Apparently Interested, Has Girlfriend

Here is an interesting email I received last week:

Hello, Dear Auntie Seraphic!

Good to have you back from Rome!
 ...

I remember [that] being pursued or even courted to some extent by young men with girlfriends or fiancées was a nightmare to me when I was in my late teens, and it strongly affected my dating experience. I would think like “He pursues/courts me = he has a girlfriend = he’s not interested” and, as a result it got me to even more absurd thinking “He doesn’t pursue me = he might be interested”. Or, “I’ll have to chase after him MYSELF, because if HE’s doing it, this means trouble”. Oh, dear. So confused I grew up. Even now I tend to be overly cautious when somebody shows interest and overly proactive if they don’t that much.

Have you got any clues about what to do when a man with a girlfriend pursues you? How to set boundaries if he appears regularly in your social circle or at work? How to figure out he’s just friendly towards you and you shouldn’t panic too much as long as you don’t get involved emotionally? Are there limits to already taken men pursuing a Searching Single Woman? 

Note: I don’t mean chat-flirting as such, but rather a more “courting behavior”, like for example calling you up regularly, getting out of his way and going places you go, scheming to get you alone, buying you small things, touching you etc. Would be great if you could shed some light onto that issue. I think some other women can relate, too.

Much blessing to you for your wonderful ministry!

You may be thinking, "Hey! What kind of so-and-so gets interested in somebody else when the so-and-so is in a steady dating relationship already?" 

(Auntie Seraphic looks shifty and sneaks towards the exit.)

Oh dear. How badly I behaved when I was young. You would not have thought it to look at me, since I was as cute as a fluffy bunny, but really... I think it's because I didn't get the boyfriend I wanted in high school. Also I had a very 1950s concept of dating, which is that you were supposed to go out on dates with as many guys as possible (who all pay) until the one you really fell in love with asked you to marry him. 

I don't think that's so terrible, actually, if that's what happens. For example, if a whole lot of guys on a dating site (if you care for dating sites) ask you out for coffee, then I think it is absolutely fine to meet every single one for a coffee. 

However, that's not usually what happens. What usually happens, or happened in the 1990s, is that one guy asks you out, and you like him okay, so you go out with him again, and then no other guy asks you out. The only guy asking you out somehow turns into your boyfriend and you think, "Cool! I have a boyfriend! And he's a nice guy. I like him. My mum likes him. Everyone likes him." And since in Catholic circles the boyfriend pressuring you for sex is a universally accepted reason to break up with him (and can destroy his reputation), you can be in a comfy boyfriend-girlfriend relationship for years, eventually getting married, sure, unless you get so bored you become enthralled with someone else.

Or so seemed to be my thinking. In hindsight, I should always have called it quits after Date 3, or at least pondered the injustice of it all, especially re: who pays. Recently I got an anonymous comment claiming I was am a cheating rhymes-with-itch, and I must be putting my husband through hell. Really, sometimes I wish I were more forgettable--or, since apparently I am not, that I had been a better girl.  

Anyway, the point to this confession is to observe that it's not just guys with girlfriends who start showing interest in other people. Some girls with boyfriends do, too. The question is whether they sincerely want a regime change or if they merely want two relationships at the same time.

Most people deny their true sexual nature every day, which is a good thing, since most people have a polyamorous orientation. Married people who put their spouses above their own selfish impulses suppress their polyamorous tendencies all the time. And if you don't believe me, ask yourself if you've only ever been sexually attracted to one person, or even just to one person at a time.

It's probably not a shock to know that marriage does not magically make men stop being attracted to other women. It may be a shock to know that women keep on being attracted to other men.  But, really, I think faithful women should get as much (or almost as much) credit as faithful men. Temptation gets thrown in women's way, too. Some men, like some women, will stealthily court married people they have their eyes on, the sneaks.

Some people think that the best way to cope with polyamorous tendencies is just to give into them, but in an "honest" way, so that everyone knows who is involved with everyone else. In these arrangements, there are "primary" partners and "secondary" partners. This presumably gives the "primary" partner the feeling that, hey, at least she's/he's still number one. Their "partner" can do whatever he/she wants with the "secondaries" just as long as he's/she's "emotionally faithful" to the "primary." This is complete and utter garbage, involving the exploitation of, at very least, the "secondary" partners, but hey. It's "modern" and "sophisticated" and "revolutionary"---and as old as the oldest profession.

And it's the way many people secretly operate. They justify their courtship of others (potential unwitting "secondary partners") by remaining, in some ill-defined way, faithful to their girlfriend/fiance/spouse. And therefore, what you need to know, if some guy whom you know to have a girlfriend is quite obviously into you, is what he is up to. SO ASK.

This is no time to be subtle. This is serious stuff. If a man is your work or study buddy, and you enjoy chatting at lunch, that's great. But if he has a girlfriend, you shouldn't find yourself often alone with him, or having long phone conversations with him at 10 o'clock at night, or getting presents from him, or being touched by him in a non-touchy culture. Either there is something seriously wrong with his relationship with his girlfriend, or he wants to have his cake and eat it too, i.e. the stability of monogamy and the excitement of polygamy. Ask him which it is.*

Or, to preempt any lies, tell him you're not comfortable being alone, getting late phone calls, receiving presents or being touched by a guy with a girlfriend. In either strategy, all you have to lose is an immature guy who puts his polyamorous tendencies before the woman in his life. And, frankly, a guy who hasn't reached that level of maturity and virtue yet is not marriage material. Maybe he'll be marriage material for someone someday, but he isn't now.  

*If he's an elderly, married, childless man who quite obviously adores the young folk, you may want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know one man like that--a sincerely fatherly, very generous type. And there was at least one nice young foreign seminarian + middle-aged, married "Canadian mother" type relationship at my M.Div. school, and I think either party would have been staggered and hurt if anyone had questioned it. Today I am contemplating only same-age relationships.

Permission to Love Your Dad More Than Other Dads/The Good Despised One

It's in Aquinas. That is, I looked up Aquinas on Charity.  I have gone on a great deal on the topic of "Is it okay to love best those closest to me?" in yesterday's combox.

Spoiler: Aquinas says YES. And--this will blow your mind--he says you should love yourself MORE than your neighbour. That is, you should love your own soul more than your neighbour. (You're supposed to love your neighbour's soul more than your body, by which I am guessing Aquinas means your bodily comforts, as Aquinas was born before the artificial mind/body/soul split.) Anyway, have a look at my comment. Now I shall go on at length about the Good Samaritan.

One of the problems with reading the story of the Good Samaritan in the modern day West is that the modern day West is the result of about nineteen hundred years of Christianity and one hundred years of fashionable Doubt. The fashionable Doubt cherry-picks Christian ideas even  as it scoffs, "Well, of course, we care about strangers. Of course we do. You don't have to be a Christian to know that. Look at the Ancient Greek code of hospitality, blah blah blah."

Meanwhile, Christians are so used to the idea that we are supposed to love strangers and enemies that we are uncertain if we are supposed to love our family, friends and neighbours more. If we are honest, we admit that we do. But isn't this wrong? Isn't it, when you get down to it, perhaps racist?

 In first century Palestine, occupied, taxed and impoverished, the problem was not that people loved "their own" first. It was that they loved "their own" first AND LAST. Family ties were all that really mattered, although people had natural neighbourly feelings, too. When a widow's son died, for example, the neighbours would gather round and bewail her misfortune--without a son, she was that much more likely to starve to death. (Neighbours might feel it virtuous to prevent this from happening, if they could, but they might not think it their responsibility.) You'll notice our Lord was careful to make sure His mother was taken care of by an adopted son; it was one of His last thoughts when He was dying.

Our Lord knew perfectly well how awful it was in first century Palestine not to have any family to take care of you, and you'll notice in the Gospel that He heals many mothers, children and the adult brother of Mary and Martha, upon whom they were presumably dependent.  What is interesting, from a historical point of view, is that Our Lord goes beyond His family ties and His community and even the different kinds of Semites to help utter foreigners, including an officer of the brutal, occupying force.

Of course, the Roman in that story was rather astonishing, too, since (A) he cared about his poor paralyzed servant that much and (B) he recognized that he wasn't worthy to have Our Lord in his house. Since we all forget what a bunch of thugs the Romans were, perhaps it would be salutary to imagine for a second that Our Lord was a Pole in Occupied Poland and the Good Roman was a Good German in the Occupying Army, maybe a sincere Christian who thought the Generalgouverneur was a disgusting pig (as Hans Frank certainly was). Eeek!

We forget, too, how much the Jews of Jesus's day despised the Samaritans. Hearing a story in which a Samaritan was the good guy must have shocked them. To understand the impact the story of the Good Samaritan was meant to have on Our Lord's original hearers, think of someone from the group you despise most. I mean, really despise. Secretly. A Klan member or someone like that. A 60 year old richer-than-most Afghan opium farmer with an 11 year old wife. A rich tourist who was probably alive when his/her country invaded yours. Or a Canada-hating, Marxist, cocaine-sniffing member of the Parti Quebecois. Whoever. Pick. Someone you would never in a million years have a coffee with.

Then imagine you have been knocked down on your way home from a club, the night you decided to wear that daring outfit, and kicked in the liver by some guys who stole your purse, and nobody does anything because, frankly, you don't look injured as much as passed-out drunk. Which is what everyone going by thinks, so they either ignore or make fun of you.  

(This is possibly more believable a scenario in the UK than in Canada and the USA. Perhaps I should add that it is summer-time.)

And along comes a priest who averts his eyes because your panties are showing, and he hurries on feeling disgusted by Young Women Today. And then along comes a Catholic Mother of Five who thinks that, never mind that Miraculous Medal around your neck, you must have had a really bad upbringing. She hurries on, too.  But then André Boisclair this person you really despise walks by, takes a good look at you, shrieks, pulls out his/her mobile, calls an ambulance, holds your hand, tries to get you to tell him/her your name, and goes with you in the ambulance to the hospital, cancelling whatever enjoyable plans he/she had for the evening. After ascertaining you have no insurance (e.g. for the drugs), he/she pays your bill.

Who was a neighbour to you? André Bois--Your despised one, darn it all. And Judgment Day will be a bit rocky if you had the strength and gall to crawl away, saying, "No, I'd rather die than be helped by you."

Your neighbour, it occurs to me, is not any foreigner thousands of miles away but anyone who actually treats you like a human being worthy of care ("mercy", says the NIV). Not, you know, bomb-planting jihadis. Jihadis are our enemy. We love them by praying for their repentance and conversion, ascertaining that they are treated decently if they are captured and hoping they won't suffer eternal hellfire if we kill them in battle. When the war is over, we help their loved ones rebuild their own lives. We don't form blinking fan clubs for them--even if they are cute, capisce?

And the thing about the priest and the Levite in Our Lord's parable (and the priest and the Catholic Mother of Five in my version) is that they were supposed to help and they didn't.

Anyway, I think I have got away from my original point, which is that although it may have been revolutionary to tell people that they were responsible for unfortunates even outside their own families, and that they should see the decency in such rivals and enemies who had proved themselves to be decent, it was not a call to completely set aside loyalty and responsibility to your nearest and dearest.

And that is something we need to remember today, when various lobbyists (of whatever colour, but usually our own) enjoy telling us that we are disgusting and our histories are colonialist and therefore bad and our parents' values, if unlike theirs, are despicable, and we should be ashamed of who we are and can never truly atone for the sins of our ancestors so we should just shut up and let the smart people do the talking.

But Jesus didn't feel a need to denigrate His people--just people who led them wrongly. He was a Jew. He came to the Jews first. His disciples were all Jews. The rest of us were, amazingly, invited to join in the plan of salvation without first becoming Jews, but that doesn't mean salvation doesn't "come from the Jews" (John 4:22). During his mission, Jesus looked beyond His immediate own but He didn't do it in a way that displaced those closest to Him. For example, we know that, of all human beings, Our Lord will always love His mother best.

Update: Lest anyone think I am making the best the enemy of the good, I direct your attention to this LifeSiteNews appeal for the Christians in Syria. Please support it if you can, and if you can't, please pray for the Christians of the Middle East. The oldest surviving Christian communities are the most endangered ones.

Still Not Over It

***
On September 11, I usually just leave a photo, mention I'm still not over it, and say nothing else. But twelve years after the terrorist attacks upon the innocent people, mostly but not solely Americans, on planes, in New York City and in Washington D.C., I'd like to say why I'm not over it.

I'm not over it because I have deliberately kept a little flame of hurt alive in my heart in memory of 2,977 innocent people. And I word it that way because somewhere (probably online) I saw a T-shirt reading "I'm so over 9/11," like that was something to be proud of.

I'm not over it because I saw the towers fall, albeit the way most of us saw the towers fall, on television. I, however, saw it in public. Skiving off work, and envious of my then-boyfriend who was on a bicycle trip starting at Somerset County, PA, I went to the central public library. The library had a row of televisions hanging near the ceiling, and a rather large crowd of people had gathered to stare at them. So I did, too.

When the first tower fell, I started to cry. I did not think "Oh well, people across the world suffer, too. Oh well, time the U.S. learned what it is like. Oh well, blah blah blah." I thought that thousands of people were dying, horribly, right before my eyes. Mostly people who were Americans, like my dad. 

There's a fair amount of anti-American feeling in Canada; it's considered kind of cool and perhaps even necessary. But it all evaporated on 9/11. In Montreal, on 9/11, my brother overheard a French-Canadian youth say something like "Who cares? They're Americans" and the crowd around telling him to shut the heck up.

I think it is natural to feel sympathy with those closest to you, in terms of family, or neighbourhood, or ethnicity, or culture. It is meritorious to feel sympathy with people who have absolutely nothing in common with you, save humanity, but I don't think it is meritorious to trample all over your own to hug the exotic stranger. So I have no problem saying that my sympathies are more with ordinary Western people getting on planes or going to work than with, say, Afghan villagers. Also, I care more about Middle Eastern Christians than I do about Middle Eastern Muslims simply because they are Christians. Sue me. Most of the world isn't ashamed to put their own first; why should I be?

The invasion of Iraq annoyed me, and I'm proud Canada didn't get pulled into that, but 9/11 really hurt. 7/7 hurt, too, although with less intensity. The 2006 discovery that some young Toronto-area Muslims had tried to collect materials to blow up innocent Torontonians, sent me through the roof. I was in Germany at the time, and two days after my visit to Cologne, Muslim engineering students tried to blow up a train from Cologne. That also made me mad.

It made me so mad, I cannot think about Germany without thinking about Islamic terrorism. This is why my novel set in Germany is about Islamic terrorism. But because of whoever they are who are "so over 9/11", it is also about Western complacency.

I don't think we can afford to be complacent. Freedom isn't free, and Western Civilization will not continue just 'cause. We have a guarantee that the gates of hell will never prevail against Christ's Church, but Christ's Church seems to be doing a lot better in Africa and Asia these days. Whereas of course I love Christ and His Church best, I am also fond of European-founded Western Civilization, and currently it is under threat not only from the kind of people who hate music, kites and portraits but from, not to put too fine a point on it, stinking traitors and ignoramuses.

Update: Oriana Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride. Read it at least once in your life. It's by the bravest, noisiest European woman writer to survive the 20th century.

"She Just Wanted to Have a Wedding"

 Read it and weep. Say a prayer for the poor dead groom.

The "Kids or Mr Perfect" Poll

Now that I am home and rested and full of caffeine, it is time to look at my latest incredibly unscientific poll. The fact that the poll was unscientific was stressed to me by a young Pole staying in the house, and incidentally I wonder if Poles get tired of their anglophone friends making bad puns about polls, poles and Poles.

The young Pole purports to believe that it is better for a woman to just get married to Mr Good Enough and have children than to wait decades for Mr Perfect for Her, and he thought I skewed the poll by mentioning divorce in that choice. However, I felt that mentioning permanent childlessness in Choice 2 evened them up. Besides, he is from Poland where mass divorce is new and drastic and I am from Canada where it is an ancient and ever-present threat.

So here are the poll results:

Number of respondents: 246

In terms of marriage, I would rather

1. settle for Mr Good Enough just to have kids even if we divorced later. 11
2. wait for Mr Perfect-for-Me even if we never had kids. 179
3. state that I am a happy Serious Single woman and don't see myself getting married/married again. 9
4. admit that I am an Eavesdropping Male. 18
5. admit that I am a Married Lurker. 29

Look at that: eighteen eavesdropping men. And twenty-nine married lurkers!  I hope you buy my novel, since you love my writing so much. How embarrassing for me if you don't. "Oh wow," they will say at Ignatius. "This little lady does not have the dedicated readership we thought." And I will wonder if Hilary White is right and really bloggers must be mean to their readers and basically order you to give us money. Hilary makes a packet. I don't make a packet. Where was I?

Oh, yes. The poll.

Okay, so there are also nine Serious Single readers, and I salute them. Of 199 Single respondents, only these nine are content with their status. I think I will have a Serious Single Day when I post testimony from the Serious Singles to tell us why they are so content. Are you widows looking back on married lives well-lived? Are you nuns? Are you consecrated virgins who discovered that by taking on the Lord's yoke you have lost your chains? Are you simply dancing to a different drummer because that is the beat of your heart? Let us know; we all can learn from you.

The other 190 fall extremely unequally into the "Mr Good Enough for Kids"  and "Mr Perfect-For-Me even if No Kids" camps. Only eleven picked the first, and a whopping 179 picked the second. This may show how really very important friendship-in-marriage has become, perhaps particularly in countries where marriages that "don't work" are thrown out like broken toys. It also suggests that Single women over 25 are no longer treated like pitiful pariahs who are "past it". If life for Single women was as horrid as it used to be, I think more readers would have picked Mr Good Enough.

Still, eleven readers did pick Mr Good Enough so as to be sure of having children, and although this was never my choice (result: no children), I think it is valid. It is certainly traditional. Novels are full of older women in corsets advising romantic young girls that all men are the same anyway, and that three years of utter romantic bliss are not worth losing one's position in society for the rest of one's life. There is one prudent mama in a Georgette Heyer novel who, herself having married a poor vicar for love, schemes like crazy to marry off her daughters to richer men. Ah ha ha ha!

But one does think of poor Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice accepting silly old Mr Collins because she asked "only a comfortable home." Her own father, if you recall, was rather a silly, slightly puffed up man, and Mr Collins was going to inherit the Bennets' house, Longbourn, which was very near her parents. And Charlotte was 27 which, before the invention of washing your hands, was considered old, and no-one considered her pretty. Meanwhile, she was also rather cynical, and told Elizabeth Bennet, "[C]onsidering Mr Collins's character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair, as most people can boast on entering the marriage state."  Meanwhile, Mr Collins' object in getting married was to please his patroness, who thought a clergyman ought to be married. It's not like he was a mad romantic who would sulk if Charlotte wasn't madly romantic back. Thus, one can definitely see Charlotte's point of view, if one is not lovely Elizabeth of the sparking eyes and shining hopes.

When P&P ends, Charlotte is pregnant, and assuming she survived childbirth in her author's mind, having children may have been rather nice for her, especially as she had (also thanks to Mr Collins) servants. It was more company, and people who were brought up from birth to respect her. Still, even before she was married a year, she was contriving ways of escaping her husband's yakking. My husband escapes me by popping down to a nice room he fixed up for himself in the cellar, but we have been married for four years, and actually that is pretty normal for husbands. British husbands usually have sheds, and American husbands usually have garages.

What is the point of all my palaver, eh? Well, I think I am sticking up for the eleven readers who just want children that badly. Bishop LeFebvre, he of the SSPX, had kittens over how Vatican II de-emphasized the Having Children part of marriage and re-emphasized the Lovey-Dovey part of marriage, basically by (I think) putting the word "unitive" before the word "procreative." And I do recall that for centuries nobody thought fluttering hearts necessary for marriage: Casti Connubii is all for love (if more for babies) but not so impressed by flutters.

That said, I am in the Wait-for-Mr-Perfect camp myself, in part because I am so easily bored and when I am bored, I am not very nice.  I think a very good-hearted, patient, kindly woman could marry any of a number of men and delight in him, whoever he is, and inspire his affection and gratitude. But she is not me. Marriage is not just about finding the right person, it is about being the right person for the person you find.

Rome for Lunch

Here is my promised later post although I can't think of anything Single-ish to write about. I suppose I could contrast what it is like to travel about alone or with a girlfriend with what it is like to travel with a husband, but I might get into big trouble.

Big trouble.

Big.

Still, now that I mention it, one of the major differences is that when you travel about Poland with, say, your Polish friend Marta, Marta will prompt you to speak Polish and you will remember Polish words you read only once in class a year ago, but if you travel about Italy with, say, your British husband, you will totally forget Italian words you've known since you were sixteen. At least, this is my experience.

That said, maybe I need a solid and serious Italian review. I used to be so smaaaaaarrrrrt. What has happened to meeeeeee? I've heard of mommy brain. Is there married lady brain?

B.A. thinks Rome is for churches, but I know Rome is for lunch. Churches are what you visit in the mornings before they shut inexorably at noon, and then you go to lunch. After lunch, you can wander about looking for the churches that actually open before Mass at 5 or 6 PM. St. Peter's Basilica, incidentally, is a cert. St. Ignatius is good, too. Forget the Gesú. Closed.

At 5 or 6 PM, unless you want to go to Mass, it is time to scoot back to your seaside holiday pad to swim. Italians, I've noticed, swim before 5 PM, but they have a lot of melanin in their skin. I do not allow the rays of the sun to touch my unprotected skin unless they are dying, and you may quote me. One day I will write a romance novel that is entirely a metaphor for my relationship with the sun. The sun is beautiful but wicked, giver of life but also dealer of DEATH. Also wrinkles.

Anyway, back to lunch. The spirit of Rome is lunch, the most important meal of the day. In the morning, you wolf down a cornetto (croissant) and savour a cappuccino. That should keep you going until one p.m., which is about when you should have snaffled a seat--preferably indoors with the Romans, not outside with the sun-starved tourists--in a tried, tested and true restaurant. You must find out where the good restaurants are from friends or Italians going home on the plane. (Don't trust the tour guide suggestions, don't, don't, don't.) And incidentally, B.A. and I had our very best lunch, with a whole bottle of wine, for only 59 Euros, which included a tip.

For supper you just eat some tomatoes and mozzarella drizzled with pesto on toast and then maybe run along to the gelato store for a gelato. That is all you will want because of the gorgeousness of lunch. If you have only money enough for a museum or for lunch, go to lunch. I'm serious and, besides, the churches are free. Even the coat check at St. Peter's is free. Yay, Mother Church!

I wrote about my first lunch at the CR, so you will have to wait and read about it there.

My second lunch began with fried zucchini blossoms, continued with saltimbocca and ended with millefoglia.

My third lunch--oh, that was groceries, as we had dinner with friends that night. Dinner was mushrooms on crispy toast, roast pork and pinenut-studded torta alla nonna.

Then my fourth lunch was hare-and-truffle pate on crispy toast, followed by cheese ravioli with citrus and pistachios and then almond-and-orange torte, and I almost wept tears of joy.

My fifth lunch was fried artichokes and pasta with chickpea soup, and it was just okay, to be honest. (We have crossed that place off the Roman Lunch Master List.)

My sixth lunch was just very crispy eggplant pizza because we were going to a feast that night. (The feast involved oysters, pasta with whatever fish spigola is, and the most delicious fritto misto--mostly calimari--ever, plus gallons of wine.)

And finally, my seventh lunch was back where we had our fourth lunch, and we had the ravioli again, and this time for pudding I had gelato di mosto, which is gelato made from wine grape skins, basically, and it was utterly delightful. And after the seventh lunch, there was a mad rush for train connections and the airplane.

We also saw some churches, hmm, hmm, and two whole museums because we were feeling flush. But now I must go as dinner is served.

Back from Rome

Hello, dear poppets! I'm back from Rome and catching up on work. I will get to your emails and to a proper post later today. These days I don't take my computer to the continent, but I am thinking that I really need a smartphone.

All I'll say for the moment is that there are really cool never-married ex-pat Single people, priests and lay, living in and around Rome, working and feasting and sunning themselves and generally having a great time. There's a few married people, too, with babies who are fun to play with.

I think it would be incredibly awesome to be Single and Catholic in Rome. More awesome to be Single and Catholic in Rome than in Toronto, that is for sure.