Help Seraphic Week

My dear little Singles, if any of you have been loving my biweekly column at my Canadian Catholic paper, this would be a good week to send a little email to tell the editor that you like it, and how refreshing to read a column geared to intelligent, orthodox Catholics your age, etc., etc. If you are not a Catholic, but an actual, real live, non-Catholic who likes my biweekly column, say that. My detractors would be in AWE, since I am so, like, you know, conservative and stuff.

Send your love notes to editor@catholicregister.org and, incidentally, use my real name. Thanks!


Update: And in other news, it has finally come home to me how little I still make from writing. (No royalties until January, for example.) So behold, resurrected, the tip jar.

Update 2: Thank you to the kindly Irish contributor who sent along $40!

Auntie Seraphic & Contacted by Married Man

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

I've been reading your posts about interacting with married men and, oddly, I recently received an email from a Nice Catholic Guy I briefly dated about 8 years ago. From what I know, he is married and has a son. I have had no contact with him for 7 years and our last communication was friendly. I knew he was engaged to the woman he is now married and I had moved on with my life and wished them well.

I responded to his email and told him I was quite shocked to hear from him. The next email I received from him he said that he understood my surprise and that he had wanted to get in touch to apologize for how he acted when we dated and afterward. He hopes that I have been very blessed in life and regrets he may have been a poor example of our Catholic faith. Honestly, I felt he had acted decently and we only dated for a month so it was something I easily moved on from.

Especially after reading your recent posts, I am aware that I should tread carefully when communicating with an ex-boyfriend who is now married. I realize it is a good thing to want to make amends for past mistakes and that he is a prayerful person and God may be working in his life to prompt him to contact me. However, I also know that marriages are delicate and sacred and I am respectful of that. I was thinking of asking him what prompted him to contact me now and whether his wife is aware of it. Any other advice?

Contacted By Married Man

Dear Contacted By Married Man,

Okay, St. Ignatius of Loyola said that whenever we were confused by someone's theological position, we must first make the most charitable assumption and ask further questions before branding our interlocuter a big nasty heretic.

So I will honour St. Ignatius long enough to say that perhaps Mr Married Man really really really feels that it will help his Christian faith and perhaps also his Catholic marriage to contact a woman he used to date and go over the good old days when he was such a wicked thing, breaking up with poor little you and all. Never mind that you might not have given him a second's thought in seven years. Ooooh, seven years. What does that remind me of?

My advice is to ignore his last email and all future emails. He's done what he says he's set out to do--make amends for what he feels were past wrongs--and so that's enough from Mr. Married Man. If he needs more spiritual thrills, he can get them through apologizing to his wife for whatever poor examples he's been setting for her lately. I'm sure there must be something. Like sending deeply personal emails to ex-flames, for example.

Incidentally, as you don't remember his acting particularly badly--and your dating relationship was only a month long--it is clear to me that this sudden bout of nostalgia has little to do with you and your eight-years-dead relationship. There is something going on with him, now. I don't know what it is, but I am sure Nice Catholic Men get just as bored of ordinary daily life as other men, and have periods of sighing over their yearbook photographs and googling up old flames in a nostalgic way. It's just human.

Human, but dangerous. So don't give Mr. Married Man any encouragement whatsoever. Also, as a favour to him and his wife, don't share news of his emails with mutual acquaintances or, for heaven's sake, his wife. My guess is that it's just a blip, and no matter what it is actually all about, he probably thinks it's all about being a better Catholic.

I do not have a direct phone line to heaven, but I cannot think of a single reason why God would prompt a married man with children to email a single woman he used to date right out of the blue and carry on a meaningful spiritual correspondence about himself with her. Unless, of course, you're Sister Joan Chittister or some other celebrity nun.

Hope this is helpful!

Grace and peace,
Seraphic

Auntie Seraphic & Isabella & the Wife Who Screamed

Seraphic,

Will you be blogging about the "artificial barrier" between Married and Single people or will we have to wait for your next book? I hadn't thought about it until I read [your last post], but the more I think about it, the more I think there is something there.

This reminded me of (another state) when I had something break and went over to see a female friend of mine--"wife"--to help me fix it. She wasn't home, but "husband" invited me in, got out the toolkit, and fifteen minutes or so later, I was merrily on my way.

That night, "wife" called me and screamed that I was never to be alone in her house with "husband" ever again. I should state that there was no reason for this -- she was my friend first, and he was just a nice guy who happened to be MARRIED to someone I considered a friend. No flirtation, no touching up my makeup before I knocked on the door - nothing.

There have been more comments on this [on your blog] than almost anything in a long while, so there's something going on, but heck if I know what. I'd be very interested in finding out what that barrier is, because that incident ended my friendship with both of them and I still don't know why. I think he got an ultimatum not to talk to me and she never called again.

I'm reasonably OK looking but not so beautiful that men hurl themselves at my feet, so I would dearly like to understand what happened. FWIW I have always worked mainly with men and miss her more than him.

Isabella

Dear Isabella,

First, this was not in any way your fault. You did absolutely nothing wrong. This, in fact, had nothing to do with you. At most, you were cast as a bit player in the psycho-drama between "husband" and "wife". I cannot even begin to imagine the script to that particular psycho-drama. For all I know, imagining infidelities between her husband and her friends is how your ex-friend gets her kicks. Sorry to be so blunt, but some people (and some marriages) are like that.

Nobody can really understand the dynamics between husbands and wives, including husbands and wives themselves sometimes. Marriage is not just an institution, it is a psychological condition. What is the line in the Song of Songs? Love is as strong as death, more powerful than the grave? That sums up marriage, if anything can. Love, strong, death, power, grave. This is not an artificial barrier, though. It is true.

But no-one approaches marriage tabula rasa. A child learns about marriage from her parents, and if a woman's father hit her mother or abandoned her or ran around with every weak-willed woman in town, the child may very well dread (or, worse, expect) that her husband will do that, too. This is where the artificial barriers between Single and Married people might go up.

A woman's feelings about marriage may lead her to freak out at innocent women who come by her house bearing broken items. The helpful guy with a tool-kit is a staple character in pornographic movies, I believe. And for all you know, "husband" and "wife" have been fighting over his or her porn habit. Sorry to be so blunt again.

Old-fashioned ideas about interacting with married people, once set in stone, and now maybe not as universal, can also create artificial boundaries between Singles and Marrieds.

I once found my Single self alone in a house with a married male colleague, and I was not happy about it. The first thing I said was, "Does [your wife] know I'm here?" And apparently she did and eventually she came home and made cheerful conversation. She was absolutely fine with my being there, even without her.

My male colleague thought my discomfort was hilarious, possibly in part because he and his wife are committed feminists and possibily in part because their marriage was rock-solid. But my mother has no male friends except my father, and no male colleagues either, and I had no template of how ladies are supposed to act regarding married men, other than (perhaps) to completely avoid being left alone with them. So that was part of my inner marriage script.

Another time I found my Single self alone in a flat watching Sex & the City with a dear now-married friend, and her husband came home early. I jumped up in a panic because my mother told me years ago that wives' friends should be out of the house and wives off the phone when husbands came home. That created more of my marriage script. It was not part of the marriage script for my friends, however, and my buddy's husband told me to relax: I didn't have to go home just because he was there.

But let us return to married peoples' private insecurities and expectations around marriage.

Married people are supposed to put each other--and never you or any other Single person--first all the time. ALL the time. But not all married people are as good at doing this as they are at expecting it of their spouse, alas. So a woman (or man) who feels that her (or his) spouse isn't doing a good enough job putting her (or him) first may begin to resent any time he (or she) spends with friends, especially friends of the opposite sex.

But marital insecurity is not the only barrier between Single people and Married people. There is also the envy of the Single for the Married, and the discomfort of Married people with the unhappiness of the Single, especially if the Single person complains or lashes out all the time. The unhappy Single person sees only the gorgeous kitchen equipment given as wedding gifts; she doesn't hear her Married friends fight about how to properly make a lasagna--"My mother made it this way"; "Your mother's version is choked with fat and will eventually kill your dad."

If you would like your friend back, I recommend sending her a card or an email saying, "Haven't heard from you for a long time. Hope you are well!" It could be that she was having a rough time in her marriage, and now feels ashamed that she made you bear the brunt of it. But don't be too disappointed if she doesn't respond.

I hope this helps. Once again, it was not your fault.

Grace and peace,
Seraphic

Cheap Beer With the Dudes

Update: A great review (and the first UK review) from Cath. Thank you, Cath!

For Searching Single girls. If you are a Serious Single, you can simply read with amusement, have a good chortle and enjoy your freedom.

One of my favourite TV shows in the UK is "Ladette to Lady". It is a reality show featuring a dozen or so contestants who are willing to go to an English finishing school and try to kick their unladylike ways. It's unbelievably exploitative of its volatile young contestants, mind you.

For example, in the series with Australian girls (who were arrested upon landing in England because of their hijinks on the plane), the headmistress announces to the girls that they will be having a party and the male guests will be staying overnight. The ex-stripper, no dummy, bursts into tears. She knows its a trap, and a pretty foul one, too. And sure enough, the craziest girl in the group ends up in bed with one of the boys. But it is the tomboy who gets expelled.

The tomboy is a pipefitter, used to hanging out with men all the time. She's about 27, and looks ten years older. Laying pipe in the Australian outback doesn't do much for your complexion, I guess. She comes onto the show in the hopes of getting in touch with her feminine side, but living and working with a bunch of sexy party girls gets old fast.

So when the male guests retire to their rooms for some clandestine drinking, the tomboy joins them. Disaster ensues when she is found by a teacher, drunk, hiding under a bed. It's tragic, really. The woman just wanted to go back to being one of the boys.

My question, which I can't answer yet, is how can you be both one of the boys AND be a creature unlike any other (as commands Ellen Fein's first Rule in The Rules)? How do you preserve any mystery?

"Do you paint your husband's toenails that colour?" asked a male Pillar of my Parish. I looked down at my bright pink toenails and remembered hearing that pedicures are Not Done by ladies (as opposed to ladettes) here in Scotland.

"He has never been drunk enough to let me try," I loftily replied.

But I find it interesting that the Pillar noticed my toes in the first place, my toes that proclaimed "girl toes" just by being painted. Simone de Beauvoir says that a girl is made, not born, a woman, and Susan Brownmiller opines that femininity is not natural but a social construct. But I think that femininity is incredibly useful for underscoring one's own essential, and attractive, distance from men.

I was in Rosslyn Chapel on Tuesday, and among the carvings of biblical scenes, angels, flowers and green men, there is a stone ribbon proclaiming (in Latin) that drink is strong, the king is stronger, woman is stronger still and truth is the strongest of all. I forget now in which biblical story these statements were made, but I enjoyed contemplating FORTIOR MULIERIS because it reminds me of a flattering truth.

Women have a lot of power over men. I tend to forget this. Heck, we all forget it. We've heard since childhood of how unfair the world is to women, and we are constantly told that men make more money than us, and blah blah blah. Men are the strong sex, the powerful sex, the attractive (to us) sex. So unless we are the kind of women whom men have been flopping in front of all of our lives, we forget that as far as men are concerned, we are the strong, the powerful, the attractive sex.

So how to tap into this? Feminine difference, I believe. Feminine distance. Why should we pluck our eyebrows? (Which I hate to do, shudder shudder.) To create pleasing frames for our eyes? Yes. But also because men usually don't. Why should we wear mascara? To make even better frames for our eyes? Yes. But also because men don't.

This does not have to extend to profession. There are both feminine biochemists and macho nurses. Profession has nothing to do with this. And there are girls who can look as fantastically feminine fixing up their cars as they do mixing up a cake. It's about les petits soins. It's about attitude. It's about not being just one of the boys.

"I'll Take Care of This"

The other day, Julie wrote something utterly heartbreaking in the comments, and it haunted me as I fell asleep last night. I haven't forgotten how sad it is sometimes to be Single, especially Single and overburdened with work and worry.

Julie recounted a married male colleague at work saying "You look so tired, you go home and rest, and I'll take care of this" and she reflected that it was hard not to long to have a husband to say that.

My very last piece in Seraphic Singles (the Book) touches on our longing for someone to say things like this. That piece is called "Got Your Back." In it I (still Single) reflect on all the people who do "get our back"--family, friends, co-workers, mentors. My thought was that although we don't necessarily have husbands to make our lives easier, other caring people do. The trick is to find them, develop relationships with them, and to ask for and accept their help gratefully.

Since then, I have found that although I am very happily married to a very good, amusing and intelligent man, he cannot do simply EV-erything always to make me feel better about life's slings and arrows. I find myself needing other people, too, especially female friends. (Yes, I know I do go on about female friends. But what will happen if I have a baby one day with no mummy, no mummy-in-law, no sisters and no young-yet-experienced-mother friends in town rather alarms me. I joked to an old bachelor friend of B.A.'s that I would ask him to come and babysit; he laughed immoderately and said it boggled the mind. Oh dear.) But even men friends still come in useful. I have three male mentor figures I turn to in moments of writerly darkness, for example.

Once again, I encourage Singles to, instead of becoming bogged down in depression about the spousal support they don't have, develop and appreciate the support they do have. I know this may be irritating to hear from a married woman, but I said exactly the same thing when I was Single.

If you can stand to read about married people today, read on:

This reminds me: the most harried and lonely women I know are young married women with children. If you have married friends nearby, don't forget to invite them to parties and make it clear that they can bring their children. I'm not talking about your eagerly-planned formal dinner party with the best china; I'm just suggesting that the next time you have an informal party, you remember to invite married pals you haven't seen in awhile and make it clear their kids are welcome. That way, you've got your married friends' backs.

Some of the best times I had in Toronto when I was home last month was with a young-mother pal. She brought her baby along to restaurants, cafes, the beauty shop, a bachelorette party, and waitresses and beauticians simply flocked to coo over the baby. To breastfeed, my friend just threw a blanket over her shoulder. No problem. And all these parties and outings would just not have been the same without her, so I am so glad she is so comfortable going everywhere with her baby. Of course, it wasn't always like that--baby spent his first six months yowling almost non-stop. Offering to watch the baby for 15 minutes is another way a Single girl friend can help out a frazzled Married girl friend, plus have all the fun of short-term baby-minding without the horrors of 24/7 baby-minding.

***
Update: Thank you very much to the tenth amazon.com reviewer! I enjoyed your tribute very much. And now that British readers have been receiving their copies from amazon.co.uk, it would be great if they would write reviews on amazon.co.uk. I love reading the new reviews!

Making Friends of the Opposite Sex

In yesterday's comments, Jennifer brought up an embarrassment many Singles will know well. It is the problem of saying a friendly word to a member of the opposite sex and getting a cold look of suspicion and fear in return.

I used to think that was just a girl's problem, but I've received enough sorrowful email on the same topic from young men to realize that this affects them just as much, if not more. One young man complained to me that when he tried to talk to Catholic girls at Catholic events, they stared at him wide-eyed, as if he were a potential murderer. Well, we're all potential murderers, but I know what he meant, because I spent my undergraduate days looking at guys who came up to talk to me as if they were potential murderers.

So it may come as a comfort to Singles on both the Joseph and Mary sides of the aisle to know that this is not a problem confined only to their group. But what to do?

First of all, we have to be honest. If you go up to a member of the opposite sex, thinking "Oooh, what a cute guy/girl", don't be surprised and shocked if they can read the lovelight in your eyes. But if you make a conversational aside to the random guy/girl beside you at the tea table after Mass and they interrupt you with "I'm seeing someone", just say, "How nice for you," and turn your back. They, not you, have been abominably rude.

Second of all, there are rude people in the world. There are people with Serious Issues. There has also been a general breakdown in manners and a growing tendency to confuse honesty with rudeness. But enough about Boston. What I'm trying to get across is that sometimes your well-meaning conversational gambit is going to be rudely rejected, and your response is to turn the other cheek and your entire back. There's no point trying to make friends with rude people with Serious Issues.

I remember talking to a professor at a garden party in Boston. It was my first school function in Boston, and I was very nervous. Having been introduced to a celebrated professor, I began to talk to him. Suddenly he lunged past me to grab the arm of a very pretty student two or so years ahead of me, and began to talk to her with great animation. This professor was a priest, and all I think about him now is, "I was a stranger and you made me feel like garbage." I've never tried to speak to him again. And I seem to have forgotten his name. He's a syncretist of some kind... Gracious, I just cannot remember his name for the moment.

Third of all, why should you care if a random guy or girl becomes your friend or not? You don't even know them, so if they are rude to you, they have given you helpful data: they are not friendship material, at least not right now. On to the next person.

Fourth, why do you need friends of the opposite sex? How many friends do you need? The ancients thought true friendship was rare. Aristotle thought it could only take place between equals which, for Aristotle, meant that men could never be friends with women. The Romans, however, did believe that a man's best friend could indeed be his wife, so thank you, Romans.

Americans and Canadians seem to feel that you can be friends with absolutely everybody, which is what Facebook is about. Some Europeans (like Germans) find this shocking and shallow. They have a few bosom pals, and then respectful acquaintances. This dignified reality is supported by the, for example, German custom of addressing one's neighbours by their title and surname. "Gruess Gott, Herr Schmidt." "'Tag, Frau Mueller." Never mind that they may have lived next door to each other for thirty years.

I believe that men long for women friends because if they don't have a woman at their table and in their bed, most of them feel horribly lonely and incomplete. Women are very good at saying soothing things and listening and all those other skills we absorb from absolute babyhood. But I don't quite understand why women long for lots of male friends, unless it is because they don't get along with other women. Shiraz and I had a good conversation the other days as to who were the worse bullies, twelve year old boys or teenage girls. Shiraz had a lot of convincing proof that whatever bullying boys could do, girls could do better. But you know me. I think men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life, but they just can't provide me with the Girl Chat I need to stay cheerful in this valley of tears.

On the one hand, longing for created stuff (like friends) is not really in keeping with the Christian faith. We're supposed to long for God and thank Him for whatever created gifts he sends our way. So we should be grateful for the friends we have, and not kill ourselves trying to get more. On the other hand, no man (or woman) is an island, and we have to take care of our emotional life. If we move to another city, and our friends are all elsewhere, we certainly feel a lack.

On Sunday, when I had collapsed from too much drink and too much sun onto a cushion as men about me drank even more and sang "Annie Laurie" around the piano, one of my husband's friends looked upon me with compassion.

"Aw, hen," he said. "Weel have tae find ye more wifies."

Indeed.

Because It Will Make You Unhappy

I am surprised at the vehemence of Singles against yesterday's unfinished post, "And don't mess with married men."

"Don't mess with married men" is standard advice in books for Singles, and I think I have written a dozen times that women should not mess with priests and seminarians, without anyone--including priests and seminarians--getting angry about it.

Where is the anger coming from? Have I finally said the unsayable? Or is it that we don't want to admit that Nice Catholic Girls ever have a longing thought or two in a Married Man's direction? And I am sympathetic to this taboo, for I had at least two crushes on Married Men when I was Single and I never wrote about them. Too scared.

But let us look at reality. I looked at reality the other day when a chance acquaintance brought the subject of Single Women pursuing Married Men to mind. Obviously I am not going to go into the circumstances, just as I've never gone into the circumstances of real women messing with real priests and real seminarians (and the priests and seminarians messing with women). But the thoughts that came to mind were, "What a shame." "But she's such a lovely girl." "Why doesn't she know better?" and even, "What would her mother say?" I have no idea if the girl is Catholic or not. Probably not.

I think I was thirty or so when I first got a crush on a Married Man. I had not planned on getting a crush on a Married Man, but he worked in my office and I was bored. He was very cute, and his wife gave him a hard time for everything and his in-laws didn't like his ethnic group (or something). I got a mild thrill every time he came by my desk, and I recorded our conversations in my diary. I meticulously referred to him there as MM, "Married Man."

Happily for everybody, I never acted on my mild crush in any way whatsoever (besides, of course, writing down our conversations). For one thing, I had the big MM taboo, still being a practising Catholic, and for another, he had a photo of a baby on his desk, so I think even if I hadn't been brought up to respect marriage vows, the photo of the baby would have stopped any word or gesture. But it didn't stop wistful thoughts of, "He's so cute and funny" and "Gosh, his wife sounds like a tartar." Generally, I believed everything anybody ever told me, so it never occured to me that his wife wasn't a tartar--just a busy working mother whose husband wasn't a saint. Younger women are very attractive for their credulity.

I can't tell you firsthand how miserable it makes you to get involved with a married man, for I never have myself. I can only tell you that women (even young women) do get involved with married men (even with young married men), and this causes widespread misery.

When Monica Lewinsky made the news for having had an affair with the American President, there were gallons of ink spilled on why Monica might have done such a thing. The fact that she had been involved before with a married man became front page news, and someone (perhaps Monica) posited that Monica's attraction to married men stemmed from low self-esteem. Apparently some women feel that they will never get "their own" man and so therefore "share" someone else's husband, making all kinds of justifications to themselves. Rose Macaulay, a deeply religious 20th century Anglican novelist, justified her long affair with a Catholic married man with the idea that the War had killed all the eligible bachelors.

The miseries attendent on pursuing a married man are legion. First, you make an ass of yourself as even chance aquaintances (like me) see you stepping out with a married man, his ring firmly on his finger, and wonder what on earth you're about. Second, you know that he returns after meetings to his wife and children and suffer the pain of loss and probably envy. Third, you either feel bad about him betraying his wife (in whatever way) or you undergo a coarsening of conscience as you simply don't care. And that's just your sufferings. There's his sufferings, his wife's sufferings and his children's sufferings to consider, too.

That all said, I will now look at why even mention of this topic (so much in the news these days thanks to Tiger Woods) is upsetting readers so much. It might be because Single women worry that Married women think their standard friendliness is a play for their husbands, and they feel insulted.

Well, obviously, I can't speak for all married women, but I have never worried about this. I would find it quite interesting news, actually, if someone hit on B.A. I love "Someone hit on B.A." stories. Someone texted B.A. to say that she had a B.A. shaped hole in her life. Unfortunately for her, that was two days after he asked me to marry him. As she is Single and I love Singles, I wouldn't normally tell you this story, which she must feel embarrassed about now, but I'm feeling on the defensive here.

I think only a woman who doesn't know her husband very well (or is going through an emotionally very bad time) would worry about random Single women talking to him after Mass or during drinks with the gang after work, so I really wouldn't worry about that if I were you, mes filles. On the other hand, if a woman gives you a mean look when you talk to her husband, that might very well be a warning that the man is not a nice person for you to know.

Then it might be that some Single women are frustrated that they never seem to meet eligible men, but just married men on the prowl. I agree that that is very annoying, but married men on the prowl are rarely a spiritual temptation to nice Single women. It's the dreamboat in the office who reputedly has a bitchy wife who is the real danger.

Then it might be a confusion as to what this post is about. St. Ignatius of Loyola says that when you are confused by a person's theological position, you should charitably make the best interpretation (and not just assume he is a heretic). When I write something about Single people, I would hope that three and a half years of writing for Single people would absolve me of any suspicion of warring against Single People. I am not worried about the vast majority of my readers suddenly rushing out to steal other people's spouses. I am worried about the one girl with a crush on a married man who might be reading this and, by reading this, might be saved from a hideous mistake that will make her and others very unhappy.

Update: Sorry about the moved post. I am really, REALLY busy and rushed lately, and "Whitsunday Report" was supposed to go on my other blog in the first place. Whitsunday is traditionally the name for Pentecost Sunday in the British Isles. Today is Whitmonday.

Update 2: Any nasty comments about my marriage will get you banned. If you are that upset about being Single, it is time for therapy. And there is nothing wrong with therapy, if you get the right therapist. I was in therapy for almost five years, and in spiritual direction for three. I found both therapy and spiritual direction very helpful.