Brilliant But Weird

How can  I best exploit Seraphic's obvious crush on me?

I am sick in bed, so to cheer myself up I will tell you all that I watched the first two episodes of Benedict Cumberbatch's "Sherlock" last night and when I woke up this morning I discovered I had a crush on the title character. A completely fictional and actor-dependent entity has a hold over my imagination. Alas!

I'll tell you why it is. It is because Sherlock is brilliant but weird--which is to say, my type. As types go, it is not a good one to have. Brilliant men figure out your weaknesses relatively quickly, and weird ones behave in unexpected and often anti-social ways. How I wish my type was as simple as "bookish blond."

At this point you will naturally think, "But what of the delightful, funny and good Benedict Ambrose you have married, who protects you from any self-destructive desire on your part to get involved with brilliant but weird men?"

Yes, there is B.A., and thank heavens for him. However I am reasonably sure I fell in love with B.A. because he did such a good imitation of brilliant but weird. Naturally I had googled him, and a former student had said online that  B.A. could take on ten wannabe philosophers at once and reduce them to ashes, so that meant brilliant. And then there was the constant playing of lute music, the manic grin and the proposing after ten days thing, which indicated weird. Also there was the photographic evidence that he spent his undergraduate days disguised as Lytton Strachey, a very weird person to resemble if you are as fond of women as B.A. is.  And then there are the puns. 

Someone or other decided that puns are the lowest form of humour, but each pun is a sort of simple riddle from which the hearer catches the double-meaning, notes how the pun overturns his expectations and reacts with laughs or groans. The pun creates a two-second carnival of nonsense. Brilliant but weird men are ringmasters in their own carnivals of nonsense. 

Because he is addicted both to puns and to serious reading, Benedict Ambrose will never bore me. Last week we had one of our very rare screaming fights, and it was about the nation-state. I have certainly had screaming fights with boring boyfriends, but they were never about the nation-state or anything particularly interesting. 

But happily B.A. is not actually weird. Brilliant but weird men don't usually have many friends, which I have discovered from dating brilliant but weird men, and B.A. has many friends. They tend to be clever, laugh at his puns and indulge in serious reading. Neither he nor his pals are sociopaths, which reminds me of an amusing exchange in "Sherlock" when a police officer calls Sherlock a psychopath, and Sherlock says "I'm not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high-functioning sociopath." I can't tell you how refreshing it was to hear one of them admit it. Serious catharsis here. 

It was a great breakthrough to realize that I became interested in men only when they showed evidence of being brilliant and weird, and my spiritual director thought this knowledge would be a great protection, but actually it is as much a protection against brilliant-and-weird as the knowledge that you have the measles protects you against the measles. If you're attracted to weirdos, knowing that you're attracted to weirdos doesn't automatically stop you from being attracted to weirdos. However, I suppose the knowledge prompts you to make an emergency appointment with your spiritual director when you meet a new one. 

I remember once only noticing a young man for the first time because he kept telling me I looked like a model. As I did not in the least look like a model, that was pretty weird. Also he had given up a brilliant career to become a male religious, and it is exceedingly weird for male religious to tell women we look like models. A young male religious telling a serious-minded female that she looks like a model is probably the psychological equivalent of a Pick Up Artist in a bar telling a glamour girl she looks like a dirty little snowflake. It's the shock value, and whether it is intended or unintended, it works on women like me.

It occurs to me, as I lie in bed writing,  for writing is an even better pain-killer than reading, that my friend Lily would point out that I too am brilliant but weird, as if this had anything to do with anything. Sadly, I am not brilliant at anything that makes great pots of money; I am just a moderately good conversationalist who is great at editing academic papers on a variety of subjects in a way that makes them  more comprehensible and less maddening for poor profs to read. I may be slightly weird, of course. 

But I don't think any quality of weirdness has ever helped me attract a man; keeping it under wraps has been the best policy. When B.A. fell in love with me I was demurely clad in a sky-blue shift dress and pearls, my mad hair tied tightly in a bun and my tendency to make frank and abrupt remarks silenced by an awful head-cold. I often think how lucky it is that I came down with that terrible cold, and that I brought a dress and pearls with me to Scotland. You must always bring a nice dress whenever you travel to see people; you never know if you might not be invited to a dinner party.  

Anger Doesn't Help

It is very easy to get angry with men, particularly if you're Single. (If you're married, you're mostly tempted to get mad at just one.)

And nowadays we're practically trained to get angry with men. Even if our mothers treated our fathers with patience, good-humour and affection, there is the television with its dumb ("Raymond"), venal ("Barney") or utterly conceited and self-absorbed ("Sheldon") male characters being screamed at by attractive, savvy, eye-rolling women. The laugh track sympathizes with the women. Ah-ha-HA-HA-HA-ha-ha-chuckle-snort.

Of course, men get angry with women, too, and most women find men like that scary. Really scary. One angry man characterized women as having something that men want but not giving it to them. Why won't women give it to them? What do men have to do to get women to give it to them?

However, when I get beyond my disgust and horror at the idea of angry men being angry because they want sex, damn it, and no woman is giving it to them, it occurs to me that women sometimes get angry at men for something similar: I want X, and only men can give me X, and why won't one give me X, and what do I have to do to get X?

I know there are other reasons to get angry with men, although I prefer to remind myself that although most violent criminals are men, most men are not violent criminals. I also remind myself that men aren't women, and so don't think like us, or know what we know. It occurs to me, too, that although there has been intense theological debate as to whether "women were made to help men", the idea that "men were made to help women" does not date before 1978, except in the thoughts of an up-and-coming Polish philosopher named Karol Wojtyła.

I think about how women are terrified of angry men, but then I think of how men are terrified of angry women, although not as terrified as they were when they were boys. God knows how many women abuse their children. There was a case here in the UK so recent and so horrible that I can't bear to write about it. Let's just say it was so horrible, I had trouble sleeping and I asked God why he gave children to women like that and not to me. The reminder of the female capacity for violence against people smaller and weaker than ourselves, to say nothing of the appalling number of *bort*ns, can teach us to be humble where we least expect to need humility.

I have written this story many times before, but I think anger at men is such a problem for Single women that I will write it yet again.

Many years ago when I was feeling particularly angry with men, I wrote a list of all my beliefs about men. All of them--that they preferred women who were dumb, that most of them would rape women if they could get away with it, etc., etc. Then on the other side, the right side, of the page, I wrote the exact opposite--that they preferred women who were smart, and most of them were horrified by rape, etc., etc. And I realized, that the statements on the right side of the page were just as likely true as those on the left side. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the right side probably was true.

This realization very much helped me feel better about men and to lose my life-long resentment of men. And this in turn seemed to help me to meet better men. Not always, of course, and seeing how much privilege men get (e.g. Jesuit classmates in Jesuit colleges funded mostly by the tuitions of non-Jesuits) made staying resentment-free, and therefore bad-men-free, a challenge. A continuing challenge, of course, is that men do occasionally behave very badly or say very hurtful things. However, I understand that to get along with men, and to attract good men, and to repel men who are rather more bad than good, it is necessary to like men, to cut the good ones some slack for not thinking or behaving just like women, and to pray for them.

Anger won't turn men into the Princes Charming. Constructive anger, carefully controlled, may help propel you into better, fairer treatment at work, in school, and in committed relationships. But it won't help you get the love and children you want. Just as women can sense and are afraid of the anger in men, men can sense and are afraid of the anger in women.

New Green Shoes

Beautiful new shoe found on sale

The social highlight of my week is Sunday Lunch. Sometimes Sunday Lunch is an extravagant, crowded affair, and sometimes Sunday Lunch is simple and select. It depends on who has offered to have Sunday Lunch that week, and how much of an effort he or she wants to make, and who is available for an invitation, and how many friends he or she would like to bring with him or her.

There is sometimes a difficulty when Sunday Lunchers gather themselves up from After-Mass Gin to go to Sunday Lunch only to discover that nobody has cooked it, or that half the party has mysteriously disappeared without a word to the other half, and is probably on its way to a super-exclusive Sunday Lunch at some deliciously exotic location. On such unhappy occasions the forlorn remnant usually straggles off to a pub.

However, as the weather has been so beautiful since July muscled out soggy old June,  a group of us Lunchers recently had a most glorious picnic instead. We sat on a hill in a park clad in all our Sunday Fogey Finery and hid our bottles from the view of a ranger, who turned out to be much more opposed to the smuggling away of pond turtles by the party next to us than to bottles. The charm of novelty and the simplicity of just chipping in £10 each at Waitrose enhanced the charms of the sunshine and the view.

This Sunday, however, there were so few Sunday Lunchers around that the other woman present and I just sloped off after Gin to George Street to "do errands." Errands included taking a pair of linen trousers back to its shop to have its stubbornly lingering security tag removed, mooning at clothes purportedly "on sale" and eating lunch in an elegant and lady-like restaurant studded with Mediterranean ceramic plates.

Although we would not want to forego the company of gentlemen Sunday Lunchers more than once or twice a year, my friend and I found the change as good as a rest. In its way, it had the same charm of novelty as our picnic, and there was no-one around to make off-colour comments unsuitable for ladies' ears, St. Alban.* And after lunch was eaten and paid for, there was no dissenting deep-timbred voice to prevent a stroll to the shoe shop in Frederick Street.

As a matter of fact, I do not buy shoes very often, being love rich and cash poor. This makes buying new shoes a most delectable treat comparable only to buying new shoes. And being able to find such pretty shoes as the above on sale for only £25 made it even more delightful, as this is the east coast of Scotland, where we brag about how cheap we bought things on sale, in contrast to the unspeakable sybarites of the west coast, who perversely brag about expense. And to top things off, these new shoes are my husband's favourite colour, so there was a very good chance that he would exclaim "How nice!" before "How much?" when I got them home.

Slightly too big but sacred indoor shoes.

Finally, the green sneakers I wear with green finery when outdoors--like many Canadians, I carry my indoor shoes around in a bag--fell completely apart on the way from the restaurant (where I wore my indoor shoes) and so I had to buy new shoes or walk to a bus-stop in my slightly too big but sacred indoor shoes.

Therefore, finding the above shoes in my size and in my husband's favourite colour for only £25 was one of those rare shoe-buying miracles one hears about. In fact, the self-destruction of my sneakers even made the Sunday shopping the correct response to an emergency as opposed to a venial sin. "I'll wear them out," I said airily to the clerk of the new shoes, meaning no irony.

Finally, I virtuously remembered to buy groceries for my husband's supper, and so went home in a glow of satisfaction, smelling of roses, at 6 PM, which was also a nice change from going home at 1 AM in a fog of booze, smelling of cigars.

*That said, so many young women these days curse like troupers and make so many naughty jokes in mixed company that much must be forgiven of those boys who did not grow up around trad Catholics, homeschooled girls or Miss Marple. I crossed out "these days" because an elderly Englishman I know drops the F-bomb in mixed company with such regularity that I assume the women of his generation do too, or did.

***
July donations: Thanks very much to R.C. That was a very nice Canada Day present.

Auntie Seraphic & Young NFP Fan

Ah, the things boys say. Here is a very good and useful letter from someone under 25, somewhat edited by me:

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

I am one of those readers who is at the age where my brain is not yet fully developed apparently, and so I think I would like to vent to you. I'm not really upset by this event, but I have dwelt on it somewhat so I ... just want you to confirm what I already thought. 

There's this NCB  I have known for a very long time...  He is a person I have a lot of respect for and [recently] we  talked about many different pro-life issues; [this] led into also mentioning NFP and NaPro technology. 

I have been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), and the only reason I know and am being treated is due to NFP so I'm very grateful. I don't fit the classic profile, so people wouldn't expect it and it would probably take the average doctor much longer to have figured this out. Obviously it's somewhat disconcerting to me but because of my station in life and the fact that I'm pretty young it's not something I worry about a lot. It's also not something I throw around to everyone, mostly because not many people like to hear about people's health issues, but I'm not embarrassed about it and I'm grateful for the knowledge.

So because it fit into the conversation we were having I mentioned my diagnosis and that I was able to know pretty quickly because of Creighton charting and was lucky to have done it. He didn't know what it was, and so I gave a brief explanation and mentioned that infertility is a possible factor. 

His response was jokingly "Maybe this is one more sign you're supposed to be a sister" (There is a running joke among my friends that I am meant to be a religious sister.) It didn't even register at the time but every once in awhile it still pops in my head a month later. 

I'm sure he has no idea it bothered me, but I'm not crazy that it did a little, right? God doesn't work like that even if I somehow do end up a sister. It might be a ways off, but I don't like to think I can't have babies or that this will deter men. Like I said, I'm sure he simply spoke without thinking but maybe you could just tell the eavesdroppers that women--at least a NCG-- doesn't ever like to hear that they would be bad mothers or may not be able to have kids which means God is telling them they should just enter [religious] life. 

I'm sorry because this must hit a bit of a nerve with you. You are in my prayers and you are an amazingly wonderful spiritual mother to us all. 

Blessings,

Young NFP Fan 

Dear NFP Fan,

As this happened a month ago, the NCB probably doesn't remember what he said. In fact, I bet he couldn't have remembered if you asked him about it half an hour later. My guess is that he said whatever just came into his head because he was embarrassed. (You will never know, though, as guaranteed he can't remember.) 

Teenage boys--and maybe boys in their very early 20s--think about sex all day long--they can't help it--sexual thoughts just flow through like a river through a river bed--so it really isn't a good idea to talk to them about your reproductive system. You're a girl. They're guys. You aren't interested in them, and maybe they're not interested in you, but sexy thoughts about you will pop into their heads anyway because they can't help it. And that will embarrass them.   

Meanwhile, the easiest and best way to keep boys from blurting out foolish remarks about what infertility might mean for you is NOT to tell them that you could be infertile. This is not information you should share with anyone except someone who is courting you for marriage [i.e. a boyfriend who loves you]. It is serious TMI.  

Will some boys be deterred if they think you are infertile? Yes, definitely. And as you are not, as far as you know, infertile, you really must not talk to boys or to gossipy girlfriends about your Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.

Does the fact that you have PCOS mean God wants you to be a nun? No, definitely not. Religious life is not where women go because they can't [i.e. might not be able to] have babies. Religious life is what women embrace when they are so excited about serving God, and making a whole gift to themselves to God, while living with a community of women who love God as much as they do. Fertility or infertility has nothing to do with it. God is not a eugenicist. 

I hope this is helpful.    

Grace and peace,

Seraphic 

***

By the way, it's not that adolescent brains are undeveloped, it's that they are rewiring themselves for adulthood. When you're a kid you have a really astute kid brain, and hopefully by the time you're an adult, you have an astute adult brain. But getting from kid brain to adult brain is a difficult journey over which teens have little control and can, incidentally, completely screw up with drugs and alcohol.

(I doubt my reader above is using drugs and alcohol, but I'm just throwing that in there because a recent Catholic school graduate back home, a habitual pot smoker, recently flipped out, pulled out his genitals and a knife on some girls on a streetcar, yelled obscenities at an armed policeman who raced to the scene, made a very ill-advised step forward and died in the proverbial hail of bullets.) 

One great life lesson is that young men are usually not as smart as young women about young women's feelings, unless they are gay or unusually manipulative. And, therefore, it is really not a good idea to tell young men super-sensitive stuff about anything--as young men themselves know. When I was in my late twenties, I told a male friend, an ex-boyfriend in fact, that I felt sad that I had never met Mr Right, he joked that I should give up and try women.

It wasn't that he was mean or stupid. In the five seconds before I got enough breath back to start crying, he began to apologize profusely. No, it was because he was a guy, and embarrassed, and to cover his embarrassment he told a joke. Ah ha ha.

Talking to men about super-personal stuff as if they were women opens you up to a world of hurt.  And, meanwhile, since men in the pro-life movement are the men who care most about babies, it is really, really, REALLY a bad idea to involve them in the drama of your own reproductive issues. Men gossip so much, and telling one guy that you have ovarian cysts could mean him telling any guy who asks him about you that you are actually infertile. Would you date a guy who was known for being sterile? Maybe you'd be okay with it at 40. Maybe not so much at 20.  

Tim Stanley and Gangsta Culture

I absolutely loved this article by Tim Stanley, although I didn't know whether tut-tut or to giggle when he said Roger Scruton looked like a "mad owl."

Meanwhile, I do not get high school, multicultural, "gangsta" culture by which I mean teenage boys of a variety of ethnic groups, but particularly of different middle-eastern ethnic groups (e.g. Persian, Armenian), standing around posing for photos with bottles of hard liquor, cigarettes and weapons. They post these photos on Facebook, eliciting such comments from each other as "miss u ma nigga".

Hmm, I have never typed or said that word in my whole life, and yet I have read this umpteen times on the Facebook pages of white teenage boys in huge-crowned baseball caps and falling-down jeans.

Are there any teachers out there, or high school students, or recent co-ed high school grads, especially in Ontario, who could explain this phenomenon to me?

Thanks.

John Paul II & the Vocation Innovation

If there's one thing that drives a 20 year old devout Catholic crazy, it's the notion of vocation as state-in-life.

When I was just a little girl
I asked my pastor, what I would be.
Would I be single?
Would I be wed? 
Would I be Sister Aimée, O.P.?

When I was 19 and utterly immersed in the Canadian pro-life movement (at the time the spiritual equivalent of the Warsaw Uprising, and just as effective), I sweated a lot over "my vocation." I wasn't sure I could ever attract the right guy, and I was underwhelmed by what I had seen of religious orders, and yet being Single was the worst thing I could think of. What if God called me to be Single? Eeek! Eeek!

There was not a lot of trust involved in my worries about vocation. But at some point I bludgeoned my heart into acceptance and told my mother I thought I had a Single vocation. She burst into tears and told me not to let "that man" (whichever priest whose books I was reading) blight my life. Yeah, so much for acceptance.

Part of the reason we go so insane over Is-Single-Life-really-a-vocation, mes amis, is that the notion that anything except religious life and the priesthood are "vocation" is an innovation of the post-Vatican II era. The multiple-choice-tick-the-box Single/Married/Religious Life/Priesthood division does not date back before 1978.

John Paul II was a very creative man. He invented World Youth Day. He invented five more decades for the rosary. He internationalized a very local Polish devotion by inventing Divine Mercy Sunday. He cut a deal with conscience-stricken members of the SSPX by inventing the FSSP. There was a lot of innovation between 1978-2005, and our current attitude towards vocation is part of it.

The tick-the-box Single/Married/Religious Life/Priesthood notion of vocation is not doctrine. It is theology. Recent theology. And nobody has worked out a notion of Single Life as vocation yet, and as far as I know, the only person who bangs on about all priests being Single, Religious or Married men is me.

True, I wrote up a nice summary of Single Life for the Archdiocese of Montreal, and pointed out the different and innovative ways non-married unconsecrated people have served God, His Church and the poor. But I would have had a really hard time finding a pre-1978 source stating that unconsecrated Single Life was "just as good" as consecrated Single Life, i.e. religious life, or "a vocation."

I would also have had a hard time finding a pre-1963 source saying that married life was "just as good" as religious life. The highest form of Christian life has always been a life of permanent celibacy and chastity--bluntly called virginity--lived in the service of God. Religious life, even in its most embryonic first-century form, has always been number one. And since priests, despite penalties and punishments and what-all, kept on getting married until the First Lateran Council (1123), not even priesthood has had the caché of religious life. Before the Council of Trent, priests were on par with village blacksmiths. Only bishops, monks and nuns were all that and a bag of chips.

Every other way of life was second-best. I hope this doesn't depress you. Personally, I'd love to be as beautiful as Rosamund Pike, and as rich as J.K. Rowling, and as good as the holiest nun in St. Cecilia's Abbey, and as confident in my place in U.K. society as the daughter of a Scottish earl. However, the fact that I am none of these things doesn't depress me. I do okay. Occasionally I think about nun friends and smother a sigh, but I am awfully fond of B.A. And maybe God will grant me martyrdom. St. Augustine said that was even better than being a nun. Martyrs go straight to the top of the ontological tree.

The only thing that makes marriage ontologically "better" than unconsecrated Single life is that it involves permanent vows. According to Church tradition, vowed life is superior to unvowed life. But that is no reason for married people to look down on Single people or argue red-faced that married life is "just as good as" religious life. Yawn.
   
To return to John Paul II, I absolutely love his Mulieris Dignitatem and his use of the work of St. Edith Stein.  His thoughts on "motherhood" and "spiritual motherhood" are fantastic. But there's just one thing.

In Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul does not mention unconsecrated Single women. He mentions married ladies (the mothers) and nuns (the spiritual mothers). He seems to forget there are a whole bunch of unmarried, unconsecrated spiritual mothers out there. And no wonder. He lived most of his life in Poland. Have you seen the statistics for Poland? I have. And until recent decades, there were almost no Single Polish women. Polish women got married, or they became nuns. The only Single Polish women were the tiny fraction who got divorced before the year 2000 and widows.

Anielskie Single (2011) is apparently the first book in Polish about the unconsecrated Catholic Single Life.  And unconsecrated Singles are so looked down on, the Polish word "Single" (pronounced seen-gluh) is an insult, and kindly priests firmly call them "spouse-seekers" instead.

I hope all you people writing theses on Blessed John Paul II have realized that he was not just Polish and Catholic. He was a Polish Catholic. You cannot divorce the theology of Blessed John Paul II from his unique, concrete, historical Polishness, and it occurs to me that anyone who writes about Blessed John Paul II without learning Polish is cutting corners, George.

Dear me. This is not a very coherent post. What I'm trying to do is liberate you from the multiple-choice-tick-the-box sense of vocation because I do not think it is sufficiently well-rooted in the tradition of the Church. If it were, it would give you a great sense of freedom and enthusiasm, not existential angst, dread and confusion. Maybe the problem is not that unconsecrated Single life isn't really a "vocation" but that our whole contemporary notion of "vocation" is wrong.

Christian life is about service, and people find different ways of serving others. Most people find it through marriage, serving spouses and children. Some feel strongly drawn to the religious life and serve others through that. Some Single men find themselves strongly drawn towards the priesthood, and a fraction of them get ordained. Some Catholics get a strong sense that God is calling them to this or that, whereas other Catholics strain their ears in the dark to no avail. Some Catholics are just not sure what they are "called" to, but make a guess, take a plunge, and are delighted that they did so. As a dear Jesuit friend of mine says, "I guessed right."

Speaking personally, I strained my ears for years. And I worried that I had ruined my vocation to marriage, having been married-divorced-annulled.  I very much hoped my fears weren't true, and that I would get a second chance at something. Anything. Even if it was being happy about being Single. And one day, on the Feast of Saint Jude, Patron of Lost Causes, I realized I could be happy about being Single. And, having been looking in vain for some kind of service to do, I felt called to blog about it.

That moment changed the entire course of my life. And it changed the course of other people's lives, too, since my writing has helped some women be happier about being Single and smarter about dating, which helped some of you get married and even have babies. (I'm very happy about the babies.)

That moment of grace didn't tick any vocational boxes. It certainly did not set a seal on the concept of Unconsecrated Single Life as an Official Call. But it showed me one way in which Singles could serve others: through offering other Singles companionship and solidarity on the margins of vocationland.

The question should not be "What box do I tick?"  It should be, "How can I serve?"  So I suggest that, instead of asking God to show you your vocation, that you ask Him to show you where to serve. He'll take care of the rest.

Update: Here Mary Beth Bonnaci defines "vocation" as giving oneself totally to another. That is trés, trés John Paul II, and therefore a post-1978 understanding of vocation--at least outside of Poland.

My problem with that is the erotic implications of "totally," thanks to Theology of the Body, which, incidentally, is not called Doctrine of the Body. Sigh. I would say that Jean Vanier, a Single man, has committed himself to L'Arche, wouldn't you?  And that Dorothy Day, a divorced woman and Single mother, committed herself totally to the poor.

Update 2: B.A. adds that THE call is the call to holiness, no matter what your circumstances in life. We agree that we are a bit uncomfortable with the whole "giving oneself totally to another" definition of marriage, let alone vocation. It's that totally thing. And it sounds just too darned shiny and romantic and open to manipulation to abusive spouses: "You gave yourself totally to me, so do what I want!"

Marriage is basically what human beings do--or did, if they wanted to (or their parents made them), could afford it and historical circumstances (like war or today's unprecedented decadence) did not get in the way. Christian marriage is, of course, a call to holiness within marriage. What changes is the circumstances in which you strive to be holy. And I think Saint Thomas Aquinas would be on side with this. In his day, marriage was just business as usual, and only religious life (of whatever kind) was something you were called into, out of business as usual.

Update 3: A married man's email reminds me to emphasize that it is state-in-life I am talking about here. He points out that although the priesthood may be superior to married life, a holy married man is better than a wicked priest.

I agree that holy people, no matter what their state in life, are superior to wicked people, no matter what their state in life.  However, I think "priesthood" vs "married" is a false dichotomy. There are married men, Single men, and male religious, and some of each of those group are priests. Most priests are Single men. As Single men, they have a lot to teach about the Single life, and they should.

Catholics belong to the laity or priesthood. Nuns, most monks, brothers and consecrated virgins are laypeople. So are most married men and all married women. The states-in-life are Single, Married, Religious. Keep this in mind if you ever meet an ex-Anglican, now Catholic, married priest and feel embarrassed.

Auntie Seraphic & the Bachelors

Thank you very much to the seven eavesdroppers who chimed in to discuss the so-called "Confirmed Bachelor."  I find it intensely significant that none of you said, "Maybe he's gay." I know that straight Single Catholic guys hate the idea of women looking at your perhaps lonely and frustrating lives and thinking, "Maybe he's gay." And no doubt devout Catholic men who do have gay inclinations but are determined to identify themselves primarily with Christ, not their sexuality, hate this idea too.

All I can say about that is, "I'm sorry. Canadian, American and British mainstream culture is currently completely obsessed with both homosexuality and women's sexual attractiveness, and this affects ordinary women in weird ways. The thought 'Maybe he's gay' makes us feel better--and maybe even a tad superior--when we are hurting because a guy we like is completely indifferent to us."

Now that I have gotten that over with, I will observe that there are two issues going on here. The first is "Why are there devout Catholic men who neither marry nor become male religious nor become priests?" That is the primary issue.

The second issue is, "Is unconsecrated Single life, which we are ALL born into and which almost all  of us abandon, a vocation?" That is the secondary issue, and we can talk about it TOMORROW. I don't want to talk about the extremely contemporary and non-traditional expansion of the notion of vocation today, so please don't leave comments about it. Write them down on a piece of paper, and post them on tomorrow's post. Today is all about the menfolk.

To recap:

I. N. W. Thomas left three suggestions: 1. the confirmed bachelor is living according to private vows 2. he hasn't felt a call to either priesthood or marriage to a specific woman, and is concentrating on his work and hobbies  3. he's secretly selfish or has super-private sexual arrangements.

II. Michael suggested that many confirmed bachelors are just inept at courtship. This includes 40-somethings ignoring all women over 35, or chasing the  kind of women least likely to be interested in them. He thinks married men might be able to give Single guys advice.

III. Some Guy in the USA left three suggestions: 1. the confirmed bachelor could be asexual 2. he might celibacy a small price to pay for living a quiet, interesting life on his own terms 3. he has given up hope after a lifetime of failing to find a spouse.

IV. Hip2BSquare observes that there are many service professions, like the military and medicine, that make a family life difficult. He points out that the Confirmed Bachelor may be living a life of service and self-sacrifice through his career and on behalf of his extended family.  

V. Pomofo brings up the modern nightmare of what-if-she-takes-me-to-the-cleaners-? He also suggests all the good ones are taken and there are no good ones left. He observes that he is an introvert and hates small talk. He calls, in a metaphorical way, women he approaches "the enemy."

VI. Ordinary Joe also sees himself as an introvert and social chit-chat as a hurdle.

VII. Eavesdropper #11 suggests that many so-called Confirmed Bachelors really do want to marry, but they just don't talk about it, at least not when or where women are around. He also points out that women can't tell if a guy has been shot down again and again because many men don't want to talk about this either. He thinks the idea that some men just like to stay Single so they can smoke cigars and quaff whisky in peace is a myth.

I respond:

First, I'm delighted by the turnout and the candid responses. N.W. Thomas set a great tone, I think. Michael highlights the very real problem contemporary men have in courting women and, indeed, in remaining rooted in reality.

Please, men over 40, please stop ignoring single women your own age. Women your own age are the women most likely to be interested in you. If you are super-interested in having kids, you can foster or adopt. Sorry if you can never have the whole enchilada; neither can I. But if it's a question of a loving spouse or nothing...

Another thought that Michael brought to mind is this excellent men's blog.

Some Guy in the USA reminds me that some women can be really annoying and hard to deal with. There's a wide spectrum between being a doormat and a real rhymes-with-itch; we need to find our place in it. Although I myself am not what you would call sweet or easy-going, I don't ask men about their feelings and I don't nag. I hate nagging. If the trash bag is actually festering, I can darn well take it out myself.

I absolutely love what Hip2BSquare said. So, so true. More on that tomorrow.

Pomofo's comment reminds me of a guy I broke up with in part because he would look at me with big "What-if-she-takes-me-to-the-cleaners?" eyes.  I know there are women like that, and I know the alimony system rewards women like that, but I have never been a woman like that, and I felt insulted that he could think I might be. As a trad women whose career blew up anyway, I like to feel taken care of. But I have never been a gold-digger and I seriously resented that any guy who knew me would think I could be.

The fact is that asking a woman for a coffee is not the same thing as handing her the keys to your financial future. Any man has a year--a whole year--to determine if any woman he is dating is the kind of women who would take even the ice cube trays; the kind of woman who, having dignity, would take only her stuff, or half the stuff they accumulated together; or the kind of woman who would never leave him no matter what stupid thing he or she did.

After a year, he owes it to the woman to pop the question or break up, so as not to waste her youth. (Youth is to a woman what money is to a man, incidentally, and we're scared men will use ours all up and then kick us to the curb. No-fault divorce cuts both ways.) Acrimonious divorce is not an accident. It is not like a meteorite hitting your house. You can prevent it, and not just by avoiding all contact with women.

Meanwhile, although I personally dislike them, there are Catholic dating websites. There are lots of great Single Catholic women; maybe just not in Pomofo's parish. (Or they're in his parish, but he hasn't noticed them yet.) There are at least two pretty, good and personable Single Catholic women under 40 in my parish; no Single Catholic man between 35 and 50 in my parish better complain "there are no women" in front of me.

I must go, so I'll comment on the other guys' responses later today. But ladies are now invited to respond in the combox.

Update: I'm back, and I'll begin with Pomofo's "enemy" metaphor because, to be quite frank, women are so scared of being seen as "the enemy" or "a citadel to be conquered" that the realization that a man thinks of us this way will send us screaming to the hills.

It would be way more effective to approach women as a fisherman approaches fish, or a wildlife photographer approaches wildlife: with a lot of thought about what fish/wildlife are like, and what attracts and repels them, and an enjoyment of just being in the great outdoors.  Whereas a soldier presumably hates the enemy or is willing to do anything to get inside the citadel, the fisherman and the photographer does not hate the fish or the wildlife. He respects the fish or the wildlife and understands that they are not at war with him.

He and Ordinary Joe are both introverted, hate small talk and are shy. That's unfortunate [Update: i.e. in terms of approaching women], and probably puts them in the same boat as the girl who is really plain. Men love women who are great to look at, and women love men who are great to talk to. The plain girl does what she can to make herself less plain; she corrects her posture, she dresses as well as she can, she wears make-up, she plays up her most striking features, she goes out of her way to become Miss Personality. What can introverted guys do? That's a good question, and I'll have to think about it. They could start by sitting next to chatterboxes. Chatterboxes don't care if you speak or not. They just want to chatter.

Eavesdropper #11 has expanded this theme of many-men-aren't-great-talkers. And this leads me to take tentative steps towards what to me is usually an unthinkable (and a pointless) idea, and it is that women may need to be more encouraging to church-going Christian men they like who are still single at the age of 35 or over.

I said 35 or over.  And I also said Christian; don't chase secular men  or any other kind who expect to, can and will have casual flings. As we have seen above, there can be all kinds of selfish or deeply private reasons why a Christian man is still single at 35+. However, the testimony of our seven eavesdroppers suggests that sometimes it is simply because they lack the necessary social skills and/or have just given up. A guy like that may be relieved and grateful--not gun-shy or conceited--when a woman goes out of her way to invite him into her life. (Start with party invites, however.)  

The only kind of socially awkward 35+ I would be interested in, were I still single, would be the kind who would think, "Wow! Even though I always thought of myself as a dry old stick, this beam of sunshine has bounced into my life", not the kind who would think, "But I want a woman who looks like Jessica Rabbit and will give me two babies."

But don't be dumb about this. Chances are a 35+ guy who looks like a male model and could charm the birds from the trees has had ample opportunity to court women and knows perfectly well women are into him.