily mean becoming a monk or nun. You have to fall in love with that kind of life itself, and with a particular Rule, and with a particular group of people living the Rule. Jesus is the spouse of every Christian soul, so perhaps it is wrong to overemphasize the "Bride of Christ" aspect to religious life.

A Good Word for Girlfriends

Darlingses, I think there may have been a wave of disapproval from a host of North American girlfriends last night because I was jostled awake at 5:00 A.M. British Summer Time, thinking, "I have to tell the Girlfriend Story."

Okay, so yesterday I indulged my usual snickers about boyfriend-girlfriend relationships which, I admit, are not entirely FAIR because, of course, most people these days have to go through a boyfriend-girlfriend stage before they get engaged. But you have to admit that most boyfriend-girlfriend relationships break up. They are transitory and ephemeral and painful and occasions for sin and...and... okay, sometimes they actually lead to the altar.

Now, it is true that B.A. asked me to marry him something like 10 days after we met in person, but I did not officially accept him right away. We agreed that that would be imprudent, so really I should go on to Germany to visit Volker, as I'd planned, and then go home to Canada and think about it.

Well, poor Volker. He had to listen to me go on about the fabulousness of B.A. and only put his foot down when I started discussing potential wedding dresses. He told me to call a girlfriend in Canada; he could not take such rampant feminine chatter anymore.

B.A. called me every night, of course, and as I giggled into the phone upstairs, Volker watched German television downstairs. Really, it is sad that the very best of my ex-boyfriends has had to put up with so much. Anyway, one evening B.A. told me that a woman he had met professionally some weeks before had texted him to ask what he was up to and to say that she had a "B.A.-shaped hole" in her life.

"What!" I shrieked, and possibly Volker turned up the sound on the TV. Poor Volker.

B.A. told the whole story again and I have to admit that I wasn't at all surprised that another women thought B.A. was the bees' knees.

B.A. wasn't sure what do to. Should he ignore the text? Should he reply to the text? And if he did, what would he say?

"Tell her you're busy planning your trip to Canada to see your girlfriend," I pronounced. "It serves as a friendly warning shot and has the advantage of being completely true."

I had decided, you see, that if there is a lag between "I want you to think about marrying me" and an almost certain "Yes", the people involved are boyfriend and girlfriend for the duration.

Anyway, B.A. dutifully texted his happy travel plans, and I believe that was that from his admirer. So what I would like to say today, which I did not say yesterday, is that sometimes "I have a girlfriend" is not only a true statement of fact, it is a gentle way of letting another girl down.

The Boyfriend Question

Listen--yesterday was rough. Today I want to be cheerful, cheerful I tell ya! But I am not so sure how to be cheerful about the Boyfriend Question. The Boyfriend Question usually goes something like this,

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

We know you got engaged to B.A. something like ten days after you met him in person, which frankly doesn't happen a lot, at least not to sane people in peacetime. And we know you dislike the boyfriend concept. But, listen, is having a boyfriend not usually a necessary stage between "I like you" and "Marry me"? We mean, come on.

Impatient Readers

But instead of answering that straight, I'm going to reprint a depressing little article I read in Metro yesterday on my way home from Edinburgh's Old Town:

Girls as young as 12 are posing for topless pictures for their boyfriends that end up circulating the internet as child pornography, warned the head of a paedophile protection program yesterday. A net security seminar in Sterling was told girls were inadvertently ending up on the web. Detective Chief Inspector Gordon Dawson, who headed Central Scotland Police's Operation Defender, described the internet as a huge risk for children. He said, "Boys ask their girlfriend to take pictures of herself with no top on, or he'll dump her. She does it to stay with him, but inevitably they split up. Then he's sending it around his friends over Bluetooth and, eventually, it's seen by everyone in the school'...

Say, I think there's something else that is a huge risk for children, and women, too: boyfriends like those. Have you ever noticed that sometimes your friends' boyfriends (or girlfriends--girlfriends are not off the hook here) don't really act like friends?

Having read two of the stories in the New York Times series on "Wow, aren't kids these days screwed up about sex and relationships?", I realize that it is kind of old-fashioned to be talking about boyfriends and girlfriends at all. According the NYT stories, people tend not even to pretend to have a romance going on: it's all hem-hem and deep intellectual posturing. However, I know my readership is mostly not going to get sucked into that, so I will continue to trash boy/girlfrienddom in my fuddy-duddy way.

Or maybe not... the computer ate it. Argh!!!! My Pulitzer Prize potential material is lost! Lost!

The most I have the time to rewrite right now is that from the age of 10, most girls think that it is an infallible measure of female worth to attract a boyfriend. This is stupid, but it is true.

However, you will notice that the Catechism doesn't mention boyfriends. It recognizes only two states in life: Single Life (which it calls Virginity) and Marriage. It mentions engaged people--but the most memorable bit there is that it does so to remind them that they can't have sex yet.

However, this does not stop almost all girls, no matter how young they are, from wanting to have something called "a boyfriend", which is a person quite separate from "a husband." And yet boyfriends go hand-in-hand with sexual temptation or just sexual pressure, or if not, with long periods of wondering if they are ever going to turn into husbands, or of jealousy if they talk to other girls or talk about becoming priests, or of disappointment when marriage doesn't happen.

Sometimes boyfriends aren't even really friends. I know a guy who is marvellous to his female friends, but terrible to his girlfriends. And once one of his female friends becomes his girlfriend...! Jekyll and Hyde, baby.

And now for the concluding points I still remember:

1. An actually marriage-minded suitor is immeasurably more worthwhile than a mere boyfriend.

2. A boyfriend (or girlfriend) who acts like your husband (or wife) without wanting to be your husband (or wife) is not even your friend.

3. No adult man who hasn't asked you to marry him is worth more than a year of your undivided attention.

4. If your adult boyfriend hasn't brought up marriage after a year--a whole year--of being your boyfriend, then it is up to you to ask him when he's going to. It used to be your mother's or father's job to ask a man what his intentions are but now, alas, the embarrassing conversation is up to you.

5. "But I love him/her" is not a good excuse for criminality or putting up with criminality. Men sin by hurting women, and women sin by sucking it up. (Vice versa is also true, but not as common.) It's much harder to get divorced from someone who is whackadoodle than it is just to break up with them before marriage.

Many people, although charismatic and attractive, are too whackadoodle, nasty or immature to get married right now. And don't wail "Oh, Auntie, that's so judgmental" because at times I have been too whackadoodle, nasty and immature myself, and now I am happily married to B.A. It could be that God means Mr/Miss Sexy but Nasty/Insane to marry somebody else---many, many years from now--and for you to marry Mr/Miss Amazing Right Now.

Snogs, Snuggles and Sexy Puritans

Update: Welcome again, Patheos readers! I had no idea Max Lindeman was among the few men who still read my blog despite its rosy hue and swashbuckling protectors. Trads, sedevacantists, folkies, Max... Here comes everybody, indeed!

***

B.A. and others told me to read this post by an American convert who actually writes for Salon. I am always astonished and impressed when a Catholic writes for famous and seriously secular journals because I have a persecution complex as big as the six counties of Ulster.

Anyway, Max Lindenman's piece is making the Catholic blog rounds, so I thought I'd read it. The one piece of advice I'm going to give you ladies, especially all you ladies who LONG to know what men are thinking, before you dive in is that we don't always like what men are thinking. It can be insulting. It can be challenging. It can be pretty darn aggravating. But men are who they are and not who we want them to be, and fortunately we only have to marry one at a time, if we have to marry one at all.

I have a few thoughts about Max's account. First, Max is a good writer. He seems to be an emo-blogger, though. An emo-blogger is the guy who has his heart broken by Miss Perfect and then tells you all about it, even though the girl in question is presumably still alive. There are ways of doing it that are poignant and ways of doing it that are cringeworthy. Doing it the day of the girl's wedding to someone else is definitely cringeworthy, and Max didn't do that, so good on Max.

Second, Max writes about a weird world in which Christian girls in skintight clothing boast about the number of guys who tried to get them into the sack. He calls them the Sexy Puritans, and I hope none of my readers are acting like that. But Max also mentions seeing a girl in tiny shorts and a mantilla, ending his piece by suggesting that even trad Catholic girls are getting in on the Sexy Puritan action. Eek.

Third, Max hones in on a snuggle-bunny culture in which Catholic girls treat their boyfriends as if they were as temptation-free as teddy bears. Snoggy, snoggy, snuggle, snuggle. Now (super rare confession, mark the calendar) I used to behave like that myself, and my mother read me the riot act. Like Max's Nice Catholic Girlfriend, I thought it was okay to get as much physical affection as humanly possible without falling into sexual sin, without much pondering if treating boys to whom I hadn't made a firm commitment like squishy toys might not be itself a sin.

Max doesn't quite put it that way. In fact, as much as I enjoyed Max's piece, I wonder if there isn't a thread of passive-aggression throughout. He's trying to keep it light, but somewhere in there Max is seething "How come you get to treat us like squishy toys?" I suspect from the comments that a few outraged women have picked up on Max's anger, and his not quite subtle suggestion that there is a double-standard going on and that he tried to get "his".

But I wonder if Max would prefer to eschew all physical contact whatsoever. A snuggle simply does not have the moral equivalence of a [name obviously sexual act here], and heaven knows there are thousands of single men rather older and less attractive than Max suffering from skin-hunger. They would be happy for a bit of a snuggle. They would be happier for a lot more, of course, but a snuggle beats a kick in the teeth.

Anyway, Searching Single life is tough, and having a boyfriend or girlfriend or human teddy bear doesn't make it much easier. Dating relationships bring their own problems and they are no substitute whatsoever for marriage. And speaking of marriage, I don't snuggle with any men except my husband, so why are girls snuggling non-stop with men not their husbands? I don't say this in a judgmental way because, let's face it, I was a snuggle monster myself. I'm just throwing the question out there.

If it is totally okay and in keeping with Catholic traditions to snuggle non-husbands, then that is totally awesome, and I will keep my eye peeled for plump, warm, snuggly looking chaps. But somehow I don't think it is.

Reticence is Golden

I am sure that I have written about this before, but it bears repeating: don't tell suitors/the girl you are pursuing about your ex-boyfriends/ex-girlfriends.

Obviously, don't deny that they ever existed. If (IF) you are asked about one, then talk, but be brief and as positive as possible. I am cudgeling my mind for a memory of some suitor desperately wanting to know about an ex-boyfriend, and I can't think of any. But I do remember wanting to talk about ex-boyfriends, either because they made for good anecdotes or because I wanted to process the leftover pain with a sympathetic soul, and this always drove the future ex-boyfriends insane. By the way, never, ever, EVER discuss an ex on a first date.

This is by no means solely a feminine failing. Some men can talk endlessly about the women who broke their hearts into a trillion pieces, and I know of one woman who put up listening to a man vent about me for months and months. Finally she told him that if he didn't stop, she would walk. (I'm afraid she was otherwise a doormat: she gave him years of devotion, and he never married her. When he left town, he didn't take her. Very sad.) Obviously I heard this story secondhand, but I'd bet the grocery money it is true. I have listened to other men go on about other women who got away.

I cannot stress how important it is when you meet a new person not to sound off in a bitter fashion about an ex. You might feel like the new woman is a kindred soul who understands you like no-one before, but many women are startled when you inform them that your last ex-girlfriend was a cheap, money-grubbing, psycho-bitch from hell. And if you mention the rest of the harpies it was your misfortune to date, the new woman may very well reflect on the long list and conclude that one day she, too, might be described by you in such unflattering terms. Buh-bye.

Even worse is telling your new flame how perfect your old flame was. I remember feeling very miserable as I listened to how smart and how sensitive my predecessor was. I heard about her child (from another relationship), her dog, her job, her work rivalries, her skin cancer scar, and on and on and on. It was rather foolish to have been so surprised when he went back to her, but I was. Now, of course, I thank my lucky stars.

The time to mention pain from a last relationship is when you are having a fight in a new relationship. If the girl of your dreams is demanding why you do X, Y, Z, and it dawns on you that this is because of your last relationship, you can tell her that. ("I'm sorry. It's not you. You're wonderful. It's her.") A woman in love, and a woman who has grown to trust you, is perfectly willing to believe you when you say your ex was bonkers if you provide examples of her bonkertude. Women almost always take their man's side when it's him versus another woman.

So women feel wary or sad when men trash or extol their ex-girlfriends. Men, I have read, throw another wrinkle into the dynamic. Men take their cues from other men, and so if you tell them that other men have treated you badly, they subconsciously get the message that they can treat you badly, too. Therefore, if you keep finding yourself being treated badly over and over again, ask yourself if that might not be at least partly because you keep telling men how badly other men have treated you.

I can't remember if this is in the Rules or the book I used to hide under my bed, but the idea is that if you want a man to treat you like a queen, you have to give the impression that you're used to being treated like a queen. And by that I don't mean some spoiled brat of a prima donna. I mean a real queen--like the Queen of England (Scotland, Canada, etc.) when she was a young thing like yourselves. Gracious, smiling, lady-like, and a wonderful listener. Feathery hats optional.

A NCB left a comment in yesterday's combox about an ex-girlfriend who keeps a scrapbook of all her ex-boyfriends. What blows my mind is not that she does this (although it does seem a bit weird for a woman to emulate Don Giovanni) but that she let him know about it. It is just not very smart or healthy to lead a man, especially a marriage-worthy man, to believe that he is just another man in a long, never-ending list of temporary boyfriends.

So this morning I encourage all of you to remember that your past is your own, and you neither have to nor should necessarily share it with the objects of your affection. If asked about a former relationship, sum it up briefly and kindly with, "A nice man/girl, but we had different interests/there was no real spark." The fact that s/he was a raging alcoholic can wait for the day you have a fight because your beloved got drunk, took his/her shirt off and sang the national anthem on a park bench.

And, girls, I beg you. Stop telling people how badly you've been treated. If it's become a compulsion, consider therapy. I know some people take it as an insult when I suggest therapy, but I was in therapy for five years and say so without an ounce of shame. I found it very helpful. I have two caveats:

1. Freud and most of his disciples hated and hate Catholicism, so make sure your therapist is a practising Catholic or at very least Catholic-positive. I've heard of therapists assuring their clients that their problems stem from Catholicism. If your therapist tells you this, find another therapist.

2. Therapy is a business. Your therapist, like your hairdresser or trainer, has an interest in you returning to him/her. Be clear with yourself how long you wish to work with a therapist, and when you feel done, be clear with your therapist that you feel done. Don't expect your therapist to tell you when you're done. And sometimes they are done. If they start asking you for advice, or make inappropriate revelations about their lives, they're done. Say good-bye.

If you cannot afford therapy or find a Catholic-positive therapist, spiritual direction can also be a great help. Usually spiritual directors are not qualified psycho-therapists, but they can help you develop a closer relationship with God, the great Healer.

The Most Pelagian Day of the Year

Happy New Year all my little Singles and sympathetic non-Singles! I am back from Mass, and well primed with champagne. Time to harangue you and generally get up your nose and say things your mother is too nice or too afraid to say.

The first thing I want you girls to do is to cross "Get a boyfriend/husband" off your resolution list. Shame on you for trying to pre-determine the fate of other people. Shame shame shame. Why not just cook up a love potion, shove it in a box of chocolates and randomly hand the box around? It's the extreme of what you are plotting on your little list. Getting a boyfriend/spouse is not something that you do but something that happens. You can lose (or try to lose) ten pounds, or increase your earnings, or quit smoking, or learn French, but you cannot make a man fall in love with you. You can only be pleased or distressed when one does.

And because, like Nature, I unashamedly have a double-standard, I am hoping that men-not-called-to-Single life have themselves made a resolution to get to know more girls with an eye to perhaps future courtship. However, I will remind that you too can not make people fall in love with you, although women are often impressed and flattered by a real effort.

There is a limit, though. If a girl says, "Just friends," drop her flat and try someone else. Don't waste your time on piddly little friendships with girls who want to be "just friends." Let the sudden drying up of your attentions teach them what happens when they say "Just friends" to perfectly eligible bachelors like yourself.

Pelagius, in case you haven't yet supplemented the sub-standard religious education common to most Catholic schools, was the great theological rival of St. Augustine and therefore a superstar among heretics. Pelagius, who was British, thought you could become good without prevenient Grace; in short he thought everyone should just pull himself up by his own moral bootstraps. He did not think you needed God's help to do this. And like all super-duper heresies, this attitude has never gone away. You cannot be good without God's help, and you cannot get married without His help, either.

As I like to say, the primary reason why Searching Singles are not yet married is that God has not willed it. Therefore, when wondering why you are still Single, the person to talk to is God, because He is primarily responsible. He has not yet brought the handsome or pretty stranger into your life, and why not, eh? Only He knows, but it must be for a good reason. Possibly your future spouse (if you have one) isn't ready for you yet. Goodness knows, my own spouse wasn't ready for me until two or three days after I met him in person, which is when he was received into the Church.

So if you have made a resolution to get engaged this year to someone you haven't even met yet or, worse, someone who isn't at all in love with you, then cross it off your list and write "Meet more friendly people." That you can do. Try to meet people of all ages. Grown-ups don't hang out only with people born the same year as themselves, and they often know other people your age, e.g. their lovely daughters, handsome sons, witty grandchildren.

Under that write "Be happier and more confident." That, too, is up to you. Pray for the grace to accept what life throws at you more cheerfully and for confidence. Happiness and confidence make you more attractive than any cosmetic surgery known to man.

Under that write "Try to be more pleasant in public." Letting it all hang out is not, actually, the cardinal virtue opposed to the sin of hypocrisy. It is sloppiness, and generally a bad idea except among your very best friends of the same (THE SAME) sex. Even married people should do their best to keep up appearances before their poor old spouses, who cannot escape. Personally, I have resolved to stop using bad words in front of dear B.A. Women should endeavour not to use bad words before men, and I would have eighteen thousand fits if BA used bad words before me.

So although women cannot in fact "Get a boyfriend/spouse" and men usually cannot make the Queen Bee of their set want to snog them and them alone, there are things that you can do to make yourself more attractive to other Searching Singles. Just remember that you can't control other people, and that God is the boss.

Truth and Joy

The Truth will set us free, we are told, and Christians take this metaphorically to mean that Christ, who is Truth, has set us free. But we can move (somewhat) beyond metaphor because Aquinas writes "The truth is what is." Now that which is is being, and all being derives from God, whose existence is His essence, and therefore is Being.

Where am I going with this? Well, I am trying to make an argument that truth is extremely important, much more important than we generally think (and you should read St. Augustine on the subject), and that no matter how many fibs, evasions or lies you offer other people (not that I'm suggesting it), you must never lie to yourself.

Being a Seraphic Single does not include telling yourself lies about yourself and your Singlehood. If you love being Single, and just want to stay Single, either as a nun or monk, a consecrated virgin or priest, or a woman or man living free of any vow but her or his baptismal and confirmation vows, then that is great. That is marvellous. Don't pretend to yourself that you really want to be married. You don't have to. It's okay.

Louisa May Alcott explained her 19th century singleness by saying (apparently, I heard this from a tour guide at her house in Concord, MA) that she'd rather just paddle her own canoe. And, my goodness, what a lot of freedom there is in permanent Singledom. You can be one of the guys forever and ever. If you're not a nun, you make your own money knowing that's all the money you'll have to work with. You organize your own retirement plans. You save up and buy your own house. You never have to ask anyone's permission for any of your choices ever. You never have to figure out or pander to the male (or, if male, female)psyche. Ahhhh....

However, if you hate being Single or like being Single for now, but hope to get married eventually, the one person who absolutely has to know and acknowledge this is you. When you take ownership of this wish it has less power over you and how you act in public. For example, I remember a desperately lonely young man at a wedding getting absolutely smashed at the open bar while bragging, "I'm sure glad it's not me putting my head into a noose!" He didn't fool anyone, and I'm happy to say he's married now. People who simply long to marry but sneer at marriage are extremely annoying.

Of course, you don't have to--and should not--tell the universe. When you are Single and you want to get married, you have to be as peaceable as the dove and as cunning as the serpent. In short, you have to take into consideration the male psyche, if you are a woman, and the female psyche, if you are a man. Women do not naturally think like men, and men do not naturally think like women. I think we should just all accept this right now. This has absolutely nothing to do with Reason. We all participate in Reason. It's just that we function differently, and women who want to get along with men simply have to accept that men are not very logical and plan for it.

The prime example of this is the guy who pursues you and then, when you are hooked, drops you like a hot potato. This stems from the average man's love of a challenge and his illogical yet undeniable disappointment when something turns out to be easier than he thought it would be. It is for this reason that both the infamous Rules and Auntie Seraphic tell you that you are never allowed to talk to the man you are romantically interested in every single day. If you honestly think of him ONLY as a pal (and be honest here), then text him every hour; I don't care. But if you can barely keep yourself from seizing him in your womanly arms, then for heaven's sake don't communicate with him every day. At least don't see him every day. The Rules says you should see him only twice a week.

I just stared at my husband, pondering his psyche. Since we had quite a whirlwind romance, I suspect that the necessary challenge was the whole distance thing, not to mention the difficulties he suspected the U.K. Border Agency might throw in his way. Then there's the whole brass involved in asking a Canadian to live in an old Scottish house with no central heating and limited hot water. (Don't ask.) And it is just possible that the bonds of marriages are cemented by all the challenges, once you are engaged, of getting married: your parents, his parents, the Church, the State, the banquet hall, the florist, the hairdresser, the dress...

Another thing you must do is be open to invitations to meet men (or women), and therefore school your own psyche to be intrigued, not insulted, when people offer to introduce you to them. Yes, it is embarrassing and more than often disappointing. Yes, it would be a million times better if people would ask you first. And it would be a billion times better if married friends invited a sloo of Singles to their parties, instead of just two: you and The Other One. However, married people usually have incredible amnesia about what is most comfortable for Single people, and if you get married, you probably will, too. Bless our little married hearts.

This brings me to the subject of joy. I hope you have some because this is the part of you, if you are Single but wish to marry one day, that you must show to the world as often as you possible can. Healthy people are attracted to happy people. So be happy. When someone asks you how you are, you are not just fine, you are great. When you blog, you blog about what you love and what is great about your life, not about what you hate and what is lousy about your life. Own your sorrows, but share them with only a tolerant few. Own your joys, and trumpet them about.

Be joyful, be confident, and, if you are a woman, ask Single men to help you with stuff so that they know that you are not 100% self-sufficient and that--if they are supremely fortunate and/or hard-working--they might be allowed to add to your joy.

Feminine Touches

"You are a very feminine woman," said my shrink, who was a woman.

"Say what?" I said. "What do you mean?! I'm a boxer. I have muscles on my muscles."

"Look at the clothes you are wearing," said my shrink, and lo, looking down I saw that I was wearing a tight blue mediaeval shirt with ruffled sleeves, a long black velvet skirt and cute boots.

I guess I was a very feminine woman, although I certainly didn't act like it. The joy of my life was working out at the Y in the morning and at the boxing ring in the evening, and I never ate fun things like chocolate or chips. I was bursting with as much natural testosterone as a normal woman can have, and it is almost a miracle I didn't get into fistfights with women in dance clubs. And I thought nothing of asking guys out, especially guys at work. Ay, me.

I was super-competent: I had a great salary, I almost bench my weight, I sparred with men in the ring, I paid half on dates. It makes me sad, now, thinking of how I paid half on dates. Very, very sad. That stopped when, thanks to tendonitis, I quit my great job. When I got another job, I made WAY less than my eventual (long since ex-) boyfriend, so he paid for dinners out. And, amazingly, I was not stoned to death by feminists in the street. Meanwhile, eventual (long since ex-) boyfriend enjoyed paying for the dinners out. I think it made him feel useful. Men love to feel useful.

My favourite movie back then was Girlfight, but (to ruin the ending) there is no way Michelle Rodriguez could beat her boyfriend in a boxing match and still be his girlfriend afterwards. I am laughing just thinking about it. Wa ha ha ha ha! A man can beat his best friend in a boxing match and, unless the friend is Ernest Hemingway, they can be closer friends than ever. A woman cannot beat her boyfriend in a boxing match and expect love to conquer all: he will be hu-mil-i-a-ted!

Although at least they are not dying in war or in factory accidents as rapidly as they used to, men are not doing too well right now. Masculinity itself has been under attack from several quarters for decades. And meanwhile the old battle for supremacy among men is still going on. The major difference is that women have joined in.

Somehow women got the idea that to flourish like men, we ought to be like men, so we take great pride in being able to beat men at stuff they are supposed to be good at. However, our victory is shortlived when we discovered that this does not make men like us very much. This is confusing because it always works out in the movies.

It turns out that in real life, men who like women prefer women who look and act like women. If we have been telling ourselves that we are better than that, it comes as a bit of a shock. Another shock is that men don't always like hanging out with women 24/7, no matter how much we know about sports and politics. Sometimes guys just want to hang out with the guys. In The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer is very witty on the subject.

I love lists, so here is a random list on how to emphasize your femininity in a way that makes men feel better about being men post-1970.

1. When in doubt, get a man to do it. Stop taking lids off jars. Sure, if you work at it hard enough, you can get the damn lid off. But if you get a man to do it, the jar will probably be open faster, and he will feel a sense of accomplishment. Caveat: avoid asking a married man to do anything for you, or his missus might have something to say about it.

2. Smile and say thank you when a man opens the door for you. Take the seat when he offers it. Smile and say thank you again.

3. Develop and emphasize mysterious feminine rituals. Make an appointment for a pedicure, and announce it at large. This will create a sense of sisterhood in fellow women and a sense of mystery in men. They might not even know what a pedicure is.

4. Wear cute shoes. Men notice cute shoes. I don't know why they do, but they do. If you can do so without damage, wear shoes with heels. Men don't wear shoes with heels.

5. If you love or even play a violent sport, don't tell men about it. No matter how cool they say it is, they are all wondering if you could beat them in a fight. This is not a thought you ever want an attractive man to have about you. Your love of boxing is definitely not something to bring up on a first date, and I know what I'm talking about.

6. It would not kill you to wear a skirt. Wear skirts. Especially to church. And if the language of your church service is Latin, it would not kill you to wear a lace mantilla. Nothing says, "Hello, I am a Nice Catholic Girl" like a lace mantilla. If you are never-married, wear a white one. If you are married, wear a black one. If you are ex-married, be creative. Navy blue is nice.

7. Wear make-up. Men say they prefer women to look 100% natural. They are wrong.

8. Grow your hair. Don't cut it the second you turn 40. There is no law you have to do that. If it drags down your face, pile it on top of your head.

9. Arrange girl-only events, and publicize them, too. Never complain when men arrange guy-only events. These girl-only events should be parties, not attempts to seize power and rule the world.

10. Never complain about men when men are around. It's rude, and they take it personally.

11. Never say you like men better than women. It's bad psychology, and makes you sound like you'd rather be a man. And most of the time, men like women better than men. Offered a choice between living in a monastery and living on a desert island with women alone, men would take the desert island 98-99% of the time. Not included in this figure are men already living in monasteries. Leave the monks alone.

12. Fat is feminine. If you really are obese, then you must talk to a doctor about this. (Obviously, I am not a doctor.) But if you are not obese, and just feel badly about your curves, then I suggest you find a belly-dancing class. At least search the web for pictures of plus-sized stars and models.

Incidentally, the British media is a lot more open to the reality of feminine fat than the Canadian or American. I see women in TV ads here I would NEVER see on Canadian TV.

For more reactionary yelling about make-up and hair, see my infamous "How To Look Like a Catholic Girl." Don't copy the whole thing and paste it to your icky $15/month dating websites, like one poor girl did, presumably to make the boys who got angry when she copied and pasted "How To Seem Like a Nice Catholic Boy" like her again. In the midst of the psychodrama (in which the girl, now scraping, pasted my photo inviting the boys to make fun of it), I called my lawyer, which made the owners of the dating website sad.


Update: I see that I am more conservative on "HTLLACG" than I am now. Look, I think you can get away with blatantly sexy maybe once or at most twice a year. This startling volte-face comes courtesy of B.A. who actually thought I looked good dressed as a Katie-Price wannabe on Hallowe'en.

Don't Bother Trying to Improve Them

I have been writing advice all morning, which is so against my M.Div. training, I am ashamed. However, we all know I'm not in ministry but in bloggery, so I guess that's not so bad.

Now I am seriously in a spill-my-guts mood, so now I shall write in a way that may ruffle the feathers of my few male readers, although frankly I am delighted that I still have male readers and of course men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life.

When I was Single, I was a little more careful about not saying bad things about men. At least, I think I was. My publisher, being a man, was shocked and shaken by some of the things I say about men in my book. (By the way, have you bought all your friends copies of my book for Christmas yet, and if not, why not, eh?) Men look tough, but inside they are tender plants, or so my mother always said.

When you say "Sometimes I really hate men" they take it personally. In fact, sometimes when you say "Men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life," they take that personally, too, and wail, "Why not something more nutritious?"

For nutrition, I talk to women, cuddle babies or read books. For that old black magic, that zip, that bit of what-gets-you-through the day, that caffeine, I banter with the man I married not because he was a great earner or whatever (and FWIW he has no car), but because he is sexy, amusing and good. "Ah, your poor wife! I pity her. At least with my Paddy, if I've nothing to eat, I've got something to look at" as the stroppy Catholic Belfast wifie said to the British soldier.

Personally, I like men not because they can do math or whatever but because they are taller than me, and have broader shoulders, and have to shave their faces, and often have growly voices. When they can do cool stuff, stuff women can or could do, too, if they got around to it, like build houses or paint portraits or dance the Gay Gordon, I am full of additional admiration.

I couldn't give a tinker's damn how much money they have or what car they drive. I have a husband; their money is no good to me. My chief social interest in men is whether they amuse me or not. If they write to me asking for advice, then I will do my best to advise them, my brothers in Christ, but in general I leave men-in-general alone to get on with their job of being men.

I have absolutely zero interest in actively investing in the improvement of specific men. I know that there are women who feel that it is their duty to give men friends unasked for advice and admonishment and fraternal correction, but if they are Single and wish to marry one day, I think they are shooting themselves in the high-heeled foot.

My mother never seems to say a cross word to my father; normally she tells him that he is clever, and my childhood echoed with "O children, what a clever man your father is!" This brainwashed us into thinking our dad was The Best Man on Earth, which he sort of is, and it brainwashed me into thinking that the best way to deal with husbands is to praise them all the time. My husband seems to like this. He flourishes. My father flourishes, too. Like plants.

The thing is, though, both my father and my husband are clever, good and worthy of praise. So are my brothers. I suppose they must have their bad points, but I generally ignore them, unless they affect me immediately and directly, and then I squawk.

To sum up, I think Single women should retain a slight reserve around Single men. IF you want to get married one day, flirt with Single men like crazy, but don't give them advice or critique unless they ask. Unsolicited advice is for aunties, and spontaneous critique is for mothers, older sisters and, as a last resort, wives. I also think you should marry only that man it would not choke you to praise all the time, and who would appreciate your praise. Of course, this might be specific to women who were brought up the way I was brought up. Possibly there are other viable methods to the Care and Feeding of Husbands.

Men are not women. I think they're more like trees. And I love trees. Give the sound ones lots of sun and nourishment, avoid nicking their roots with the lawnmower and don't bother talking to them about their flaws. If they're that flawed, beware of falling branches, and find a sounder tree to hug.

Honourable Combat

I wasn't here yesterday because I was lying in wait for the Holy Father, Benedict XVI. First I hung outside the Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh for hours, and then I rushed to Glasgow to await him in Bellahouston Park. And as is my usual practise, I prayed for all my little Singles at the elevation of the chalice.

While I was away, I got many emails. And one of them was from a Nice Catholic Boy who pointed out that if a man gets shot down by a woman or women in a small Catholic circle, moving on is just not that easy.

I know this to be true, which is why I addressed this very misfortune in the Catholic Register. Hmm...the Catholic Register no longer lovingly archives online every single thing I write, so I will have to reiterate my warnings against DRAMA below.

I am writing as an ex-drama addict. When I was 21 or so, nothing thrilled me like a good old lover's triangle, as long as the apex of the triangle was little me. I am not proud of this. I shudder to think what this will look like if I ever see my whole life flash in front of my eyes, e.g. on Judgment Day. So I feel qualified to tell the young Catholic men and women of the world to quit with the drama, to rise above the drama, and to actually behave like Christians.

First of all, if you are a man, and you develop a crush on a woman, for heaven's sake, don't let it evolve into an obsession that has nothing to do with the real her and everything to do with your idea of what the real her might/"should" be. Talk to her, observe if she seems interested in you (smiles brightly, touches your arm, asks you to a party) and then ask her out for coffee. If coffee goes well, ask her out for dinner. Don't, I beg you, just moon around for weeks and months on end without making a clear move. It puts a woman in a very uncomfortable position.

Second of all, if you are a woman, don't encourage those men you are not interested in. Yes, it's fun to hug your friends. But the second you start to think that ol' Greg or ol' Petey--whom you like but not in THAT way--has a crush on you, stop touching him. I mean that. Stop touching him. Since when did women start going around hugging men we're not related to anyway? And when ol' Greg or ol' Petey starts making date noises, turn him down swiftly and kindly. Ask "Is this as friends or as a date?" Hopefully ol' G or ol'P makes a reply even as clear as "As whatever you want it to be." At which point you say, "I want us to be just friends."

Third, and this is very important, you do not relate George's or Petey's humiliation (for no matter how swift or nice you are about it, it will be a humiliation) to your friends. Yes, this is very hard. Yes, this is almost impossible. But keeping quiet is the right thing to do. And when your pal tells you a week later that Greg just asked her out, you are going to have to pray to St. Jude the Patron of Lost Causes to ask the Lord to help you keep your mouth shut. You turned down Greg, and now he has the right to ask out anyone he wants. And he does not need you to make him look like a loser.

Fourth, Greg and Petey, if you ask a girl out and she says No, you are not allowed to go around talking about what a bitch she is. You are not allowed to go home and brood and wonder what will happen if you try again next week. No means No. Maybe in three months, the girl, having had time to think about you a little more, will be more amenable to your suit, but for now, drop it.

We all know what happens to our small Catholic circles when these rules are not followed. It's not pretty. It's bad for everyone. The nice Catholic men are humiliated and afraid to approach other women in the group, and the women wonder why they haven't been snapped up by a nice Catholic man yet. In short, behaving like a mute or babbling stalker (guys) or a bitch (girls) has its built-in punishment. And it hurts the whole community.

I hope to do my bit to end the war between the sexes, so I'm a little uneasy about the title of this post. However, the image I have in my head is of my difficult hero, the Red Baron. The Red Baron was, as you know, a German flying ace in the First World War. And fighter pilots in the First World War, no matter what country they fought for, usually had an honour code. They tried to shoot down planes, not to kill pilots, if you see the difference. Sometimes they would shoot down a plane, see if the pilot emerged, and then, if he did, waggle their wings in a friendly fashion before zooming away. They did not--unless they were real bastards--stood him standing there on the ground. The Red Baron was not a real bastard. He was a gentleman.

So my little Singles, I beg you to remember the model of the honourable German fighter pilot. Sometimes you have to shoot someone down, but you never have to make it worse for him or her. Gossiping about what he/she said to you, and what you said, and how disgusted you are that he/she would even dream, blah blah blah, is just nasty. Don't do it.

Auntie Seraphic & "Disabled and Determined"

Sometimes I get a letter that challenges my mind and stretches my little world. Here's one:

Dear Auntie Seraphic:

First, I must say that I love your blog, which I accidentally stumbled upon one day when completely bored at work and trying to find blogs which were not nixed by our firewall. :) And who says the Lord can't provide? I honestly can't believe I'm writing a letter like this to a complete stranger, but, such is life.

I am writing because I agree pretty much with everything you say about women, and how they should and should not make themselves available for dating. However, as a disabled woman, I find it hard to put your advice into practice. I will try to explain what I mean without being too rambly, and hope that you might be able to give me some practical suggestions.

First, disabled women find themselves in a unique situation because they must walk the fine line of asserting their independence so as to be dignified but not to come across as so independent that they have in no need of anyone, let alone a man. If I never refused help or, in some cases, rather ardently asserted my self-will, I would be carried practically everywhere, have every door flung open for me, have all my
food served to me, etc, etc. In essence, I would be treated like a child. Not only is this not what I desire, nor is it complimentary, it certainly does not give off the vibe that, hey, now THIS is a woman who can be a wife and mother! Husbands might want to be our protectors, but caretakers? Not so sure.

However, the assertion of ones independence can often be interpreted as aloofness or arrogance or some such. Many a time, I have been at a churchy event with any number of young Catholic adults. If I adopt the former attitude, well, don't you know, I make tons of new galpals but not a single male speaks with me. If I assert the latter attitude, I often appear as unfriendly, no matter how graciously I might refuse the offers of help.

I think this issue is compounded by the fact that, since I am completely blind, I can not do many of the "subtle" feminine things that women like to do in order to catch a man's attention. How do I let a man know that I am open to dating without being too forward and without being able to adopt many typical ways in which women do such things?

Lastly, I, unfortunately, agree with your statement that a man either is attracted to a woman, or he is not. I also believe that your average, everyday man is not going to look at a disabled woman and think ATTRACTION! for a variety of social and, yes, I do believe that for strictly biological reasons, disability is not as attractive as, well, non-disability.

This isn't to say that I sit around feeling sorry for myself. I love me, and I love my life and my friends and my activities. It doesn't mean I think I can't be a mom, or that I can't be productive. I have a good job, graduated from a terrific college,
navigate [a large city] in the US on my own, but I also understand on a practical level that, were I to be paired with a sighted identical twin, the majority of men would probably opt for the sighty.

I acknowledge the social stereotypes which might cause men to believe that the disabled are not interested in sex, cannot be good mothers/wives, and many others which are consciously [but usually subconsciously] held. I also believe that, evolutionarily, being disabled is a legitimate weakness, and I think this plays a genuine role when considering spouses. I am sick of being told "if men are
going to judge you on that they're not worth having," "you'll eventually find someone who'll love you for YOU," and "you're only 23-you're still so young!" because such platitudes do not acknowledge how painful it can be to watch your single friends be flirted with and courted as you stand by unnoticed. [Also, such platitudes] are not practical.

I hope this letter came across as I intended it to. I am trying to remain content in my singledom, yet I do yearn for marriage deeply. I am looking for an eligible, traditional catholic man who is accepting of disabilities (and we thought just the eligible traditional Catholic man population was a small one!), and I am seeking any advice which might help said young men to realize that I'm actually quite awesome and they'd be lucky if I thought them worthy enough to bust out the super-elegant-eveningware cane!

Thanks for any advice, and keep up the humorous posts! They're terrific.

With love in Jesus,

Disabled and Determined

Now, as far as I know, this is my first-ever letter from a blind Single, so I wrote back for more information. Long-time readers will not be surprised that I wanted to know what Disabled and Determined looks like. I don't think men, especially Christian men, are soooo inwardly Darwinian that they would reject an attractive girl at once because she is blind. Sighted men are all about, well, sight.

So after some clarification and some googling, this is what I wrote back:

Dear Disabled and Determined,

After poking around on the internet, I can see why you asked me. So far there does not seem to be a lot of stuff on the topic, although there are certainly some "Disabled Dating" websites that include tips not really helpful to the blind like "keep eye contact." I checked the website for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind because I am Canadian and that's the first blind advocacy group I could think of. And, lo, nothing on dating. Maybe readers will be able to find something solid, though.

Meanwhile, let us recap. You're 23, right? You're attractive, but not a super-model. You are slim and have medium length curly hair. You have a lot of friends, you work out, you go to Mass, and you seem to go to a lot of Catholic events. You are interested in men. So far so good.

The first problem may be your feeling that you must be independent simply all of the time. And I can definitely understand why because if I grew up with a disability, I would long to be like everybody else in that I could take care of myself and do everything for myself.

However, two things that women find out are 1. that sometimes, just because we are women, we DO need help, and 2. that good men enjoy helping--it makes them feel useful.

If I need to get the lid off a jar or a cork out of a bottle, I don't struggle with it. I go and find a man and get him to struggle with it. Men love to feel useful. Helping them feel useful is not a loss of our independence. It is a little gift to them.

Therefore, the next time a young man you like offers to do something for you, accept or think of something you're more comfortable with. For example, if I were at a party, and a man asked me if he could get me a drink, I might turn down a beer but say I would love a glass of water, thank you. And when he turned up with the water, I would thank him with a dazzling smile. And I love it when men get the door for me. They open the door, I say thank you. They offer me their seat on the bus, I take it and say thank you. Bless their little useful hearts!

The second problem might be figuring out how important sight is to sighted men. I'm afraid it really is, which is why I asked what you looked like. The Disabled Dating websites I looked at assured me that 94% of communication is non-verbal, which once again doesn't help the visually impaired, and makes me wonder who is running the Disabled Dating sites! But if you are not doing this already, consider how your body language makes you look approachable or not approachable to sighted people. Figure out which clothes flatter you and are appropriate to your age and personality. Practice smiling while saying hello, and nodding to show you have understood what a person has said to you. (Sorry if this is all basic stuff you know already!)

There are two visually impaired women in my parish, one married (not totally blind, I think) and one Single (totally blind). The married woman does not wear dark glasses or use a stick; usually her husband guides her around. The Single woman has dark glasses and a very naughty--but loveable--guide dog. The advantage of the dark glasses, I suspect, is that they create the illusion that she is keeping eye contact with sighted people (who seem have an inborn sense that eye contact means friendly interest--well, I do anyway). What do you think of this?

The third problem stems from this one, and it is how to smile at a man from across a crowded room when you can't see him. If I were in your shoes, I would enlist the aid of a trusted female friend, first to find out if any interesting man is looking at me, and then to fetch him with the line, "My friend Seraphic wants to meet you." Your friend becomes your smile.

This is bolder than I would recommend to a sighted woman, but in the case of a blind woman, it seems a necessity. And, besides, if the guy doesn't want to meet you after all, he can just make some excuse and flee. Do not be overly crushed if this happens because, believe me, men just ignore the welcoming smiles of sighted women all the time.

The fourth problem is that sighted people have no real clue what it is like to be blind and forget that blind people cannot see their non-verbal cues. I dated a severely hearing impaired guy for two years, and constantly forgot that he couldn't understand me at all unless he could read my lips. He had to remind me over and over again. I'm not saying that all sighted men are as dumb as I was, but I am suggesting that you are going to have boundless patience while building friendships and potential romantic relationship with sighted men.

Do tell me if any of this is helpful. I don't see why some guy shouldn't fall in love with you eventually and marry you, unless it is simply not God's will for you. Queen Alexandra was profoundly deaf, but very lovely, and Edward VII of England married her.

As I say to everyone, our main focus should be on making friends, not meeting mates. Husbands and wives usually start out as friends-of-friends, and become friends-who-are-secretly-attracted-to-each-other, and then fall in love. Tell your female friends you are interested in making more good male Catholic friends, and see what happens.

Also, as I say all the time, I didn't meet the Perfect Man for Me until I was 38. And I was attractive, funny, smart, university educated and all that stuff. If God wants it to happen, it will happen, but only when He says so.

Finally, I feel that other blind women may be a great resource for dating advice. If you belong to a support group for the blind, bring up the topic at a meeting. I am sure everyone will be glad you did.

Grace and peace,
Seraphic

Now, there are two points that I had not considered, and Disabled and Determined filled me in. The first is the shocker that disabled support groups do not always provide good relationship and sexual advice. There is a culture of wanting to behave like "all other women", and this, unfortunately, means the "acting just like men" crap we popularized in the Age of the Pill. I think, then, that there is a crying need for faithful CATHOLIC fellowships for disabled men and women. I wish I knew older, blind-from-babyhood, Catholic married women who could pass on their wisdom and experience to Disabled and Determined.

The second point is what to do if you are blind and want to join a new Catholic parish, and you can't convince your sighted friends to come along. How do you meet people, including men? My advice here is to find the parish priest and ask him to introduce you to men and women your own age. (This, by the way, goes for everybody. The one man you can always go up to and get the ball rolling with is the priest.) And I suspect that it is easier to meet people in a small, quirky parish with a strong identity (whether Trid or Most-Left-Wing-In-Town) than in a ginormous, anything-goes parish of thousands.

Update: Association of Blind Catholics (UK) here.

Watching "Wink, Meet, Delete"

(Update: I forgot two people. Eeee! Sorry! I've added them on.)

There are 15 million Singles in Britain. Seven million of them internet date. There are over 1400 dating sites in Britain, and they generate over £105 million. In 2009 British internet sites spawned 12 million first dates. Only 50% of British online daters are looking for a long-term relationship.

I found all this out last night from a BBC2 program called "Wink, Meet, Delete." If you are in Britain or Ireland, I recommend that you try to find and watch it online. If you aren't, you are probably out of luck, so I will describe it below.

Benedict Ambrose and I watched "Wink, Meet, Delete" from the comfort of our flat in the Historical House. I think B.A. had a glass of wine, so imagine B.A. with a glass of wine in a moss-green Parker Knowll armchair and me in a corner of a white IKEA sofa, wearing a grey argyle pullover. There we were, a typical 21st century married couple (including the 10+ extra pounds married people put on shortly after getting married) watching a handful of Singles talk wittily, bravely, desperately about their internet search for love. Feel free to throw popcorn at your computer screen.

The show was enthralling. The producers had assembled a variety of Singles, mostly middle-aged to talk to. There were:

1. a Baby Boomer Guardianista (a very left-wing but consumerist, PC, right-on, middle-class, Spirit of the 1960s) man in a black turtleneck

2. a funny, balding, squashy divorced journalist with a soul patch

3. a clever, vivid, slender 50-something writer, a widow

4. a fat, chuckling blonde, whom I adored

5. a largish, lovely girl in her 20s, of perhaps Mediterranean heritage, with beautiful long dark hair

6. a young and handsome Edinburgh (or Glasgow..?) white-collar office type (drool)

7. a very pretty, fun part-African 24 year old divorcee with two children

8. a 39 year old divorced roofer with bad teeth

9. a stocky, bald red-headed 48 year old Glaswegian ( or Edinburgher..?) estate agent who could have been Frankie Boyle's less confident older brother

10. a nice-looking, ordinary bloke in his 20s or early 30s who, according to B.A., had bad teeth, but I thought he just looked nice

Update 11. a beautiful woman with huge dark eyes and MS

12. a conventionally pretty young women

All of these people were tremendously interesting and telegenic, so kudos to the producers for finding them. And I hope they will now forgive me (if they read this), for I shall now make some personal remarks.

1. The Guardianista man was a type as easy to recognize as a stormtrooper in Star Wars, and when he said he belonged to the Guardian Companions site, I said, "Bwa ha ha ha ha!", which is what I said when My Nearest Neighbour said she had a friend who was on the Guardian Companions site. I just think left-wing people with intellectual interests, who drink Chablis, name-drop Martin Amis, and find religious faith embarrassing are, as a group, hilarious, if potentially dangerous.

Anyway, the Guardianista man wasn't really interested in a relationship but in delightful flirtation and witty letters over the internet. He was taken aback at forthright women who say "Okay, I trust you aren't an ax-murderer, rapist or pedophile, so let's meet." He was more inclined to want to exchange 700 emails first. Once he had dinner over the internet with a woman in Florida. He made his dinner, she made her dinner, and then they ate their respective dinners "together", presumably with webcams. I thought this sad, but he enjoyed it very much. Curiously, though, when he took this woman to a real dinner in Florida, to a very expensive restaurant (which he clearly resents having had to pay for), he did not enjoy it as much.

Interestingly, Guardianista man was snide about Guardianista women. He said in their ads they stated that they wanted a man who wasn't sexist, who was ecologically conscious, who was socially conscious (in fact, everything I would expect of a Guardian reader), etc.

"No wonder they're Single," he laughed.

"Hey, buddy," said I from my sofa. "You're Single."

Guardianista man was a time waster for whom fantasy is more attractive than reality, although if sex was on offer, he took it "as one does" [smirk]. Watching Guardianista man made me wonder, once again, why so many Englishmen seem to be so odd about women.

2. The divorced and balding journalist was so sad, I wanted to hug him. I suspect he was a Guardianista, too, but his sorrow made him deep. He was quite a ladies' man in his youth, and as they showed a photo, you could see why. He was bespectacled but cute, witty and intelligent. I can see lots of clever women of his generation digging him in the 1960s and 1970s. However, eventually the shadow side of the Sexual Dissolution got him, for his marriage unexpectedly ended, and now he is lonely. He had high expectations of internet dating, but by filming he had quit.

3. The widowed writer was very attractive indeed, as B.A. pointed out. I couldn't make out why she had not been snapped up right away by some lovely widower, perhaps a widowed Oxford don. While internet dating, she had met a lot of divorced people and realized that "it is far better to be widowed than divorced."

4. The fat and funny blonde had discovered, thanks to the internet, that there are indeed men who love "big, beautiful women." She was stunned at how many. She showed her old internet photo, in which she had a short haircut and looked dreadful. She had been mistaken for a "dyke" (you can say almost all bad words on British TV after 9 PM), so she put more effort into how she looked, realizing that big can be sexy.

5. The largish, lovely girl proved this, for she had a really pretty face, which she made prettier with make-up, and indeed, she soon fell in love with a man she met on the internet. I believe she met him over the internet on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve or some other day when it is a bit shamemaking (she thought) to be online. They arranged to go out on New Year's Eve, and the man was 10. (above), the nice-looking ordinary bloke. ("What?! But he has such bad teeth," protested B.A.) They beamed in the TV studio, and I thought they were sweet.

6. The young and handsome Edinburgh (or Glasgow) white-collar wants to settle down and find a woman to be the mother of his children. I imagine the BBC phones started ringing off the hook, frantic women sitting on hold for minutes that seemed like hours. But then I have a weakness for Edinburgh men in nice suits. Anyway, his revelation was that he wouldn't be interested in the kind of woman who would have sex on the first date. The female interviewer, whom I suspect of being a Guardianista, asked him a tad waspishly if he had had sex on the first date. After hesitating, he confessed that he had once, having been very drunk. Personally, I forgave him. Men have a harder time turning down sex than women do. My guess is that they very rarely say, "Ewwwww! No! Go away! Ewwww!"

7. The very pretty, fun 24 year old mixed-race girl married 8. (above), the 39 year old roofer. He can't have children, so he was delighted to be given a ready-made family. There was egregiously sentimental footage of the four of them on a sofa with a dog and playing together in a park, and I almost got teary. Anyway, they just clicked. I am not clear on why he was The One, but he was.

8. The bald, ginger-bearded Glaswegian was in grave danger of becoming bitter. For some reason, I did not want to hug him as much as I wanted to hug the sad, divorced journalist. Instead I wanted to tell him that he should study Frankie Boyle, who is married, and develop Frankie Boyle's confidence. Somehow, I think Frankie Boyle is key to his future happiness. Meanwhile, I wonder if there is a "bald and beautiful" category on dating sites. There must be women who are attracted to bald men just because, and not despite the fact that, they are bald. And, although bald, this guy was certainly not as ugly as he said. I suspect gingerism.

Update: 11. The dark-eyed woman with MS had had very glamorous photos taken-with her cane, incidentally--but initially did not mention on dating sites that she has, well, a "wasting disease," and thus gave at least one date a huge shock. And this was such poignant situation that I don't know why I didn't remember her this morning. She certainly made an impression last night.

12. All I rememer about 12 is that she was young and pretty and did not interest me in a blogging for Singles capacity.

One issue that the interviewees agreed on was that people must NOT NOT NOT lie about their looks, either through words or with out-of-date pictures. Expecting a clever, 28 year old, thin guy and discovering that he is a clever, 38 year old, fat guy is a total turn-off. It is miles better to put up an honest, strictly contemporary photo.

I've thought a lot about internet dating, and I have internet dated, and I know married people who met through internet dating. These married people are not millionaires or beauty queens, but average-looking people with two or three very attractive physical features who love their jobs. In short, ordinary people who value ordinary people. They are practical, not dreamers or time-wasters.

B.A. and I met over the internet, although not on dating sites. We had friends in common, whom I had met because of my blogs. And it is unlikely we would have met any other way, as he has lived in Scotland his whole life, and it didn't occur to me to go there until 2008. My personal feeling is that blogs are a great way to meet likeminded people and make friends. The trick is that your blog should be about something that you are passionate about (and not just about you).

Finally, I can't stress how important it is to actually meet your best internet friends. Before he met me in person, Benedict Ambrose suspected that Seraphic might be an airhead with a squeaky voice because that was sort of the image my blog-persona of perpetual cheer created. So he was, apparently, pleasantly surprised to find the sensible, silent, jet-lagged little person who tumbled off the London bus. And I have met up with my very favourite readers, like Aelianus, Alias Clio and Shiraz, and we have had marvellous chats.

Yet Another Update: Here's what I wrote in the CR some months ago about internet dating.

An Amazing Film for Singles

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. No, I am not kidding. It is a fantastic film. First, it treats marriage as an irrevocable social and spiritual tie which nothing save death can sever. Second, it seems to accept that the bond is more important than personal feelings of concord. (Victoria's dreadful parents ask her if she assumes that they like each other. They don't. And yet they agree on everything: interesting!) Third, it suggests that there is something more important than getting married one day. Finally, it can be watched by anyone without moral harm. Cartoon eyeballs continually fall onto the floor and into soup, etc., but so what?

Really, if you haven't seen it, see Corpse Bride.

Another good film on the subject of Searching Singledom, though with salty humour and "adult" situations, is Private Benjamin, starring Goldie Hawn.

Almost 25 with no Boyfriend

I haven't had an Auntie Seraphic letter lately, but someone wrote in the combox about being 23 and never having had a "relationship." And I am torn between envy, compassion and exasperation. Picture envy, compassion and exasperation as little gnomes pulling on my green pyjamas. (Green pyjamas are my blogging uniform.)

Ah, twenty-three, twenty-three... Actually, I did not like being twenty-three. I was dead poor, I had just got a rather ho-hum Bachelor of Arts degree, and I was working in a secretarial job I was absolutely no good at and then in a coffee stall with a manager I depised. Oh, and I was being pursued by two men I wasn't in love with and, being addicted to Drah-ma, this to me was akin to having an addiction to cocaine or so I'm told: you love it and you hate it at the same time. I asked a priest for help, and he laughed at me. He's married now. Hmmmm.

Argh! It is so hard to be young! Why does nobody tell us this? When you're a kid, you think Sweet Sixteen is where it's at, and you thrill to the Beatles singing "She was just seventeen", and the magazines push the idea that the pinnacle of human life is between 15 and 25. But this is crap because life gets really, really hard at 15, and it offers you constant chances to screw up, and it does not get better until you are over 25--as long as you haven't wrecked your life by then.

One of the ways you can seriously screw up your life--in fact, it is THE way that a woman usually screws up her life--is to get sexually involved with men too young, or with the wrong man any old time. And it makes me furious that dating and making out are shoved at girls as perfectly harmless activities, right from the first moment we watch "Happy Days" or read Archie comics. The happy-go-lucky innocence of "Happy Days" and Archie comics have nothing to do with present day realities, and possibly had nothing to do with any historical reality whatsoever.

Breathe, Seraphic.

I want to look at the word "relationship." We are all in relationships from our conception. As soon as Mum knows we're in there, we're in a personal relationship with Mum. If Dad is around, we're soon in relationship with Dad because we can hear him. We might even already be in relationship with our grandparents and siblings, too--they certainly feel a relationship to us. (I remember the split-second I went from non-aunt to Aunt.) And then we are born, and we develop more and more relationships, learning about our environment and, more slowly and painfully, human nature. The definition of a person, say personalists, is someone "in relation to".

It is impossible, therefore, for a person to reach the age of 23 without having been in a relationship. Even if she were brought up by wolves, she'd be in relationship to her wolf pack. So when a woman says "I've never been in a relationship" she is unconsciously aggrandizing the fact that she has never been in a short-lived socio-erotic encounter with a man. But I congratulate her. Love with an expiry date is not love at all; it is an occasion for sin and very often the highway to disaster.

Now--here is the tricky thing--young women do, in fact, belong to wolf packs. (Thank you, Clio, for reminding me.) Mature adult women manage to break free to a certain extent and devote themselves to a cause or a family, but most young women feel a great need to belong to a pack of other young women. And if all the other young women around are entering into short-lived socio-erotic encounters with men, a young woman is going to feel anxious about differing from the pack. This is no doubt why the supreme indicator of whether or not a young woman is going to have pre-marital sex is whether or not her friends are already having pre-marital sex. The answer to "If all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you jump off too?" is "Yes. Duh."

This is why it is so crucially important, if you are a young Christian woman intent on living the Gospel, to have other young Christian woman friends. And this should not be too terrifically hard, as Roman Catholics alone make up one billion people. It is crucial that you be in touch with women who do not think that keeping out of short-lived socio-erotic encounters with men is a massive tragedy, a mark of immaturity or whatever your current wolf-pack thinks.

It blows my mind that for all the advances women have supposedly made since 1960 (many of which we had made by 1930, but never mind that for now) we still feel anxious if we are Single at 25. But history is jam-packed with great women who were Single at 25. And, indeed, we don't necessarily even look our best at 25, if that's what you're worried about. (Go look at photos of movie stars at 25 and 35, and you'll see what I mean.) And given that Western European/North American human lifespan is now well over 75, and that in general we can be healthier and more active in middle-age and old-age than humans ever have been before, 25 is positively adolescent.

So, to recap:

1. Everyone has been in a myriad of real relationships by the age of 23.

2. Young women who run with packs of young women are anxious when they differ from the pack. However, maturity for women consists in mental freedom from the pack.

3. Short-lived socio-erotic encounters with men are not all that and a bag of chips, no matter what your friends say.

4. You are fortunate if you manage to avoid short-lived socio-erotic encounters with men. Wait for a real, honest-to-God, respectable suitor who is your real friend and whom you have good reason to trust.

5. Twenty-five is really young from the perspective of everyone over thirty. Meanwhile, being young has a very sucky side, and I heartily recommend being over thirty.

I have two more things to say. The first is that you are never the only girl on your campus or in your work place who doesn't put out. Anyone who tells you so is either flattering you or insulting you, and I'd wonder about their motives. You should never be ashamed of chastity, but you should never become a monster of pride about it either. Just because the girls around you believe in pre-marital sex doesn't mean that they're actually having it or would have it with just anybody. Very few women, actually, put out for just anybody. That is why there are courses for pick-up artists, aka scumbags. Some of the most chaste women I've known were far-left, feminist hardliners.

The second is sunscreen. What I miss most about being 23 is the absolutely fabulous quality of my skin. And I must say that the ol' skin is not doing so badly now, thanks to good genes and sunscreen.