The greatest problem with the romantic heroes of fiction is that they are so little like the ordinary men we meet every day. Part of this might be because the great romantic heroes of fiction were penned before the Second--nay, the First--World War.
But even as products of their age, the romantic heroes of fiction must have been different from real-life men, for the romantic heroes of fiction seem always to be encouraging women in their ambitions and aspirations, but if history is anything to go by, it would seem that real-life men of previous centuries were constantly spooked by women's ambitions and aspirations and wished we would just settle down and bake pies more often.
It leads me to think that the creators of the romantic heroes of fiction were not, then, reporting on men as they are but as men as imaginative women wish they would be, and that this was spiritually akin to those male cartoonists who draw female super-heroes with 16 inch waists and 44 inch breasts.
The defining feature of Mr Big of "Sex and the City" was, from the very beginning, his fortune: "a young Trump" as Samantha described him to his future third wife.
But earlier romantic heroes were not described in such crass terms. I think the most beloved romantic heroes of my youth--beyond Frodo, who was certainly a "safe" crush object for an eight-year old--were Gilbert Blythe, a Canadian farm boy who became a village doctor, and before him Theodore "Laurie" Lawrence, "the boy next door" to the March sisters. Why none--let alone not all--of those March girls fell in love with him until the youngest had grown up is a mystery to me--or would be if I hadn't figured out that real life doesn't make for great fiction. Lord Peter Wimsey came into my life later and almost ruined it.
Gilbert Blythe and Lord Peter Wimsey are dangerous heroes because they are men who do not take "No" for an answer. The successful love stories of Anne of Green Gables and of Harriet Vane suggest that women are wrong to reject those men who adore them and that eventually we should "grow up" and accept them. However, the reason Anne and Harriet are made to reject their suitors for years is because this is necessary to sustain the dramatic tension of their stories. The appropriate response to a man who hangs around for years hoping to marry you is not to give in and marry him but to tell him to scram.
Incidentally, it is important for those who hope their lives turn out like Anne's or Harriet's to understand that the female creators of both women had miserable marriages. The husband of Lucy Maud Montgomery suffered from terrible depression, and one of LMM's descendents claims that LMM committed suicide. The husband of Dorothy L. Sayers suffered from the shell-shock he had contracted in the Great War and was envious of her success. His saving grace was apparently that he liked to cook and DLS liked to eat.
Ironically, the first woman novelist to completely send up the notion of the romantic hero was one of the greatest of them all. With Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen makes fun of all the conventions of the romantic novel. Her romantic hero is not very romantic at all; he does little but banter with and tease the heroine. His regard for her is based, we discover, on discerning her very great regard for him and being flattered. As for Pride and Prejudice, I am not convinced that Lizzie and Darcy had an entirely happy marriage, thanks to a rather chilling line at the end about Darcy not having learned yet to laugh at himself. Would he ever?
But there is no point in asking that because a book is a book, and once you get to the end-papers, it is a waste of time to speculate.
I realize I may be ruffling feathers again in my dismissive attitude towards literature, so I will again trot out all my credentials again. I have a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature, and I have written thousands upon thousands of words of fiction, 65,000 of which will be published by Ignatius Press next year. My attitude towards literature is that of a wine fancier who has seen too many drunks. I am like the food critic in Ratatouille who rarely eats because he loves food too much.
I think romantic fiction can blight lives, and so it is very important for us to keep in mind that the rules that govern the writing of fiction--like suspense--are not the rules that govern real life. To this I will add a note about love. A very bitter woman once told me that there was no such thing as romantic love and it was just a lie of romantic novelists. This is not true. There is such a thing as romantic love. It can be killed, of course, but it can also be nurtured into something that will warm and support you for decades.
Could you take a moment to write in the combox the romantic hero that you have fallen most in love with, what is right with him and what, in your opinion, is most misleading about him in terms of real life?
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Monday, 9 April 2012
A Truism
Hanging out with mostly girlfriends in Canada is much different from
hanging out with mostly male friends in Britain.
This is so true that I am not sure where to begin.
Many women, upon marriage, move or travel back-and-forth from one group of females, their friends and family members, to another group of females, their husbands' relatives. This can be a very difficult, but ultimately rewarding, transition.
I did not move into another group of females upon marriage, however. My one female in-law, a lovely, quiet woman, rarely leaves her town. My husband has no sisters, but he has many nice men friends. About two of the nice men friends are married. I think it is two. Perhaps it is three.
Moving into an extended crowd of mostly-male friends instead of an extended family of men and women is not a bad thing. It is merely a different thing. And it is full of zip and vim and gin and tonic!
It does make me wonder, though, how much Wendy enjoyed being the adoptive mother of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, especially with Tinkerbell zipping resentfully about. And as much as she loved all the above, did she not, occasionally, long to say "Drat it all" to the mending and go out for cocktails with Tiger Lily?
Fortunately there are no Tinkerbells* in my life, and there are a number of Tiger Lilys with whom to have cocktails. (Wait. Did Tiger Lily ALSO plot against Wendy? If so, James Barrie didn't have much faith in female friendship. Many men seem to think that female friendship is inherently shallow and easily upset by sexual rivalry.)
(Update) In fairness, I should reference a story in which a woman is constantly surrounded by women. The first one that comes to mind is Hotel du Lac, which is about a lot of women who would rather be with a man. And I definitely appreciate, having lived my early life among Girl Guides and schoolgirls, how refreshing it is to have men friends as well. In fact, I can imagine how grateful many women in female-dominated professions must be for their husbands, if they have any, or male relations and friends.
Anyway, I couldn't think of anything else to write about today, so I am tossing out this delicate topic. By the way, the combox is open only to girls. I realize that painting the blog pink and posting pin-ups is not really enough to discourage all male readers, and I grieve for those long-term male readers who have contributed so much to my comboxes over the years. But don't make me feel sympathy for Mary Daly here.
Eventually I will stop this blog altogether, and when I am asked why, I will say that I got tired of men watching us wash our handwashables.
*Tinkerbell, in this context, is the kind of woman who goes bananas when another woman shows up, displacing her as The Only Woman Around. Some women really hate having to "share" male relations or colleagues with another woman, and they make other women miserable. When I meet a woman like that, I can feel her fighting for me for possession of male attention, and it stresses me right out. I hope I am never like that myself. Or rarely.
hanging out with mostly male friends in Britain.
This is so true that I am not sure where to begin.
Many women, upon marriage, move or travel back-and-forth from one group of females, their friends and family members, to another group of females, their husbands' relatives. This can be a very difficult, but ultimately rewarding, transition.
I did not move into another group of females upon marriage, however. My one female in-law, a lovely, quiet woman, rarely leaves her town. My husband has no sisters, but he has many nice men friends. About two of the nice men friends are married. I think it is two. Perhaps it is three.
Moving into an extended crowd of mostly-male friends instead of an extended family of men and women is not a bad thing. It is merely a different thing. And it is full of zip and vim and gin and tonic!
It does make me wonder, though, how much Wendy enjoyed being the adoptive mother of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, especially with Tinkerbell zipping resentfully about. And as much as she loved all the above, did she not, occasionally, long to say "Drat it all" to the mending and go out for cocktails with Tiger Lily?
Fortunately there are no Tinkerbells* in my life, and there are a number of Tiger Lilys with whom to have cocktails. (Wait. Did Tiger Lily ALSO plot against Wendy? If so, James Barrie didn't have much faith in female friendship. Many men seem to think that female friendship is inherently shallow and easily upset by sexual rivalry.)
(Update) In fairness, I should reference a story in which a woman is constantly surrounded by women. The first one that comes to mind is Hotel du Lac, which is about a lot of women who would rather be with a man. And I definitely appreciate, having lived my early life among Girl Guides and schoolgirls, how refreshing it is to have men friends as well. In fact, I can imagine how grateful many women in female-dominated professions must be for their husbands, if they have any, or male relations and friends.
Anyway, I couldn't think of anything else to write about today, so I am tossing out this delicate topic. By the way, the combox is open only to girls. I realize that painting the blog pink and posting pin-ups is not really enough to discourage all male readers, and I grieve for those long-term male readers who have contributed so much to my comboxes over the years. But don't make me feel sympathy for Mary Daly here.
Eventually I will stop this blog altogether, and when I am asked why, I will say that I got tired of men watching us wash our handwashables.
*Tinkerbell, in this context, is the kind of woman who goes bananas when another woman shows up, displacing her as The Only Woman Around. Some women really hate having to "share" male relations or colleagues with another woman, and they make other women miserable. When I meet a woman like that, I can feel her fighting for me for possession of male attention, and it stresses me right out. I hope I am never like that myself. Or rarely.
Friday, 6 April 2012
Auntie Seraphic & Who is Lonergan?
But now for something completely different. I received an email about Lonergan, which I have boiled down to this:
Dear Auntie Seraphic,
Who is this Lonergan person?
Sincerely,
Who Is Lonergan?
P.S. I bought your book!
Dear Who Is Lonergan,
I'm delighted to answer your question on Lonergan. (And thank you for buying my book!)
Father Bernard Lonergan, SJ, was born in Buckingham, Quebec, Canada in 1904. He joined the English-speaking Canadian Jesuits as a young man and eventually went to the Gregorian, where he studied theology and produced a groundbreaking thesis on Aquinas's thought on Grace. At some point he also got tremendously interested in epistemology--how people come to know things. He wanted to take on modern philosophies, although in a respectful way. One of the underlying themes in his huge work Insight is his post-war fear that if people didn't find common ground there would be a massive nuclear catastrophe.
So he sat down and figured out what everyone could agree on. What everyone had to agree on was "experiencing, understanding, judging and deciding" since all those things--and questioning--are self-evident. The minute you ask, "Is there questioning?" , you have to say "Yes." And Lonergan determined that experiencing, understanding (which follows the question "What is it?) and judging ("Is it really so?") are the three steps necessary for knowing. Deciding takes us into the realm of the ethical: "Now that I know that, what do I do?"
Now Lonergan was a product of his times and of his religious order. As you may know, the Society of Jesus was one way before Pedro Arrupe became General and a completely different way afterwards. Lonergan's best work has the unmistakable stamp of St. Ignatius of Loyola on it, and to his dying day he was a Thomist and thus also an Augustinian. However, after the Second Vatican Council (and Arrupe), Lonergan turned his thoughts towards economics, the recent rejection of children as THE primary reason for marriage, and ecumenism. In this he was obedient to the Second Vatican Council, particularly as that Council was interpreted by the SJ.
He became a cult figure to increasing numbers of young Boomer theology students including, to his surprise, lay men and young women. (Before the 1960s, Lonergan taught only seminarians.) These students were products of their own generation and seized Lonergan's ideas to bolster up their own. Today people of all kinds of academic backgrounds and varying politics meet at Lonergan conferences, often with very little in common but a love of Lonergan's ideas. There are even atheist Lonerganians, which seems rather mad to me. I wonder if Father Lonergan, who died in 1984, is amused to discover that sometimes the "common ground" is he himself.
The elephant in the room is Lonergan's language. Lonergan was a good writer, but his thought was so precise and so detailed that his work is very hard to read and understand. The best interpreters of Lonergan work diligently to make his work accessible to new students. The worst add to the difficulty by making up their own Lonergan-inspired terminology. Between Lonergan's language and the esoteric attitude of his Boomer disciples, many students are completely turned off. "Insight" was reputedly the "hardest" course at my theologate, so I took it. And it was pretty hard, although thank heaven I "got" it and produced a good term paper.
One of the strengths of the classic Jesuit system of teaching is something called "Ignatian repetition." Usually this is a spiritual technique, but it serves in teaching as well. As the Jesuit theologate in Toronto is a major repository of Lonergan's thought, important Lonerganian themes are repeated over and over again from class to class. Gradually students learn Lonergan's thought the way people learn languages.
I find Lonergan's epistemology convincing and helpful when I consider the situation of young Single Catholic women today. To paraphrase Father Lonergan, "The dating world is before us in pieces, and it is up to the men and women of good will to put it together again." And part of that is strict attention to what really is.
You may have noticed how I mention "being rooted in reality" over and over again. This is because very often people do not make their decisions on what is true, but what they have uncritically accepted as true, or want to be true, or fear to be true. In the experiencing, understanding, judging scheme of knowing, a thinker can only move from understanding (in which hypotheses are raised) to judging (in which hypothesis are tested) when all the facts (or data) are in. My sanity has been saved on many an occasion by the admission that "I don't have enough data to make a judgement."
I gave a paper on Lonerganians themselves (see photo, above), which unsurprisingly, the Lonerganians who heard it rather enjoyed. My research suggested that a major factor in students' interest in, or rejection of, Lonergan's ideas was the Lonerganians themselves. My advice to young traditionalists who are disturbed by what they have heard about Lonergan is to see beyond the presenter to Father Lonergan himself and then always remember the historical circumstances in which Father Lonergan lived: the Society of Jesus both before and after the Second Vatican Council. He was influenced by St. Ignatius, Aquinas, Augustine, John Henry Newman--and then the Second Vatican Council.
I am told that the theological craziness of the 1970s disturbed him very much, but that is anecdotal.
Beginning to read Lonergan, especially without a good professor, can be a hair-raising experience. I recommend beginning with Chapter 2, "The Human Good", of his Method in Theology. (This is available also in other language, including in Polish as Metoda w Teologii. The Polish MwT is out-of-print, but it can be found in specialist libraries.) It will give you a brief glimpse into what he is all about.
I hope this is helpful!
Grace and peace
Seraphic
P.S. Lonergan was not a Kantian. I mention this only because any Catholic man with a philosophical background who has only dabbled in Lonergan tends to dismiss him as a Kantian. But he was not a Kantian, as has been demonstrated again and again. Which I hope you will say airily if the subject ever comes up.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Dropping a Brick
I am totally hooked by the Daily Mail Samantha Brick scandal even though I know perfectly well that the Daily Mail thrives by appealing to the worst in people, particularly xenophobia.* Note that I linked to the Telegraph instead.
To sum up, a married lady aged 41 wrote an article about how women hate her because she is so beautiful and how she can hardly wait for old age to catch up with her and remove her burden of beauty. She sent it on it to the Daily Mail with photographs of herself and her plump French husband.
If you don't know already, you can imagine what happened in the combox. And on Twitter. And on Facebook. The English-speaking blogosphere took a look at Samantha Brick, read her encomium to herself and fell about laughing with scorn. It wasn't that S.B. ranks with Angelina Jolie, for she doesn't. It's that she comes across as delusional.
She also presses two female buttons: 1. she claims women are inherently bitchy, envious and jealous, which is quisling-like slander 2. she claims she's looking forward to old age when she won't be beautiful anymore and men won't notice her, whereas that is one of women's greatest dreads.
It's a moot point whether Brick is as pretty as she thinks. I generally think I am dashing, and possibly my mirrors all lie because I usually like what I see in them, but then I see a cruel photo and I am sad. I go weeping to someone who loves me, and that someone tells me I am beautiful, and who am I to argue with that, eh?
However, even at my most confident, I would never believe women don't like me because I am too beautiful for their comfort level. If women don't like me, I guess it's because I said or wrote something that hurt their feelings. I never bought the idea that girls at school were mean to me because they seethed with envy of my "beautiful" hair, as my mother claimed.
Newsflash: women tend to admire beautiful women for their beauty. It's when a woman acts like she thinks she's so much better than all the other women around that we feel surges of dislike.
Anyway, Samantha Brick may or may not believe that she is as beautiful as she says she is, and I can see how it is certainly better for her to believe that she is. She has got scads of fame and might now get a regular column and better pay then freelancers tend to get. Meanwhile, she has taught us all a useful lesson in how to lose friends and disgust people.
*One of the weirder prejudices in British life is British resentment of the Poles. Why people who toddle happily in places marked "Kama Sutra" and "Fat Choy Fun" for their curry or noodle fix suddenly go bonkers at the sight of a sign marked "Sklep" is a mystery to me. Perhaps they have forgotten that Poles rescued Britain in the Battle of Britain. Total ingratitude.
To sum up, a married lady aged 41 wrote an article about how women hate her because she is so beautiful and how she can hardly wait for old age to catch up with her and remove her burden of beauty. She sent it on it to the Daily Mail with photographs of herself and her plump French husband.
If you don't know already, you can imagine what happened in the combox. And on Twitter. And on Facebook. The English-speaking blogosphere took a look at Samantha Brick, read her encomium to herself and fell about laughing with scorn. It wasn't that S.B. ranks with Angelina Jolie, for she doesn't. It's that she comes across as delusional.
She also presses two female buttons: 1. she claims women are inherently bitchy, envious and jealous, which is quisling-like slander 2. she claims she's looking forward to old age when she won't be beautiful anymore and men won't notice her, whereas that is one of women's greatest dreads.
It's a moot point whether Brick is as pretty as she thinks. I generally think I am dashing, and possibly my mirrors all lie because I usually like what I see in them, but then I see a cruel photo and I am sad. I go weeping to someone who loves me, and that someone tells me I am beautiful, and who am I to argue with that, eh?
However, even at my most confident, I would never believe women don't like me because I am too beautiful for their comfort level. If women don't like me, I guess it's because I said or wrote something that hurt their feelings. I never bought the idea that girls at school were mean to me because they seethed with envy of my "beautiful" hair, as my mother claimed.
Newsflash: women tend to admire beautiful women for their beauty. It's when a woman acts like she thinks she's so much better than all the other women around that we feel surges of dislike.
Anyway, Samantha Brick may or may not believe that she is as beautiful as she says she is, and I can see how it is certainly better for her to believe that she is. She has got scads of fame and might now get a regular column and better pay then freelancers tend to get. Meanwhile, she has taught us all a useful lesson in how to lose friends and disgust people.
*One of the weirder prejudices in British life is British resentment of the Poles. Why people who toddle happily in places marked "Kama Sutra" and "Fat Choy Fun" for their curry or noodle fix suddenly go bonkers at the sight of a sign marked "Sklep" is a mystery to me. Perhaps they have forgotten that Poles rescued Britain in the Battle of Britain. Total ingratitude.
Anielskie Single, Division Champ
I am sort of confused about how votes were tallied, and how much weight was given to the "judges" and how much to the "interneters"---called the "internauts" by my Marketing Director--but it seems that Anielskie Single won in some way in the Najlepsza książka katolicka (Best Catholic Books) contest.
I think it is the champ of the "Literature" division, as voted in by the internauts. So thank you and dzękuję bardzo to all internauts who voted.
All the attention the book is getting in Poland is truly heartwarming. You can buy it in English as Seraphic Singles, of course.
So far I have had no luck reading the Polish version, in part, I believe, because the translators decided to write it in very colloquial and presumably youthful Polish, i.e. slang. Or so I am told by one ex-pat Pole who read it himself. I hope no-one at the May Anielskie Single retreat is shocked when instead of a black-leather clad hipster a solemn lady in a long wool skirt appears.
I think it is the champ of the "Literature" division, as voted in by the internauts. So thank you and dzękuję bardzo to all internauts who voted.
All the attention the book is getting in Poland is truly heartwarming. You can buy it in English as Seraphic Singles, of course.
So far I have had no luck reading the Polish version, in part, I believe, because the translators decided to write it in very colloquial and presumably youthful Polish, i.e. slang. Or so I am told by one ex-pat Pole who read it himself. I hope no-one at the May Anielskie Single retreat is shocked when instead of a black-leather clad hipster a solemn lady in a long wool skirt appears.
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Timid Boys
Here I am back in Scotland with my manly husband, who--wrapped in a bath towel--has been staring out the window chanting "Still falls the rain" in the plummy accent of the late Dame Edith Sitwell.
"How very manly, darling," I said affectionately.
Actually, men pretending to be women is classic comedy in Britain. It is part of the pantomime tradition, in which men dress as the Wicked Stepsisters and their ilk and a woman dresses as the youthful hero. (Peter Pan, incidentally, is traditionally played by a woman.) During the Second World War, British officers would dress up as women in recreational revues, and before our more cagey times, so did the seminarians at the English College in Rome.
It is about being funny, not about being pretty or sexy. There is a world of difference between the homely housewives on Monty Python and the leopard-print clad post-op transsexual who sashayed past me in Toronto's gay village one memorable day. For one thing, it was not necessarily British men with SSA who donned drag; any British man would do it for entertainment value, to be funny.
I don't think this is a staple of Canadian or American humour (Dame Edna/Barry Humphries is Australian), which goes to show you how expectations of "maleness" change from culture to culture. And a great pal of mine and I argue over whether or not "The Rules" are cross-cultural, or whether there is some basic male psychology that simply doesn't change from culture to culture.
To boil this down to a simple and even fatuous question--although it never sounds fatuous when it's you staring at the phone or your computer--"Is it ever wise for a woman to make the first move?"
I don't want to make the past seem nicer than it was, for a quick check with your granny will reveal that the past could be tiresome and oppressive for women, but it must have been great when everyone agreed that women did not make the first move and so men had to do it. Be she ever so lively or shy or pretty or plain, nobody was telling the hopeful young girl that what she really ought to do was just call up the boy who caught her eye and ask him out on a date. No. Instead, boys cajoled other boys into doing the calling.
One of the comfortable things in belonging to a trad Catholic subculture is that there is a tacit agreement in that subculture about how men and women are supposed to behave. It can also be a bit of a drag, as innocent women barked at for wearing "pants" in church, can attest. (All things are pure to the pure, and it very rarely occurs to today's NCGs that the problem with tight trousers and jeans is that they lovingly outline the shape of our bums, a distraction to men and even--if we've stopped being used to the sight--women at prayer. I'd go for a bum-covering jacket to go with the trousers, myself.)
But it makes social life a lot easier to navigate when it is generally agreed that it is the single woman's job to look and be pleasant, and the single man's job to look and be pleasant PLUS ask out the single women, unless he feels called to a life of bachelor tranquility or the priesthood. And, of course, if the single woman feels called to a life of single tranquility or a religious order, she can turn down the date request.
What is frightfully annoying is when men expect girls to court them and men expect girls to ask them out. And I suppose they do these days, not just because they see girls throwing themselves at rock stars, but because they see girls throwing themselves at their friends. I can't stand men like this; it makes them seem lazy and spoiled.
And now I'm going to make a few remarks about the following video, even though I very much like this video, because it is a little capsule of what is wrong with confused gender role courtship today.
I find this video cute, so I feel a bit bad deconstructing it, but come on. Here we have this tall, hard-as-nails looking German girl, and this cute little German guy with big puppy-dog eyes. He spends his subway trip staring at her, and her expression never changes from icy. Frankly, it's no wonder he never says anything. Goodness. He gives up without actually trying anything except bashful glances and gets off the car with his tail between his legs. But then--lo and behold--the icy German girl changes her mind and runs after him, something very difficult to do on a moving train, but she manages. And so, heartened, he runs after her. I hope she has the brains to get off at the next stop, and that he has the brains to take the next train to that stop. But you never know.
Meanwhile, I am relatively sure that this boy would not be what my pal and I call a "Rules" boy. A "Rules" boy is the kind of manly man who really doesn't like it on a very important level when girls chase after him and would prefer to do the chasing himself. One of my pals swears that she wouldn't be married to her "Rules" boy if she hadn't had me in the background yelling "Don't call him!"
So what do you think? Is the underlying tendency of men in your community to do the chasing, or do they sit around waiting for girls to make the first move?
"How very manly, darling," I said affectionately.
Actually, men pretending to be women is classic comedy in Britain. It is part of the pantomime tradition, in which men dress as the Wicked Stepsisters and their ilk and a woman dresses as the youthful hero. (Peter Pan, incidentally, is traditionally played by a woman.) During the Second World War, British officers would dress up as women in recreational revues, and before our more cagey times, so did the seminarians at the English College in Rome.
It is about being funny, not about being pretty or sexy. There is a world of difference between the homely housewives on Monty Python and the leopard-print clad post-op transsexual who sashayed past me in Toronto's gay village one memorable day. For one thing, it was not necessarily British men with SSA who donned drag; any British man would do it for entertainment value, to be funny.
I don't think this is a staple of Canadian or American humour (Dame Edna/Barry Humphries is Australian), which goes to show you how expectations of "maleness" change from culture to culture. And a great pal of mine and I argue over whether or not "The Rules" are cross-cultural, or whether there is some basic male psychology that simply doesn't change from culture to culture.
To boil this down to a simple and even fatuous question--although it never sounds fatuous when it's you staring at the phone or your computer--"Is it ever wise for a woman to make the first move?"
I don't want to make the past seem nicer than it was, for a quick check with your granny will reveal that the past could be tiresome and oppressive for women, but it must have been great when everyone agreed that women did not make the first move and so men had to do it. Be she ever so lively or shy or pretty or plain, nobody was telling the hopeful young girl that what she really ought to do was just call up the boy who caught her eye and ask him out on a date. No. Instead, boys cajoled other boys into doing the calling.
One of the comfortable things in belonging to a trad Catholic subculture is that there is a tacit agreement in that subculture about how men and women are supposed to behave. It can also be a bit of a drag, as innocent women barked at for wearing "pants" in church, can attest. (All things are pure to the pure, and it very rarely occurs to today's NCGs that the problem with tight trousers and jeans is that they lovingly outline the shape of our bums, a distraction to men and even--if we've stopped being used to the sight--women at prayer. I'd go for a bum-covering jacket to go with the trousers, myself.)
But it makes social life a lot easier to navigate when it is generally agreed that it is the single woman's job to look and be pleasant, and the single man's job to look and be pleasant PLUS ask out the single women, unless he feels called to a life of bachelor tranquility or the priesthood. And, of course, if the single woman feels called to a life of single tranquility or a religious order, she can turn down the date request.
What is frightfully annoying is when men expect girls to court them and men expect girls to ask them out. And I suppose they do these days, not just because they see girls throwing themselves at rock stars, but because they see girls throwing themselves at their friends. I can't stand men like this; it makes them seem lazy and spoiled.
And now I'm going to make a few remarks about the following video, even though I very much like this video, because it is a little capsule of what is wrong with confused gender role courtship today.
Bloc Party - Kreuzberg from Ricco Buitink on Vimeo.
I find this video cute, so I feel a bit bad deconstructing it, but come on. Here we have this tall, hard-as-nails looking German girl, and this cute little German guy with big puppy-dog eyes. He spends his subway trip staring at her, and her expression never changes from icy. Frankly, it's no wonder he never says anything. Goodness. He gives up without actually trying anything except bashful glances and gets off the car with his tail between his legs. But then--lo and behold--the icy German girl changes her mind and runs after him, something very difficult to do on a moving train, but she manages. And so, heartened, he runs after her. I hope she has the brains to get off at the next stop, and that he has the brains to take the next train to that stop. But you never know.
Meanwhile, I am relatively sure that this boy would not be what my pal and I call a "Rules" boy. A "Rules" boy is the kind of manly man who really doesn't like it on a very important level when girls chase after him and would prefer to do the chasing himself. One of my pals swears that she wouldn't be married to her "Rules" boy if she hadn't had me in the background yelling "Don't call him!"
So what do you think? Is the underlying tendency of men in your community to do the chasing, or do they sit around waiting for girls to make the first move?
Monday, 2 April 2012
Auntie Seraphic & Ask or Not Ask
Dear Auntie Seraphic,
If I may, I wanted to ask your opinion on a dating-related matter. I've found your blog to be super relevant to my life as a single woman, so thank you.
Here is my situation. I've been seeing a really nice guy from church for [X]. We met at a church event and then, lo and behold, he arranged some group outings, and then called me and asked me out to dinner (which made me very glad that I had waited for him to make the first moves). We've been on [Y] dates, and we've connected at church and social events with other friends regularly.
Anyway, I'm wondering at what point you would consider it ok (for lack of a better word) to initiate a date (so far he's done all the asking), and how a woman should decide what would/wouldn't be considered too forward in terms of reciprocating interest and taking initiative? It seems like we're both pretty interested, though I would like to hear from and see him more often. He's in rigorous [professional] training, and it's hard for me to tell if he's just that busy or not as interested in me, or if this pace is good for this early stage. I am cautious about doing things I might have done in the past, such as being too available and doing favours like baking cookies for him (I haven't). But at the same time, I have found it increasingly hard to be detached and avoid getting too hopeful/ahead of myself with this guy. He is wonderful, and I really like him, yet I don't want to be disappointed.
I feel confused. I've started praying for detachment and perspective. I'm also trying to accept that I might get hurt, and there is only so much I can control. I have kissed him, which maybe was unwise. I guess the reason I'm writing is that I just don't like feeling like I'm sitting by the phone - I don't know if I should keep patiently letting things unfold slowly, or reach out to him more often. After all, we've been out a few times, and I feel like a good friendship/relationship is developing. I don't want to overdo it, or at the other extreme, come across as ambivalent.
Any insight you could offer would be helpful. I want to invite him to get dinner with me this week, but I don't know if that's too forward. I feel like I'm second-guessing everything lately, and I don't like feeling so unsure of myself.
Thank you so much for reading this email! I know you must be very busy, and I appreciate all the work you do to help us singles to be seraphic.
Sincerely,
Ask or Not Ask
Dear Ask or Not Ask,
Sit by the phone. I know we've been told since we were born that sitting by the phone is BAD and these are MODERN TIMES and that the MODERN WOMAN is the strong, masterful type who sends flowers and pays for dinner and calls the man on the phone and wrestles lions, etc., etc., but that is just nonsense.
Either he's that into you or he's not. If he's not that into you, calling won't help. If he is into you, calling him will lessen your mystery and quality of precious rarity.
I don't know why people act like dating relationships are all that and a bag of chips because we women spend a lot of our time away from the men in utter anxiety. Between being kissed by B.A. and being asked by B.A. to marry him, I was in a state of insanity. If he hadn't asked me to marry him, I don't know what I would have done! Possibly imploded.
So it is completely normal for you to feel like you want to hear and see him more often, and possibly he would like to hear and see you more often, but he is [in rigorous professional training]. He is under intense pressure--and as a [Z] I am sure you must be under some, too--and the last thing you want to do is ADD pressure. Because that is what "Gee, I sure would like to see you more often" does. Nine out of ten women start to nag for more access after a few dates. Be the one in ten who clenches her teeth and waits.
Let things unfold slowly. I really mean that. There is no reason for you to call him up and ask him out for dinner. If he's the One, he will call you up and ask you out for dinner. He will not sit around wondering why you don't call up and ask him out for dinner. And he must know you like him; if you didn't like him, you wouldn't go out with him. The important thing is that he not know how MUCH you like him until he takes his big, necessary, boy-becomes-man, emotional risk of telling you how much he likes you.
I understand very well your temptation to push things forward faster, to push for more, to do something to relieve the feeling of "waiting by the phone." However, there is just no point. You are just going to have to live in the discomfort, and, yes, that kind of sucks. Alternatively, you could fill up the gap with more of your work, with more of your friends, with more of anything except vices, Ben & Jerry's and temptations to call him and ask him out on a date as if he were a girl and you were a big, strong man.
I assume you see him once a week already, what with church and everything. The famous "Rules" decrees that at the early stages of a relationship, you shouldn't see a man more than once a week, increasing to twice a week as the relationship gets going.
Meanwhile, you are still free to go out for coffee, etc. with any other guy who asks. Keep that in mind, and perhaps he might remember that as well and do something to forestall that. (Of course you should never SAY so.)
I hope this is helpful.
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
If I may, I wanted to ask your opinion on a dating-related matter. I've found your blog to be super relevant to my life as a single woman, so thank you.
Here is my situation. I've been seeing a really nice guy from church for [X]. We met at a church event and then, lo and behold, he arranged some group outings, and then called me and asked me out to dinner (which made me very glad that I had waited for him to make the first moves). We've been on [Y] dates, and we've connected at church and social events with other friends regularly.
Anyway, I'm wondering at what point you would consider it ok (for lack of a better word) to initiate a date (so far he's done all the asking), and how a woman should decide what would/wouldn't be considered too forward in terms of reciprocating interest and taking initiative? It seems like we're both pretty interested, though I would like to hear from and see him more often. He's in rigorous [professional] training, and it's hard for me to tell if he's just that busy or not as interested in me, or if this pace is good for this early stage. I am cautious about doing things I might have done in the past, such as being too available and doing favours like baking cookies for him (I haven't). But at the same time, I have found it increasingly hard to be detached and avoid getting too hopeful/ahead of myself with this guy. He is wonderful, and I really like him, yet I don't want to be disappointed.
I feel confused. I've started praying for detachment and perspective. I'm also trying to accept that I might get hurt, and there is only so much I can control. I have kissed him, which maybe was unwise. I guess the reason I'm writing is that I just don't like feeling like I'm sitting by the phone - I don't know if I should keep patiently letting things unfold slowly, or reach out to him more often. After all, we've been out a few times, and I feel like a good friendship/relationship is developing. I don't want to overdo it, or at the other extreme, come across as ambivalent.
Any insight you could offer would be helpful. I want to invite him to get dinner with me this week, but I don't know if that's too forward. I feel like I'm second-guessing everything lately, and I don't like feeling so unsure of myself.
Thank you so much for reading this email! I know you must be very busy, and I appreciate all the work you do to help us singles to be seraphic.
Sincerely,
Ask or Not Ask
Dear Ask or Not Ask,
Sit by the phone. I know we've been told since we were born that sitting by the phone is BAD and these are MODERN TIMES and that the MODERN WOMAN is the strong, masterful type who sends flowers and pays for dinner and calls the man on the phone and wrestles lions, etc., etc., but that is just nonsense.
Either he's that into you or he's not. If he's not that into you, calling won't help. If he is into you, calling him will lessen your mystery and quality of precious rarity.
I don't know why people act like dating relationships are all that and a bag of chips because we women spend a lot of our time away from the men in utter anxiety. Between being kissed by B.A. and being asked by B.A. to marry him, I was in a state of insanity. If he hadn't asked me to marry him, I don't know what I would have done! Possibly imploded.
So it is completely normal for you to feel like you want to hear and see him more often, and possibly he would like to hear and see you more often, but he is [in rigorous professional training]. He is under intense pressure--and as a [Z] I am sure you must be under some, too--and the last thing you want to do is ADD pressure. Because that is what "Gee, I sure would like to see you more often" does. Nine out of ten women start to nag for more access after a few dates. Be the one in ten who clenches her teeth and waits.
Let things unfold slowly. I really mean that. There is no reason for you to call him up and ask him out for dinner. If he's the One, he will call you up and ask you out for dinner. He will not sit around wondering why you don't call up and ask him out for dinner. And he must know you like him; if you didn't like him, you wouldn't go out with him. The important thing is that he not know how MUCH you like him until he takes his big, necessary, boy-becomes-man, emotional risk of telling you how much he likes you.
I understand very well your temptation to push things forward faster, to push for more, to do something to relieve the feeling of "waiting by the phone." However, there is just no point. You are just going to have to live in the discomfort, and, yes, that kind of sucks. Alternatively, you could fill up the gap with more of your work, with more of your friends, with more of anything except vices, Ben & Jerry's and temptations to call him and ask him out on a date as if he were a girl and you were a big, strong man.
I assume you see him once a week already, what with church and everything. The famous "Rules" decrees that at the early stages of a relationship, you shouldn't see a man more than once a week, increasing to twice a week as the relationship gets going.
Meanwhile, you are still free to go out for coffee, etc. with any other guy who asks. Keep that in mind, and perhaps he might remember that as well and do something to forestall that. (Of course you should never SAY so.)
I hope this is helpful.
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)