A Polish publisher has bought the Polish-language rights to Seraphic Singles. So--as you can imagine--I am having a very good morning!
I love the Poles. Can I say that? Will the Poles mind? Because I have always loved the Poles. A great, romantic, Catholic nation.
Also the first boy who showed any interest in me whatsoever came to Canada from Poland on holiday. I think he was eight. I was about ten. He didn't speak a word of English. I didn't speak a word of Polish. I was confused by his instant rapture with me. However, it was a happy moment in an otherwise ugly ducklingy childhood.
Yay, Poland!
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Single By Choice
When I write something about loving the Single Life, I usually try to cast my memory back to before I met B.A. and determine if I would have said it when I was Single. Married people seem to forget what being Single was like: we forget the bad stuff and we are nostalgic for the good stuff. Very often we don't want to hear the bad stuff, for Singles' bad stuff triggers memories of things we don't want to remember. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
But I think I would have said, even when I was Single, and therefore I probably did, that most Single women are Single by choice because (wait for it) if you were willing to throw all your standards to the winds, you would get a guy, no problem.
If you had no standards at all, you could do the following horrible things:
1. go down to the local pub/bar at closing time and start hitting on men,
2. put an ad for a husband in any African or other Third World newspaper,
3. start writing love letters to a convict in prison,
4. go to a holiday resort in Greece, Egypt, the Dominican Republic, and start throwing your money around on a local.
My guess is that we'd all be amazed at how many women do those things. I was going to say sometimes I just don't understand my own sex, but I realized that is not true. Some women will do abso-freaking-lutely anything to get a man, even for a few hours, even just by mail, because they honestly think they are nothing without one. There are women who work three jobs, have three children, do all the housework, and have a boyfriend who does nothing, nothing at all, for them, and they are frightened rigid that he might leave.
This is why my blogging for Singles has always concentrated on being Single, not on how-to-find-a-husband. I know very well that most young Single women long to find a husband, and I am happy to share my reflections on how to do that, although they're mostly about how to stop chasing men who don't give a damn and how to encourage men who actually might. But for me the heart of the thing has always to find the dignity and the freedom inherent in being Single. And every time you refuse to compromise your standards (which I hope and pray are high), you are honouring that.
Someone wrote to me about traditional, God-centered, Christian men being rare jewels. I told her that she was a rare jewel. It is in the Bible: a good woman is worth more than rubies. I assume that all my readers are precious jewels, worth more than rubies. And a ruby looks absolutely beautiful and precious on its own. Nothing more is needed.
Keep your standards high. Nobody puts a ruby in a plastic ring. Meanwhile, find work you enjoy and that earns your keep. Keep your living space beautiful. Take care of your body, your skin and your hair. Meet often with friends and family who love you. Read good things that interest you. Get enough exercise. See beauty as often as you can: visit the art gallery or walk by the sea. Find something simple and undemanding to love, something that will always reward love with love: a puppy, a kitten, a bird, a garden. Pray, especially for others. Breathe.
But I think I would have said, even when I was Single, and therefore I probably did, that most Single women are Single by choice because (wait for it) if you were willing to throw all your standards to the winds, you would get a guy, no problem.
If you had no standards at all, you could do the following horrible things:
1. go down to the local pub/bar at closing time and start hitting on men,
2. put an ad for a husband in any African or other Third World newspaper,
3. start writing love letters to a convict in prison,
4. go to a holiday resort in Greece, Egypt, the Dominican Republic, and start throwing your money around on a local.
My guess is that we'd all be amazed at how many women do those things. I was going to say sometimes I just don't understand my own sex, but I realized that is not true. Some women will do abso-freaking-lutely anything to get a man, even for a few hours, even just by mail, because they honestly think they are nothing without one. There are women who work three jobs, have three children, do all the housework, and have a boyfriend who does nothing, nothing at all, for them, and they are frightened rigid that he might leave.
This is why my blogging for Singles has always concentrated on being Single, not on how-to-find-a-husband. I know very well that most young Single women long to find a husband, and I am happy to share my reflections on how to do that, although they're mostly about how to stop chasing men who don't give a damn and how to encourage men who actually might. But for me the heart of the thing has always to find the dignity and the freedom inherent in being Single. And every time you refuse to compromise your standards (which I hope and pray are high), you are honouring that.
Someone wrote to me about traditional, God-centered, Christian men being rare jewels. I told her that she was a rare jewel. It is in the Bible: a good woman is worth more than rubies. I assume that all my readers are precious jewels, worth more than rubies. And a ruby looks absolutely beautiful and precious on its own. Nothing more is needed.
Keep your standards high. Nobody puts a ruby in a plastic ring. Meanwhile, find work you enjoy and that earns your keep. Keep your living space beautiful. Take care of your body, your skin and your hair. Meet often with friends and family who love you. Read good things that interest you. Get enough exercise. See beauty as often as you can: visit the art gallery or walk by the sea. Find something simple and undemanding to love, something that will always reward love with love: a puppy, a kitten, a bird, a garden. Pray, especially for others. Breathe.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
The One Year Rule
Quite a few men, including very good men, are terrified of getting married. They are not usually afraid of sex, mind you. Nor are they afraid of good home cooking and warm baskets of laundry washed, dried and folded by somebody else. They are just afraid of getting married.
Sometimes they need help. The best help I know of is called "It's very important to me that I not have sex before I am married." I love this line. This is the line that separates the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys and the husband potentials from the wastes of space. It is a tough line for girls to say, for it is also the line that separates the women from the girls.
One of my readers (I think it was Maggie) observed elsewhere online that women who do not sleep with their boyfriends get engaged a lot faster than girls who do. I don't know if there are scientific studies on this, but I've noticed something similar in my own acquaintance. My acquaintance, however, is mostly made up of Roman Catholics, a community that has not entirely come to terms with the virgin-whore problem bedevilling some of its younger, more sensitive, more conservative (whether they know it or not) male congregants. (Bless their hearts.)
Incidentally, girls, we are all sinners and we all make mistakes, but for heaven's sake don't make the mistake of sleeping out of wedlock with a sensitive, conservative Catholic man. Insanity! Have you learned nothing?????!!!!
Shorter Version of the Letters between Heloise and Abelard
Dear Abelard,
I try to be a good nun, but it is difficult because I remember how hot you were. I long for you. I dream of you.
XOXOXOXO
Love,
Heloise
Dear Sister,
I think you should try harder to be a good nun. Personally, I'm beyond all that now. And I cannot help but reflect that I will have 100,000,000,000,000,000 extra years in Purgatory because of our youthful madness. Woe is me.
Yours in X,
Abelard
But, as I said, people make mistakes, so maybe some of you are sleeping with your boyfriends. Others of you have been chastely dating the same guy for months and months and no mention of marriage has he made. Alas.
So here is my advice. If you are out of school, and by school I mean secondary school/post- secondary training program/undergraduate college, you should give a man no more than one dating year of your young and precious lives before he pops the question. If he doesn't know that you are the Perfect Girl for Him within a year, you must broach the subject. If he bridles, freak out and dump him. Don't take him back if he doesn't bring a ring.
Is this easy for me to say? Yes. Have I done this before? Yes. Was it painful? Yes. But now I am married to B.A. instead and we got our new fridge today and tra la.
If a year seems awfully soon, reflect that I shorten this time to six months for childless ladies over 35. Ladies over 35 who would like to have children have even less time to waste than young sprigs in their twenties. And really, I think it's worth repeating that the easiest way to see if a guy is that into you is to refuse to have sex with him while assuring him that you think he is marvellous. Don't do any wife stuff whatsoever. If he wants you to do wife stuff, he'll have to wait until you're a wife. Make him work for it. Seriously. It's kinder to you and it's kinder to him. Friends don't let friends become woman-exploiting swine-dogs.
We have all heard stories about people who met, fell in love within a couple of weeks, got married ASAP and lived happily ever after. We have also heard stories about people who met, became mutual but unequal admirers, resisted marriage for months or years, finally got married, and broke up in a hideous acrimonious divorce. I've lived both stories, and the first is better.
One of the more hilarious aspects of my Seraphic Meets Bridezilla days was the poor parish priest's face when he informed me that I had got permission from the diocese to marry, on one condition. (Don't think your annulment papers make all ways smooth, people.) The diocese's condition was that this time I made sure I knew my fiance really, really well before I married him. The p.p. had a kind of hopeful-puppy-dog-begging look on his face, like I was going to say, "Okay then. We'll get married next year instead." Ha ha ha! I think not. Although at the age of 25 I was pretty dumb, at the age of 38 I was pretty smart. I knew who I was, and who I wanted, and I got him that May, just as planned.
Sometimes they need help. The best help I know of is called "It's very important to me that I not have sex before I am married." I love this line. This is the line that separates the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys and the husband potentials from the wastes of space. It is a tough line for girls to say, for it is also the line that separates the women from the girls.
One of my readers (I think it was Maggie) observed elsewhere online that women who do not sleep with their boyfriends get engaged a lot faster than girls who do. I don't know if there are scientific studies on this, but I've noticed something similar in my own acquaintance. My acquaintance, however, is mostly made up of Roman Catholics, a community that has not entirely come to terms with the virgin-whore problem bedevilling some of its younger, more sensitive, more conservative (whether they know it or not) male congregants. (Bless their hearts.)
Incidentally, girls, we are all sinners and we all make mistakes, but for heaven's sake don't make the mistake of sleeping out of wedlock with a sensitive, conservative Catholic man. Insanity! Have you learned nothing?????!!!!
Shorter Version of the Letters between Heloise and Abelard
Dear Abelard,
I try to be a good nun, but it is difficult because I remember how hot you were. I long for you. I dream of you.
XOXOXOXO
Love,
Heloise
Dear Sister,
I think you should try harder to be a good nun. Personally, I'm beyond all that now. And I cannot help but reflect that I will have 100,000,000,000,000,000 extra years in Purgatory because of our youthful madness. Woe is me.
Yours in X,
Abelard
But, as I said, people make mistakes, so maybe some of you are sleeping with your boyfriends. Others of you have been chastely dating the same guy for months and months and no mention of marriage has he made. Alas.
So here is my advice. If you are out of school, and by school I mean secondary school/post- secondary training program/undergraduate college, you should give a man no more than one dating year of your young and precious lives before he pops the question. If he doesn't know that you are the Perfect Girl for Him within a year, you must broach the subject. If he bridles, freak out and dump him. Don't take him back if he doesn't bring a ring.
Is this easy for me to say? Yes. Have I done this before? Yes. Was it painful? Yes. But now I am married to B.A. instead and we got our new fridge today and tra la.
If a year seems awfully soon, reflect that I shorten this time to six months for childless ladies over 35. Ladies over 35 who would like to have children have even less time to waste than young sprigs in their twenties. And really, I think it's worth repeating that the easiest way to see if a guy is that into you is to refuse to have sex with him while assuring him that you think he is marvellous. Don't do any wife stuff whatsoever. If he wants you to do wife stuff, he'll have to wait until you're a wife. Make him work for it. Seriously. It's kinder to you and it's kinder to him. Friends don't let friends become woman-exploiting swine-dogs.
We have all heard stories about people who met, fell in love within a couple of weeks, got married ASAP and lived happily ever after. We have also heard stories about people who met, became mutual but unequal admirers, resisted marriage for months or years, finally got married, and broke up in a hideous acrimonious divorce. I've lived both stories, and the first is better.
One of the more hilarious aspects of my Seraphic Meets Bridezilla days was the poor parish priest's face when he informed me that I had got permission from the diocese to marry, on one condition. (Don't think your annulment papers make all ways smooth, people.) The diocese's condition was that this time I made sure I knew my fiance really, really well before I married him. The p.p. had a kind of hopeful-puppy-dog-begging look on his face, like I was going to say, "Okay then. We'll get married next year instead." Ha ha ha! I think not. Although at the age of 25 I was pretty dumb, at the age of 38 I was pretty smart. I knew who I was, and who I wanted, and I got him that May, just as planned.
Blog Confusion
Dear Readers,
If you direct other people to my website, would you tell them that the http code is "seraphicsinglescummings.blogspot.com" ? Nobody can get into the original seraphicsingles.blogspot.com except me and my Canadian publisher.
I've had two or three emails about this now.
Thanks!
Seraphic
If you direct other people to my website, would you tell them that the http code is "seraphicsinglescummings.blogspot.com" ? Nobody can get into the original seraphicsingles.blogspot.com except me and my Canadian publisher.
I've had two or three emails about this now.
Thanks!
Seraphic
Monday, 12 July 2010
Bless Their Hearts
Some things are much easier to see and to say when you are 39 years old. It's a trade-off. You might not be as slim, and your skin no longer glows like a pearl, but you can see stuff than younger women can't see. The hard part is convincing younger women of the stuff you can see. There's this generation gap thing, after all.
Today we are going to talk about boys, and how even though they are sometimes seriously annoying they are our brothers. Also, quite a few of you want to marry one of them. The number one reason you're not married (if you're not married) is that it is God's will that you are Single. But the number two reason could be (could be) that you don't know how to get along with the men that wash up on the shores of your life. You're frightened of them. You get angry with them. And I understand because I was often frightened of and angry with the ones that appeared in my life, too.
As mentioned below, I was active in the pro-life movement when I was young, and some of the young men I was around weren't very nice to me. This was a great disappointment, and I didn't know how to handle it. I thought reasonable, spirited argument was the way forward. I thought generosity, like occasionally paying for a boy's dinner, was the way forward. I now think I was wrong. The most popular girl in our set was probably so popular with the boys because she did not take any of the ridiculous things they said seriously. She just laughed and changed the subject. She certainly never bought them treats.
No matter what their politics, some young men are bullies. Some improve as they get older, and some don't. I won't deny that. But in general, I discover that I like men the older they get and the older I get. I am no longer intimidated by young men, and I suspect that older men are no longer as intimidated by women as they once were.
The worst bully in my set married a Mexican girl, and I was always amazed that some woman wanted to marry him. However, it occured to me that this girl, being Mexican, being from a macho culture, may have grown up knowing how to handle macho men and put them, with grace, in their place. This is not knowledge I have or ever had.
American men, who often idolize a less misogynist machismo, often seem to want to marry women who are not American. Is this because American women take men too seriously? Is it because it is somehow more feminine not to give a damn?
I don't know. I just know that my relationships with men improved when I realized the following things:
1. When young men make pronouncements about men, they are revealing truths about themselves, not truths about men.
2. When young men make pronouncements about women, they are revealing their own issues about women, not truths about women.
3. Young men have to go to seminary/divinity for three to five years to learn things about empathy young women have known since age six.
4. Young men are in a painful hell of confusion quite a lot of the time, especially when it comes to love, sexuality, their parents and women.
5. A few men--a very few men--are utter bastards to be avoided as you would avoid an angry dog.
6. Male behaviour and attitudes vary from culture to culture.
7. I understand best men like my father and my brothers. My husband is a lot like my father and my brothers.
I have two social advantages over my young Single readers: I am 39, and I am married. So if a young Catholic man told me, in all seriousness, that all women should dress like the Blessed Virgin Mary, I would not be angry or frightened. I would not argue with him, or mention the Taliban.
Instead I would wonder why this probably unhappy (see #4) young man had said this very strange thing. I might ask questions to clarify. ("Do you mean all women? Your mother? Your sisters?") But it wouldn't really matter. By saying "All women should dress like the Virgin Mary", this young man would have blurted out a clue to the great shame of his young life, which is that he feels overwhelmed when he sees female arms and legs. Bless his heart. Of course he does. Of course he does. He doesn't need to be screamed at. He is suffering. He needs sisterly help. And the only sisterly help I could think to give him would be to suggest he talk to a priest or another reasonable man (like my husband) about his idea. And that would be it. I am a woman, after all, and Woman is what he is having a hard time with right now.
Yes, there are bullies. But, in general, Catholic men who go to Mass (or if we aren't Catholic, men of good will) are on our team. We have to get along with them, and that means giving them the benefit of the doubt when they say something stupid or simply refusing to argue.
I admire many men for their formidible talents: their professional expertise, their creative gifts, their diplomatic skill. But I like men best when I am reminded that once they were ten. If you were walking along a beach with my husband, and you gave him a flat rock, he would immediately skim it across the waves and eagerly count every bounce. I love that. Bless his little heart.
All men, even the most annoying, even the most confused, even the most pompous, were bright eyed little boys once. It helps to remember that. In all but the worst, those little boys are still in there. Bless their little hearts. Say it after me, right now: Bless their little hearts!
Update (July 14): Some people have voiced problems with the word "little" in the blessing because it can sound too condescending. If that is your trouble, may I suggest the word "wee"? "Wee" to my Canadian ears could never sound condescending. So try out "Bless his wee heart!" Does that work better?
Today we are going to talk about boys, and how even though they are sometimes seriously annoying they are our brothers. Also, quite a few of you want to marry one of them. The number one reason you're not married (if you're not married) is that it is God's will that you are Single. But the number two reason could be (could be) that you don't know how to get along with the men that wash up on the shores of your life. You're frightened of them. You get angry with them. And I understand because I was often frightened of and angry with the ones that appeared in my life, too.
As mentioned below, I was active in the pro-life movement when I was young, and some of the young men I was around weren't very nice to me. This was a great disappointment, and I didn't know how to handle it. I thought reasonable, spirited argument was the way forward. I thought generosity, like occasionally paying for a boy's dinner, was the way forward. I now think I was wrong. The most popular girl in our set was probably so popular with the boys because she did not take any of the ridiculous things they said seriously. She just laughed and changed the subject. She certainly never bought them treats.
No matter what their politics, some young men are bullies. Some improve as they get older, and some don't. I won't deny that. But in general, I discover that I like men the older they get and the older I get. I am no longer intimidated by young men, and I suspect that older men are no longer as intimidated by women as they once were.
The worst bully in my set married a Mexican girl, and I was always amazed that some woman wanted to marry him. However, it occured to me that this girl, being Mexican, being from a macho culture, may have grown up knowing how to handle macho men and put them, with grace, in their place. This is not knowledge I have or ever had.
American men, who often idolize a less misogynist machismo, often seem to want to marry women who are not American. Is this because American women take men too seriously? Is it because it is somehow more feminine not to give a damn?
I don't know. I just know that my relationships with men improved when I realized the following things:
1. When young men make pronouncements about men, they are revealing truths about themselves, not truths about men.
2. When young men make pronouncements about women, they are revealing their own issues about women, not truths about women.
3. Young men have to go to seminary/divinity for three to five years to learn things about empathy young women have known since age six.
4. Young men are in a painful hell of confusion quite a lot of the time, especially when it comes to love, sexuality, their parents and women.
5. A few men--a very few men--are utter bastards to be avoided as you would avoid an angry dog.
6. Male behaviour and attitudes vary from culture to culture.
7. I understand best men like my father and my brothers. My husband is a lot like my father and my brothers.
I have two social advantages over my young Single readers: I am 39, and I am married. So if a young Catholic man told me, in all seriousness, that all women should dress like the Blessed Virgin Mary, I would not be angry or frightened. I would not argue with him, or mention the Taliban.
Instead I would wonder why this probably unhappy (see #4) young man had said this very strange thing. I might ask questions to clarify. ("Do you mean all women? Your mother? Your sisters?") But it wouldn't really matter. By saying "All women should dress like the Virgin Mary", this young man would have blurted out a clue to the great shame of his young life, which is that he feels overwhelmed when he sees female arms and legs. Bless his heart. Of course he does. Of course he does. He doesn't need to be screamed at. He is suffering. He needs sisterly help. And the only sisterly help I could think to give him would be to suggest he talk to a priest or another reasonable man (like my husband) about his idea. And that would be it. I am a woman, after all, and Woman is what he is having a hard time with right now.
Yes, there are bullies. But, in general, Catholic men who go to Mass (or if we aren't Catholic, men of good will) are on our team. We have to get along with them, and that means giving them the benefit of the doubt when they say something stupid or simply refusing to argue.
I admire many men for their formidible talents: their professional expertise, their creative gifts, their diplomatic skill. But I like men best when I am reminded that once they were ten. If you were walking along a beach with my husband, and you gave him a flat rock, he would immediately skim it across the waves and eagerly count every bounce. I love that. Bless his little heart.
All men, even the most annoying, even the most confused, even the most pompous, were bright eyed little boys once. It helps to remember that. In all but the worst, those little boys are still in there. Bless their little hearts. Say it after me, right now: Bless their little hearts!
Update (July 14): Some people have voiced problems with the word "little" in the blessing because it can sound too condescending. If that is your trouble, may I suggest the word "wee"? "Wee" to my Canadian ears could never sound condescending. So try out "Bless his wee heart!" Does that work better?
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Auntie Seraphic & So Many Weddings
It's mid-July, and the wedding season is in full swing. And I know how much Singles looooove that!
Dear Auntie Seraphic,
I'm wondering if you have any tips or pointers on getting through a particularly active wedding season. Next month I'll be going to the seventh wedding in a year. One of my current roommates is engaged to be married next summer, and a new roommate moving in soon is also engaged. Two of the people I work with are engaged - one of them just got engaged last weekend. A number of other classmates/friends/acquaintances are also engaged, and most of them will be married by the time I graduate next May (master's degree in hand, no idea what to do with it because I was supposed to be married by now!).
The point is, it's a lot of people. And I'm so, so happy for them all, I really am. It's such a blessing, an awesome thing to know so many young, faithful, active Catholics getting married at a time when eschewing marriage seems to be all the rage, especially among my generation.
It is a little bit difficult for me, though. Not that they're getting married, of course, but that I'm not. Many of those I know who are getting married, or who have gotten married in the last year, are at or above the average age to marry these days. They had to wait longer than those just-out-of-college marriages to find the right people for them; most of them didn't meet until well after college. They had to wait and be patient, just as God is telling me to do right now. It's very good for me to remember that.
But that said, it's still so hard for me sometimes. (Or, really, a lot of the time.) I'll be 25 in a couple of months, which I know isn't old by any standards. That doesn't make it easier, though, to attend wedding after wedding single and alone. I really want to be happy for all these friends, happy without anything to mar it, without those behind-the-scenes feelings of "I wish it were me" while being excited for them.
I know that a) wishing is pretty pointless, and b) it's NOT me right now for a reason. God has a purpose. But as more and more friends get to experience what I've only daydreamed about (I've never even been in a relationship), it's been getting harder and harder to rejoice with them as I ought to. Especially lately, when it seems that I'm surrounded by wedding talk everywhere I go. At work, at home, at school. I want to be able to have fun with all the details girls love that go along with planning a wedding, but instead it's started to become a painful reminder of what I might never get to experience.
Long story short, I'm just wondering if you have any pointers regarding how best to get past these ugly feelings of jealousy, knowing that God is keeping me single for a very specific reason. I don't want to keep feeling happy-with-a-caveat. I want to be happy for them in the way I imagine already-married people are happy when they hear news of a friends' engagement. I really want to have hope and peace that maybe someday it will be me, but maybe it won't be. I want to be able to be ok with that, and enjoy each wedding (and the preceding preparation) as the joyous occasion that it is, and not as another reminder of my singleness - although it's hard to avoid being reminded that I'm single when the bride does the bouquet toss. I'm sure I just need to get over these wedding blues already and just let myself be happy for my friends, because I'm sure I would really want them to be happy for me if the roles were reversed.
Thank you so much for reading my disorganized thoughts.
Sincerely,
So Many Weddings
Dear So Many Weddings,
You are so positively normal I am wondering where my weird readers are. Nobody ever writes in saying, "I'm in love with my step-brother who is also a priest-archeologist." Everybody always writes in saying, "I have gone to a million weddings, I'm Single, and why can't I just feel totally happy instead of jealous?"
Listen, no Single woman who isn't a nun or/and a living saint feels 100% happy about a wedding that isn't her own. I call this Singles' Wedding Angst, and if you don't feel it during a wedding, you feel it afterwards, when you're on your way home alone. I got it at every wedding I ever went to until after I was married to B.A. It's just part of the wedding, along with the cake and the boring speeches.
(By the way, Single men get it, too, and you can tell which ones have it worst, because they are the ones getting blitzed at the bar while shouting "I'm glad it isn't ME putting MY head in a noose!")
Of course you are envious. You're a fallen creature. I'm a fallen creature. We're all fallen creatures. And it is normal for fallen creatures to feel sad when everybody except us gets an ice-cream cone/to go to Disney World/a European holiday/a wedding/a baby. The thing to do is to realize that we are not Awesomely Alone in Our Outrageous Sinfulness but just boring, run-of-the-mill sinners, and that all Single women get Singles Wedding Angst anyway.
But your question is, how do you cope? Here is a list of things you can do to cope with Singles Wedding Angst:
1. Don't go to the wedding. You don't HAVE to go to every wedding you're invited to. If you send a gift instead, you'll save money, please the bride, and save her money on your dinner. Most guests at really big weddings are totally expendable. If the bride only invited 30 people, though, or is your sister, you should probably go.
2. If you do go, sit with friends or family members you actually like. No friends or fun family there? Don't go. Send a gift instead.
3. If you go, look like a MILLION dollars. Go to the hairdresser. Wear a cute dress. Wear lipgloss. Knowing you look like a million bucks usually chases away the blues.
4. You remember that this is your friend's big day; it is not about you. Be a considerate guest. If you have to fake happy, fake happy! Just faking happy can actually make you feel better. I don't know why this is so, but it is so.
5. You begin conversations with strangers at the reception. You are going to look like a million dollars, so whoever it is will want to talk to you. Especially if they are Single, bored and about to be hit with Singles Wedding Angst. Always remember that you will not be the only Single woman in the bouquet-toss scrum.
6. Do not get tipsy unless you are having a GREAT time. Alcohol is a depressant.
7. If you're at the reception and you're getting bored and depressed, go home. Go home now! Take cab money because it is terribly depressing to go home from a wedding alone on the bus.
8. Have a big treat waiting for you at home, like a DVD of a comedy you really want to see.
9. Thank God it is your friend and not you marrying that specific guy. Only once in my whole Single life have I ever found the groom attractive enough perhaps to have dated myself. And since his wife is one of my best buddies, I should stop mentioning that. Seriously--most grooms are nice but not universally attractive.
When I got married, I really worried that my Single friends (and readers!) would feel badly that I was getting married. I definitely worried that my Single friends would get Singles' Wedding Angst at my wedding. But then I realized that there was nothing I, Seraphic, could really do to prevent that and, besides, my nose was bleeding from Brides' Wedding Meltdown.
MEANWHILE, I have three more things to say to you, Missy:
1. I know turning 25 is hard for Single women. I was a basketcase when I was 24, thinking about turning 25. It is not a coincidence that I made my first, disastrous, and now annulled marriage when I was 25. But 25 is really, really young. Go look at your 24 and 3/4s year old skin in the mirror and say, "I love you, beautiful young skin!" Do this right now!
Would you rather marry Mr. Divorceable when you are 25, or wait and marry Mr. Perfect for You when you are 38? I rest my case.
2. An M.A. is not something that you do to kill time before meeting Mr. Right. An M.A. is what you do to avoid getting a full-time job. But an M.A. looks great on your resume, so if you don't have a career-type job yet, get one as soon as you have the pricey piece of paper. Money, beautiful money! Whenever you start thinking about how you are Single, get a travel book from the library and research your first real, paid-by-you, adventure holiday. My first one was to Italy, and it was fantastic.
3. Congratulations on so far not getting suckered into a romantic relationship that went nowhere. Sometimes it is great never to have had a boyfriend. I have had eleven break-ups, and that is just ridiculous.
If I could do it all over again, I would have not dated at all, or I would have gone to Aberdeen in 1990 and waylaid B.A. on his way to First Year Philosophy class.
Me: Hello, it is I, your future wife.
B.A.: I'm sorry... Do I know you?
Me: You're going to eventually, so why don't we get married right now and save a whole bunch of people a lot of heartaches?
B.A.: Very well, then.
But life does not work out that way, alas. Meanwhile, believe me, not having had a "relationship" is not necessarily a bad thing. Keep on developing "friendships" and try not to worry about "relationships".
I hope this is helpful!
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
Dear Auntie Seraphic,
I'm wondering if you have any tips or pointers on getting through a particularly active wedding season. Next month I'll be going to the seventh wedding in a year. One of my current roommates is engaged to be married next summer, and a new roommate moving in soon is also engaged. Two of the people I work with are engaged - one of them just got engaged last weekend. A number of other classmates/friends/acquaintances are also engaged, and most of them will be married by the time I graduate next May (master's degree in hand, no idea what to do with it because I was supposed to be married by now!).
The point is, it's a lot of people. And I'm so, so happy for them all, I really am. It's such a blessing, an awesome thing to know so many young, faithful, active Catholics getting married at a time when eschewing marriage seems to be all the rage, especially among my generation.
It is a little bit difficult for me, though. Not that they're getting married, of course, but that I'm not. Many of those I know who are getting married, or who have gotten married in the last year, are at or above the average age to marry these days. They had to wait longer than those just-out-of-college marriages to find the right people for them; most of them didn't meet until well after college. They had to wait and be patient, just as God is telling me to do right now. It's very good for me to remember that.
But that said, it's still so hard for me sometimes. (Or, really, a lot of the time.) I'll be 25 in a couple of months, which I know isn't old by any standards. That doesn't make it easier, though, to attend wedding after wedding single and alone. I really want to be happy for all these friends, happy without anything to mar it, without those behind-the-scenes feelings of "I wish it were me" while being excited for them.
I know that a) wishing is pretty pointless, and b) it's NOT me right now for a reason. God has a purpose. But as more and more friends get to experience what I've only daydreamed about (I've never even been in a relationship), it's been getting harder and harder to rejoice with them as I ought to. Especially lately, when it seems that I'm surrounded by wedding talk everywhere I go. At work, at home, at school. I want to be able to have fun with all the details girls love that go along with planning a wedding, but instead it's started to become a painful reminder of what I might never get to experience.
Long story short, I'm just wondering if you have any pointers regarding how best to get past these ugly feelings of jealousy, knowing that God is keeping me single for a very specific reason. I don't want to keep feeling happy-with-a-caveat. I want to be happy for them in the way I imagine already-married people are happy when they hear news of a friends' engagement. I really want to have hope and peace that maybe someday it will be me, but maybe it won't be. I want to be able to be ok with that, and enjoy each wedding (and the preceding preparation) as the joyous occasion that it is, and not as another reminder of my singleness - although it's hard to avoid being reminded that I'm single when the bride does the bouquet toss. I'm sure I just need to get over these wedding blues already and just let myself be happy for my friends, because I'm sure I would really want them to be happy for me if the roles were reversed.
Thank you so much for reading my disorganized thoughts.
Sincerely,
So Many Weddings
Dear So Many Weddings,
You are so positively normal I am wondering where my weird readers are. Nobody ever writes in saying, "I'm in love with my step-brother who is also a priest-archeologist." Everybody always writes in saying, "I have gone to a million weddings, I'm Single, and why can't I just feel totally happy instead of jealous?"
Listen, no Single woman who isn't a nun or/and a living saint feels 100% happy about a wedding that isn't her own. I call this Singles' Wedding Angst, and if you don't feel it during a wedding, you feel it afterwards, when you're on your way home alone. I got it at every wedding I ever went to until after I was married to B.A. It's just part of the wedding, along with the cake and the boring speeches.
(By the way, Single men get it, too, and you can tell which ones have it worst, because they are the ones getting blitzed at the bar while shouting "I'm glad it isn't ME putting MY head in a noose!")
Of course you are envious. You're a fallen creature. I'm a fallen creature. We're all fallen creatures. And it is normal for fallen creatures to feel sad when everybody except us gets an ice-cream cone/to go to Disney World/a European holiday/a wedding/a baby. The thing to do is to realize that we are not Awesomely Alone in Our Outrageous Sinfulness but just boring, run-of-the-mill sinners, and that all Single women get Singles Wedding Angst anyway.
But your question is, how do you cope? Here is a list of things you can do to cope with Singles Wedding Angst:
1. Don't go to the wedding. You don't HAVE to go to every wedding you're invited to. If you send a gift instead, you'll save money, please the bride, and save her money on your dinner. Most guests at really big weddings are totally expendable. If the bride only invited 30 people, though, or is your sister, you should probably go.
2. If you do go, sit with friends or family members you actually like. No friends or fun family there? Don't go. Send a gift instead.
3. If you go, look like a MILLION dollars. Go to the hairdresser. Wear a cute dress. Wear lipgloss. Knowing you look like a million bucks usually chases away the blues.
4. You remember that this is your friend's big day; it is not about you. Be a considerate guest. If you have to fake happy, fake happy! Just faking happy can actually make you feel better. I don't know why this is so, but it is so.
5. You begin conversations with strangers at the reception. You are going to look like a million dollars, so whoever it is will want to talk to you. Especially if they are Single, bored and about to be hit with Singles Wedding Angst. Always remember that you will not be the only Single woman in the bouquet-toss scrum.
6. Do not get tipsy unless you are having a GREAT time. Alcohol is a depressant.
7. If you're at the reception and you're getting bored and depressed, go home. Go home now! Take cab money because it is terribly depressing to go home from a wedding alone on the bus.
8. Have a big treat waiting for you at home, like a DVD of a comedy you really want to see.
9. Thank God it is your friend and not you marrying that specific guy. Only once in my whole Single life have I ever found the groom attractive enough perhaps to have dated myself. And since his wife is one of my best buddies, I should stop mentioning that. Seriously--most grooms are nice but not universally attractive.
When I got married, I really worried that my Single friends (and readers!) would feel badly that I was getting married. I definitely worried that my Single friends would get Singles' Wedding Angst at my wedding. But then I realized that there was nothing I, Seraphic, could really do to prevent that and, besides, my nose was bleeding from Brides' Wedding Meltdown.
MEANWHILE, I have three more things to say to you, Missy:
1. I know turning 25 is hard for Single women. I was a basketcase when I was 24, thinking about turning 25. It is not a coincidence that I made my first, disastrous, and now annulled marriage when I was 25. But 25 is really, really young. Go look at your 24 and 3/4s year old skin in the mirror and say, "I love you, beautiful young skin!" Do this right now!
Would you rather marry Mr. Divorceable when you are 25, or wait and marry Mr. Perfect for You when you are 38? I rest my case.
2. An M.A. is not something that you do to kill time before meeting Mr. Right. An M.A. is what you do to avoid getting a full-time job. But an M.A. looks great on your resume, so if you don't have a career-type job yet, get one as soon as you have the pricey piece of paper. Money, beautiful money! Whenever you start thinking about how you are Single, get a travel book from the library and research your first real, paid-by-you, adventure holiday. My first one was to Italy, and it was fantastic.
3. Congratulations on so far not getting suckered into a romantic relationship that went nowhere. Sometimes it is great never to have had a boyfriend. I have had eleven break-ups, and that is just ridiculous.
If I could do it all over again, I would have not dated at all, or I would have gone to Aberdeen in 1990 and waylaid B.A. on his way to First Year Philosophy class.
Me: Hello, it is I, your future wife.
B.A.: I'm sorry... Do I know you?
Me: You're going to eventually, so why don't we get married right now and save a whole bunch of people a lot of heartaches?
B.A.: Very well, then.
But life does not work out that way, alas. Meanwhile, believe me, not having had a "relationship" is not necessarily a bad thing. Keep on developing "friendships" and try not to worry about "relationships".
I hope this is helpful!
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Some Guys Lie
Many girls who are strictly brought up are sheltered from some of the great unpleasantnesses of the world and are therefore unprotected when they venture out to college or the workforce or even just to summer camp.
One of the things that strict parents ought to tell their daughters, but don't, is that some guys will do whatever it takes to get you into bed. They will try to drug you, which is why you always watch your drink. They will try to get you drunk, which is why you never get tipsy around men without a strict friend, your brother or a responsible chaperone. They will tell you the most outrageous yet strangely convincing lies to make you feel it's all okay and even necessary that you have sex with them. The first guy I dated more than twice actually told me that you can't get pregnant "the first time." He actually told me that. However, he was from Afghanistan and possibly misread "virginal" as "completely ignorant." Yes, I dumped his ass.
I thought of impure men and their outrageous lies the other day when I read Piers Paul Read's Knights of the Cross. It has spicy sex scenes, but it is a literary treat for any tradition-loving Catholic who can read (or skip over) spicy sex scenes without them becoming occasions for sin. There is a chapter with a married ex-Jesuit which I found screamingly funny, probably because all my Jesuit friends are as yet neither ex- nor married.
In this novel, a somewhat seedy young German countess confesses how she became the slapper she is, and it all started out with a horrific lie. (Incidentally, if you are German or Jewish, you might want to steel yourself before reading further.)
--Piers Paul Read, Knights of the Cross.
So that is the most horrifying thing I have read in a month of Sundays. I comfort myself that it is fiction, although I can see it happening, and I counsel any girl in Germany fed the same crap to say, "If you hate the Germans so much, what the **** are you doing in Germany?"
I strongly believe you are allowed to, nay, encouraged, to use the F-bomb at men who are trying to get you into bed. Save it up, and use it then. Or practise saying "How DARE you!" in a tone of utter outrage and disgust. Repeat after me. "How DARE you!?"
In high school, a girl confessed to me that she had had sex with her permanently wheelchair-bound boyfriend, and afterwards he cruelly verbally abused her and accused her of having it off with his brother, etc. She was from a traditional Catholic background, and I can just imagine how Mr. Wheelchair may have played on her feelings of sympathy to get her to have sex with him in the same place. I have never forgotten how she wept.
Now, as then, I have no idea why she told me, since I was not a friend of hers. Perhaps she was inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell me so 20 years later I could tell you to scare you out of wrongheaded sexual self-sacrifice to men in wheelchairs. The number of times I have heard of women doing sexual stuff they didn't want to do out of a bizarre sense of political correctness! It makes me furious. Listen up, ladies. You're women. Woman trumps everything. Woman trumps wheelchair, race, poverty, everything--everything except "baby", whose special protection is our job. Once again, repeat after me, "No! How DARE you!?" (Then walk out.)
Uh oh. I am getting into a "men suck" mood, which means it is time for me to start chanting "bless his little heart" whenever I see one. Obviously most men are as good as most women. But there are some men (just as I imagine there are some women) who would do or say ANYTHING to get sex from the current object of their lust, and I feel it my auntly duty today to warn you and train you in the fine art of "No! How DARE you!" (Then walk out.)
P.S. No, it's not okay if you love him. It's not okay unless you're wearing a wedding ring, the guy involved gave you that wedding ring, and you feel like doing it. Kickin' it old-school, peeps. (Um... Did I say that right?)
One of the things that strict parents ought to tell their daughters, but don't, is that some guys will do whatever it takes to get you into bed. They will try to drug you, which is why you always watch your drink. They will try to get you drunk, which is why you never get tipsy around men without a strict friend, your brother or a responsible chaperone. They will tell you the most outrageous yet strangely convincing lies to make you feel it's all okay and even necessary that you have sex with them. The first guy I dated more than twice actually told me that you can't get pregnant "the first time." He actually told me that. However, he was from Afghanistan and possibly misread "virginal" as "completely ignorant." Yes, I dumped his ass.
I thought of impure men and their outrageous lies the other day when I read Piers Paul Read's Knights of the Cross. It has spicy sex scenes, but it is a literary treat for any tradition-loving Catholic who can read (or skip over) spicy sex scenes without them becoming occasions for sin. There is a chapter with a married ex-Jesuit which I found screamingly funny, probably because all my Jesuit friends are as yet neither ex- nor married.
In this novel, a somewhat seedy young German countess confesses how she became the slapper she is, and it all started out with a horrific lie. (Incidentally, if you are German or Jewish, you might want to steel yourself before reading further.)
Babi was silent for a moment, as if considering carefully the words she should use. "Take the case of a German girl who, aged nineteen, goes to the Free University of Berlin. There she meets an American student who is Jewish. He tells her that his grandparents died in Auschwitz. Her grandparents, of course, fought for Hitler during the war. The past weighs heavily on both the German girl and the American. He makes little distinction between the German Army and Himmler's SS. However, rather than being repelled by the German race, the American is strongly drawn to the female of the species, particularly one with blonde hair and long legs. He wants to sleep with the girl. She does not want to sleep with him, but eventually she decides that it is the least thing she can do to make up for the Germans' monstrous crimes."
"But that is ridiculous."
Babi flushed. "Easy for you to say that, Father. Men can be remarkably persistent, and women easily confused. The girl in my story came to feel that to refuse the American student would be taken by him to mean that she was prejudiced against Jews.
"Did he accuse her of that?"
"Oh, yes."
"And was she?"
"Prejudiced? How could she know? He was the first Jew she had ever met. There were things about him that she did not like. She found him physically unattractive, but she went to bed with him all the same, just to prove to him and herself that she was not prejudiced."
"Did she grow to love him?"
"Oh..." She waved her hand dismissively. "You know how it is with girls at that age. She persuaded herself that if she was sleeping with him, it must mean that she loved him, until she found out that he was doing the rounds of her blonde-haired, long-legged German friends."
"Was she upset?"
Babi shrugged. "Not especially. At least she had proved to him and to herself that she was not anti-Semitic. But then others came who had to be persuaded."
"She had affairs with other Jewish students?"
"Yes. With two or three of his American friends."
"It is pernicious," I said, "to feel obliged to sleep with someone one does not love."
"And there is an ironic twist in her story," said Babi. "She subsequently discovered that none of them was in fact a Jew, but they had learned that pretending to be Jewish was a fail-safe method of getting German girls into bed."
--Piers Paul Read, Knights of the Cross.
So that is the most horrifying thing I have read in a month of Sundays. I comfort myself that it is fiction, although I can see it happening, and I counsel any girl in Germany fed the same crap to say, "If you hate the Germans so much, what the **** are you doing in Germany?"
I strongly believe you are allowed to, nay, encouraged, to use the F-bomb at men who are trying to get you into bed. Save it up, and use it then. Or practise saying "How DARE you!" in a tone of utter outrage and disgust. Repeat after me. "How DARE you!?"
In high school, a girl confessed to me that she had had sex with her permanently wheelchair-bound boyfriend, and afterwards he cruelly verbally abused her and accused her of having it off with his brother, etc. She was from a traditional Catholic background, and I can just imagine how Mr. Wheelchair may have played on her feelings of sympathy to get her to have sex with him in the same place. I have never forgotten how she wept.
Now, as then, I have no idea why she told me, since I was not a friend of hers. Perhaps she was inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell me so 20 years later I could tell you to scare you out of wrongheaded sexual self-sacrifice to men in wheelchairs. The number of times I have heard of women doing sexual stuff they didn't want to do out of a bizarre sense of political correctness! It makes me furious. Listen up, ladies. You're women. Woman trumps everything. Woman trumps wheelchair, race, poverty, everything--everything except "baby", whose special protection is our job. Once again, repeat after me, "No! How DARE you!?" (Then walk out.)
Uh oh. I am getting into a "men suck" mood, which means it is time for me to start chanting "bless his little heart" whenever I see one. Obviously most men are as good as most women. But there are some men (just as I imagine there are some women) who would do or say ANYTHING to get sex from the current object of their lust, and I feel it my auntly duty today to warn you and train you in the fine art of "No! How DARE you!" (Then walk out.)
P.S. No, it's not okay if you love him. It's not okay unless you're wearing a wedding ring, the guy involved gave you that wedding ring, and you feel like doing it. Kickin' it old-school, peeps. (Um... Did I say that right?)
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