Games in Preparation for Thanksgiving

Okay, tomorrow is American Thanksgiving, so it is time to batter down the hatches and talk frankly about emotional survival plans on behalf of the American readership. (Strangely, some British people have adopted American Thanksgiving themselves which, as a Canadian, I find very strange, yet another example of the bizarre British fascination with the USA. You should see BBC4 this week--absolutely mental.)

The essence of being rooted in reality is looking unpleasant facts in the eye and standing up to them instead of cowering behind a wall of dreamy-dreaminess. Therefore, if Great-Aunt Tilly has asked you every Thanksgiving for the past ten years if you are a Lesbian, don't think she won't ask you again this year. Turn it into a game. Make a bet with your friends when she will ask. In fact, run a pool. Your friends all give you a quarter, and whoever guesses right gets the pot. If she DOESN'T ask, the pot goes to the poor box in thanksgiving. I guarantee that, this way, when Great-Aunt Tilly asks the dreaded question, you will not want to die but to cheer and write down the time she asked.

Great-Aunt Tilly: Tell me, dear, are you a Lesbian?

You: Yay! OMG! What time is it?

The game can apply to any prediction based on past family Thanksgivings. Another game would be to agree beforehand with Single friends to write down the hour and minute you are first asked about your Single status. ("Any boyfriend yet, dear? Well, never mind.") Then when you can meet up, you all produce your pieces of paper.

And then there's simply collecting points for every time your Single state gets mentioned. I suggested this last year, and much hilarity ensued.

Obviously you need a quirky sense of humour for these games, although come to think of it, if you read this blog, you probably do have a quirky sense of humour. And the games also assume your families are functional enough that Thanksgiving Dinner does not mean a slide into dysfunction and depression. If Thanksgiving Dinner has for the past ten years meant a slide into dysfunction and depression, I heartily urge you not to go. And if you do go anyway, I urge you to have some lovely treat waiting for you as soon as you can escape. Do not exchange this lovely treat for the questionable joys of feeling like a martyr.

I also urge you not to compare yourself to your little sister, who has brought her boyfriend this year, or to your cousin, who married a millionaire, or to anybody else. I usually found it salutary, when envying a pal her girlfriend status or diamond ring, to ask myself if I would want her man. The answer has always been NO, although I did have to admit that one pal (one pal in 35 years of having pals) did have a very fetching fiance. Now he is her very fetching husband, and I really should stop mentioning how fetching he is. Fortunately, my own husband is pretty fetching in his own right, B.A.

Sorry to mention B.A. at a time like this, but if married women write about the beauties of other men, we sort of have to mention our own beautiful husbands in the next breath. And I suppose that this is a good opportunity to remind the majority of my Single readers who will actually marry (according to American statistics) that I didn't meet B.A. until I was 37. This may not cheer you if you are 27 or 47, but the point is that just because you haven't found Mr Right by this Thanksgiving doesn't mean you won't ever find him. Maybe you won't, but maybe you will. The ways of God--and of Mr Right, if he exists--are very mysterious.

By the way, if any of my readers thinks the way to cope with the holiday is to curl up with a bottle of vodka, I am here to scold you and tell you that it isn't. If it even crosses your mind, I will be very mad, and if I ever find out, I will block you. So don't. Choose friends and fun instead. If you can't be with your own friends or make your own fun, then pop down to the nearest shelter and spend Thanksgiving serving the homeless.

Treated Like a Yo-Yo

It wasn't exactly an "Auntie Seraphic" letter. It was a true story of a broken heart. And when I read it, my mind travelled back through the years to my undergraduate days. The story was so familiar, and so basic to the experiences of young men and women, that I'll tell the story as generally as possible. See if you've lived it yourself.

A young Nice Catholic Girl met a slightly older Nice Catholic Boy, and they hit it off right away. They had a lot of ideas in common and they enjoyed spending time together. In fact, they hung out every day. The NCG suggested that they be in a "relationship", but the NCB said he had feelings for another girl and he just wanted to be friends. He explained that he didn't feel a spark.

The Nice Catholic Girl didn't believe in sparks, so she kept hanging out with the Nice Catholic Boy every day while supposedly looking for someone else. The NCB, who knew that she liked him "more than a friend", insisted that this wouldn't hurt their friendship. For her part, she insisted that she wasn't hurt by his lack of romantic interest, although she was.

She stopped flirting with him but, strangely, he contined to flirt. In fact, he flirted more than he had before she told him she liked him. And although she knew he had meant what he had said, her feelings for him became stronger.

Finally, for the sake of the friendship, she told him to cut out the flirting. She suggested that he used flirtation as a way to keep her hooked. And then, to her shock, he first told her that he didn't consider her a close friend, and then admitted that he had enjoyed her crush, saying "I enjoyed having the attention of a girl who liked me, and having someone to talk so much to. It was almost like having a girlfriend, but not having to give you anything back, or make any sort of commitment."

Heartbroken, she left and told him to never talk to her again. She blamed his exploitative flirting on the "Male Ego". She blamed herself for giving too much for nothing in return. Most of all, she grieved for the friendship that she had valued so much and thought he had, too.

And so it goes. Day after day, generation after generation, campus after campus. A courts B. B says "nothing doing but we can be friends." A tries to be a good friend. B continues to flirt with A. A is confused. (This stage can go on for years.) A finally asks B to quit treating A like a yo-yo. B drops the H-Bomb on A. A is heartbroken. A either breaks free or opts to continue his/her emotional slavery to B.

Sometimes B is a man. Sometimes B is a woman. This is not about the "Male Ego." It is about Ego, pure and simple. It is about concupiscence, the desire to have more than one's fair share, and almost all of us have it to a certain extent. We want more than our assigned piece of the cake. And so the temptation to get something as thrilling as someone else's admiration "for free" can be overpowering. It's addictive. It's heartbreaking.

The Nice Catholic Boy in this story is not an out-and-out bastard. He told the Nice Catholic Girl straight up that he wasn't interested. Yes, later he encouraged her crush on him, but he did not tempt her sexually, as a lot of men in the same situation might try, later justifying their egregious behaviour with "But I told you I didn't care for you that way. I was just having fun, and I thought you were, too." The NCB didn't do that. He also had an astonishing amount of self-knowledge; I like to think his next stop was the Confessional. He was not wicked, but he was weak and he did wrong.

The Nice Catholic Girl in this story is not an out-and-out victim. She actively courted the Nice Catholic Boy, and she ignored what he said about spark. Yes, he messed with her head, but she let him do it. However, she also had the guts to finally call him on it and to walk away. Her worried girlfriends must have inwardly cheered. It hurts to see your friend allowing herself--or himself--to be treated like a yo-yo.

I have a few general comments on this all too common psycho-drama. The first is that if a man really likes you, he will try to get a relationship started. The second is that when an unmarried man says No, he means No. An unhappily married man might say No reluctantly through fear and then later succumb to temptation, but if an eligible man says he isn't interested in you, he isn't, and it is extremely unlikely he ever really will be--although he will enjoy flattery "for free". Women are slightly more complicated.

The third is that I believe in spark, and so should you. Sexual attraction is like a match: if you don't have it, you can't get the fire of married love going. Of course, for married love to last you need more than a the match of sexual attraction. You need the tinder of shared values and the logs of good character.

The fourth is that people do like getting nice things without any effort on their part. It is very hard to give a nice person, a nice person who makes you feel special and gives you treats, The Speech. It is easier just to bask in their attention. It is also thrilling, sometimes, to play with fire, to wonder "How far can I go?" But sometimes, as the song goes, you gotta be cruel to be kind, the sooner the better, and don't change your mind because you miss the attention.

The fifth is that a male friend simply cannot be your best female friend. Men are just not women. Sometimes (my guess is rarely) a man can be your best platonic friend, but he will still act like a man and not like a woman. Men are who they are and not who you want them to be. Whenever you are totally cheesed off at a generally good-hearted man, repeat this mantra.

Finally, and this is directed to friends of people caught in the string of the yo-yo, the dynamic can develop bands of steel, with both people hopelessly addicted to the anti-relationship, and you can do nothing about it. Back home, and many years ago, I had the misfortune of getting between an A and a B. I was used myself--by A to make B panic that A was slipping away from her grasp. Or was A in the B position at that point? At any rate, it hurt very much to discover that I was not the heroine of that story, but merely a bit player in the great drama of A and B. As far as I know, they are still kind of together, still kind of apart, and still drinking heavily.

Be careful, my little Singles.

The Gentle Art of Single Self-Defence

If it weren't bad enough, some days, to be Single, you Singles have to cope with Marrieds or Act-Like-Marrieds asking you why you're Single. Even worse, they give you--unasked--their private theories of why you're Single. How annoying is that? Can you imagine people giving me their theories as to why I don't have any children?

"You know, maybe you should invest in some nicer lingerie."

Really, people can be a pain.

Anyway, the reason why you're Single right now is that this is God's will. End of story. It doesn't matter if you are cranky, overweight, poorly paid, or whatever, because lots of cranky, overweight, poorly paid people get married. The Lord of History plunks the right people in each other's path, and there you go.

Look at me, I didn't even have to leave the house to get my future husband's attention. We met because he read my blog. I didn't HAVE "to get out there" or buy new clothes or change my hair or whatever. When he first laid eyes on me, I was wearing battered old glasses, and if I told you how crappy my outfit was the day he proposed, you would cry. Really, the one day I didn't wear a dress.

But telling people about me would take too long. A good defence is short and snappy. One of the best ones I know was Mae West's: when asked why she was Single, she said "Because I was born that way."

Now, as most of you guys are religious, you can just tell your naggers and well-wishers the real reason, which is that your Singleness is God's will. This should shut up a lot of people, either because they are religious and they have to admit you are right or look impious, or because they are not religious and God-talk embarrasses the snot out of them.

I hear in my mind's ear a conversation in South Bend, Indiana:

"Goodness, Mary Kate, how can such a beautiful girl still be Single?"

"Well, Aunt Joanie, I've prayed about this, and I've concluded it's God's will for me right now."

"Oh, um," says Aunt Joanie, totally embarrassed by the G-word. "Well, you know what they say: God helps those who help themselves!"

"Gracious," says Mary Kate. "Is that in the Bible? Anyway, that sounds like Pelagianism to me."

"Whatism?"

"You know, the idea that if you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, independent of the help of God's Grace, you can reach perfection. St. Augustine was really down on that."

"Who?"

"Oh, Aunt Joanie, you're such a joker!"

With completely benighted atheists, you might not want to bother trying to feed them the strong meat of Christian truth. Instead you can impress them with Stoic fatality. "Che sera, sera," you say. "Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. Che sera, sera. Besides, all the good ones are either taken or gay."

This part is not true, incidentally. I wandered around for years saying all the good ones are either taken or gay, and there was B.A. on the other side of the ocean, bustling about, teaching philosophy, dating various Misses Wrong and wondering if he would ever make the jump to the Una Vera Fides, which he did two days after I arrived in Scotland. However, people love the line "all the good ones are either taken or gay" because it is a materialist cliche and unreflective people like atheists love materialist cliches.

Update: I see that it is the special day of "the land God gave to Cain." Happy Canada Day, mes amis!

Hellooooo Catholic Matchers!

Monica, how nice! But don't put up the WHOLE thing, poppet, or it makes it harder for me to sell later. Like Catholic dating websites, I'm in it for the money. Well, not as much as Catholic dating websites, but I do like to get paid occasionally.

So much to say! Well, first of all, I think Robert-XXX130* sounds like a very nice man. And thanks to everyone who said they enjoyed the articles.

Second--poppets!!!--I know this is a "let's just be honest" society, but try to think of how you come across to people reading your comments. Think "happy"! Think "fun"! Use words like "happy" and "fun". Talk about stuff you like, not stuff you don't like. I don't mind if you say you don't like my stuff, but men and women alike go for people they perceive to be happy and fun. Reread Robert-XXX130* and ponder his brilliance.

Third, I'm not American. Many of my ancestors are American, but I'm not. Be more discriminating in your insults. And, really, American men should not use the word "American" as a way to insult women. It's disloyal to your country, and it's dumb to use it that way on dating sites read primarily by American women. Come on. Use your brains!

Fourth, at no time ever would I ever tell a woman to hide her intelligence. At school and at work, strut your stuff. Win all the arguments. Knock them dead. But--and here's where we women can learn from men--try to compartmentalize a little bit. Compete like crazy at school and work, but afterwards let your hair down. Relax. Don't have this conversation in the church hall:

Man: So where do you go to school?

Woman: I'm doing my PhD at UCLA but I did my M.A. at Brown and I did my B.A. at Harvard.

Man: Whoa, Harvard!

Woman: Yep, I was class valedictorian, too. So what do you do?

Man: Oh, well, I work at a law firm, but you know it's not really... Wow, Harvard!

Woman: Yeah, it was pretty great. Where did you go?

Man: Oh, well, uh. You know. State.

Woman: Oh, uh, cool.

Man: So, Harvard. Whoa. I guess I'm totally out of my league here. Got any friends who went to State?

I mean, HELLO, the poor man was just trying to get a conversation started. It was not a job interview!

The number one thing that men hate to feel is stupid. Girls, please, please, please don't think you are going to make a man respect you by insulting his intelligence or his education, or bragging about yours at the expense of his. Of course, the same applies to men, but men seem to know better than women that this is completely counter-productive.

Man at Party: You know, I just don't support what the governor is doing about the highways.

Woman at Party: Are you stoned? Listen, unlike you, I have a B.A. from Duke in urban planning, and I think... blah, blah, blah.

Man at Party: Uh, excuse me, I just am going to get some punch. (Gets some punch, says) Jeepers!

Second Woman at Party: Sorry?

Man at Party: Oh, nothing! I just mentioned how I felt about the highway plan, and this woman jumped down my throat.

Second Woman at Party: Oh, the highway plan. I read about that. What do you think about it?

Man: I love it!

Woman: Really? I thought everyone hated it.

Man: No, I love it.

Woman: That's intriguing! How come?

Man: Well, to put this into perspective, I own a fleet of trucks, and so as a businessman...(etc).

Is there any conversationalist better and smarter than someone who is willing to listen and ask intelligent questions? No. That's all I'm saying, girls. That and it's okay to read Georgette Heyer novels on the bus.

Update: (This was advice to the poor woman who first posted my blogposts in their entirety and THEN had the temerity to link to my photo to make fun of it. Presumably she's seen the update, and I've taken it down.)

Update 2: The thread is gone, but my mixed feelings remain. I think it's great more Singles have discovered my blog, but I have this thing about copyright violation. It makes me (or my editor at the CR) contact websites and mention lawyers. (I get most of my photos from wikicommons, peeps!)

*Since the post is down, there's no point in me pointing out that specific Robert as a model, and Robert might not have appreciated the extra publicity anyway. I still think he sounded like a nice, intelligent man, though.

How To Seem Like a Good Catholic Boy

You didn't seriously expect me to write a post about How to Look like a Good Catholic Girl without writing a post about How to Seem like a Good Catholic Boy, did you? I admit it's more of a challenge, but I'll give it a shot. A lot of careful thinking has to go into this. Notice, for example, whereas Girls have to think about how they Look, Boys have to think about how they Seem. As simple men like to tell me, men are simple and women are complicated. Thus, as far as men are concerned, sensory impressions (Looks pretty, sounds nice, smells good, soft hands) are paramount, whereas for women the evidence (discussed obsessively) has to stand up in the court of female opinion.

WHAT a cynical and sexist beginning! Oh well. Boys, never forget that I think you are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life. Existence would be so dull without you. Which reminds me of the only time I thought someone else's fiance was super-attractive. This fiance's profession was X, and because I was worried about a Y, he gave me his card.

"I hope you don't have to call me," he said with a smile, and whoa.

Anyhoo, down to advice for Nice Catholic Boys:

1. Think Career. Either you are going to claw your way up through the office/departmental/military food chain or you are going to be your own boss one day. When women say, "So what do you hope to do after school?", tell them you hope to be the head of your own company/Chief Justice/Admiral/full professor of Biology at Columbia. Do not say, "I don't know. I thought I'd just, you know, take it easy, maybe backpack around Australia...."

Every trad woman's nightmare is that she is going to have to work a 40 hour a week job or, worse, two 20 hour a week jobs, plus have to take care of the house, plus doing all the shopping, plus having to pay some other woman to take care of her children--all because she's stuck with a man who can't get his career together.

This is not about class. I'm Canadian. I could not give a tinker's damn about white collars vs. blue. This is about the financial security every woman deserves when she hands herself, her future and her future children to some man in marriage.

2. Cut your hair. You are not a girl. You should not look like a girl. Maybe there is a Catholic Surfer subculture somewhere, so I will make exceptions for Catholic Surfers. Shave your face. You can do whatever you want about sideburns and goatees and all that stuff. But generally speaking, women think full beards are weird. Don't shave anything on the rest of your body unless you are an athelete and have to. And then don't tell. Oh, and if you pluck your eyebrows, don't overdo it and, again, don't tell.

3. Be Clean. Wash. Scrub. Brush. Floss, if you can remember. Wear clean clothes that do not have holes in them. Try to keep your soul clean, too, which means absolutely zero porn and also going to confession. Keep swear words to a minimum and apologize if you cuss in front of a woman. Do not, I beg you, tell stories that feature the words "sex", "sexual" and "sexy" to women. Banish the word sex from your social vocabulary.

4. Go to Mass. And not just on Sundays. So few people go to Daily Mass that you will stand out. Some of the unmarried women at Daily Mass will note your presence. They will think, "Aw! It's a man at Daily Mass! I wonder if he wants to be a priest. I wonder if he is married. I wonder if he'll be here the next time I'm here." Go to evening devotions, too. Go for the wrong reason (girls), stay for the right reasons. The right reasons include praying for a Nice Catholic Girl to fall in love with and for the ability to seem like a Nice Catholic Boy.

5. Talk to women at Church and Catholic School Socials. Be attentive. If a girl is sneaking looks in your direction, smile at her and toddle over. Incidentally, if you are 20, it's okay to talk to a woman who looks 30. But if you are 50, it is not okay just to march up to a girl who is 20. Do not be afraid to walk up to two girls standing together. Yes, I know two or three girls standing together are scary. But they don't bite. So if the circle they are forming is open, and not as tight as a rugby scrum, then pop right over.

That said, it's even better if you can get someone to introduce you around. If you don't know anybody, but the parish priest is there, you can introduce yourself to him, and tell him you'd love to be introduced to other people. He can do it, or he can get someone else to do it. It is a completely reasonable and laudable request.

Ask girls about themselves. Ask if they're still in school. Ask what they study. Ask what they do for a living. Ask them if they like that. Listen to their questions and answer them in a laidback, not bragging way. Tell them good things about your family, things that stress your Good Catholic Home, e.g. "My dad's a carpenter, so he has a great devotion to Saint Joseph." If you don't come from a Good Catholic Home, focus on some positive aspect, like your baby nephew.

6. Women are not Baby Machines. Women like men who like children, but they don't like being objectified as Babymakers. If you're over 40, and you only talk to women under 35, we know what you are up to, and we don't like it. I know a woman who was asked during a Catholic event if she were Single, and when she said she wasn't, she got this whole confession about how this guy really wanted a big family and so he really wanted to find a woman to be the mother of his children. My friend, quite understandably, felt rather uncomfortable. We want to be loved for ourselves, not for our reproductive capacities. And you could be sterile anyway, big boy.

7. Be Kind to Children, Women and the Elderly. Don't complain when kids cry or gabble at Mass. Don't diss your mother, sisters or (unless to your fiancee) your ex-girlfriends. Don't be rude to servers in restaurants or to sales staff. Hold open doors for elderly people, and give them your seat on the subway or bus.

8. Be Opinionated But Not Insane. Strong, confident opinions in keeping with the teaching of the Church are great. Conspiracy theories involving Jews/Masons/the Illuminati/John XXIII are whacked. If you have a nervous titter, find some way to get rid of it. And learn from the career of Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson is the king of Screwed up Catholic Boys. Incidentally, every time you do or say something dumb, pray for Mel Gibson.

9. Avoid looking like you belong the local gay subculture. If you actually do have SSA, you don't have to tell anyone, unless you want to, and hopefully you know that this is sensitive information you shouldn't tell just anyone. Nice Catholic Girls are very, very fond of their male friends with SSA, especially if you are doing your best to live a sex-free Christian life. All Catholic boys, whether or not they have SSA, should know that dying your hair blond once summer rolls around is kind of a gay thing, and, sure, you can do it, but Nice Catholic Girls will mentally cross you off our Potential Boyfriend list. Incidentally, bisexual men scare us out of our tiny AIDS-phobic Catholic minds.

10. Don't string a girl along forever. Don't waste a woman's precious time. Don't date girls you know you could never marry, no matter how cute and fun they are. Once you know she is not the One, say so. (She may be furious--I always was--but she'll live.) But when you know she is the One, say so. You don't have to have the ring already unless you are really, really sure she will say "Yes."

Sometimes you know after 10 days, like my husband did. Sometimes you know after six months or so. Sometimes it takes a year (or two or more, if you're in high school). But when you know, you KNOW. Meanwhile, keep in mind that when you are dating a Nice Catholic Girl, you are preventing her from meeting and dating Nice Catholic Boys who might treat her better than you do. And don't you dare pressure her for sex--or even kisses, if she doesn't feel ready to kiss you. (If she pressures you for sex, ditch her. Nice Catholic Girls do not pressure men for sex.) But if she gets worried because you've been dating for weeks and you've never even tried to kiss her, that is 100% normal.

Personally, I don't think you should kiss a girl on the lips unless you want to marry her. Feel free to tell a girl you think kissing is for engaged people. Don't tell her that right after she has grabbed you, though, because then she will be MORTIFIED. Nice Catholic Boys do their best not to embarrass Nice Catholic Girls.

Let the comments begin!

Update (April 14): Well, hello, Catholic Match! Your conversation has been fascinating!

©Dorothy Cummings McLean 2010

How To Look Like a Nice Catholic Girl

This is one of those mornings when I enjoy saying the truthful unsayable. I don't know why it is that when I switch from Seraphic Goes to Scotland to Seraphic Singles I get stroppy and cynical. Cheerfully cynical, mind you, but still cynical. Is it because I'm married now, or what?

Maybe it's because I keep thinking about the chastity speakers who were my age now when I was your age then, and I don't want to be like them. Poor women! I am sure they did their best. But all they talked about was sex, and I am more into the social dynamics of being Single and, if someone thinks they'd like to marry, stopping being Single. So I tell you all the stuff your mother would tell you if she weren't so afraid of you getting mad at her.

So today, assuming that the majority of you dream of marrying Nice Catholic Boys, I am going to tell you how to present yourselves as Nice Catholic Girls, always remembering, of course, that your vocational fate is ultimately up to God and He is the Boss of you. Auntie Seraphic ain't no Pelagian, that's for darn sure. Incidentally, most of these rules will suit Nice Non-Catholic Girls, too.

1. Don't cut your hair short. Of course, if you are one of the very few women in the world who can pull off pixie, go for it. But men are attracted to long hair, and traditional men associate short hair with grandmothers and active lesbianism. In general, no shorter than a chic chin-length bob, mes filles.

2. Don't wear jeans or trousers all the time. Men who like girls like girls who look like girls, okay? Jeans are great for a collegiate look, and younger, slender women look marvellous in them. But trousers and leggings do not say "Hello! I am the beautiful princess you've always dreamed of!"

3. Nice Catholic skirts have two lengths. There is the knee-length skirt, and there is the ankle-length skirt. I wouldn't, like nuns of yore, kneel at your feet with a judgemental tape measure, however. If your knee length skirt rides up when you sit down, I'm cool with that. If your ankle length skirt reaches the floor, that can look very hip. Just make sure you don't trip. N.B. I was wearing a knee-length, sleeveless blue silk shift dress with pearls the moment my husband fell in love with me. I was freezing. Should have worn a cardigan, too!

I do not like below-knee or mid-calf length skirts. They look dowdy on almost everyone. Modest does not equal dowdy. Too many traddie Catholic women make this egregious error, giving the rest of us a bad name. Think modest, yes, but always think pretty.

4. Nice Catholic shoes don't wreck your feet. Classic, trendy, rock star, sporty: all these looks can work as long as you are thinking "pretty and feminine" not "sexy". Spike heels are not pretty and feminine. They're sexy. (And stupid, almost as stupid as Chinese footbinding.) Nice Catholic Boys find sexy unnerving. Whatever their embattled sex drives tell them, they really want pretty girls who will make them happy and help them get into heaven.

5. Do not advertise things on your bottom. Western Civilisation hit a new low when girls began to wear sweatpants with "Juicy" written across the bum. It is a good rule of thumb never to wear words at all. None of my best-dressed Nice Catholic Girl friends allow themselves to be used as billboards. You belong to God, not Abercrombie and Fitch, and so the only signature on your visible person should be the cross at your throat.

6. Do not exhibit more than the veriest hint of cleavage. I'm serious, girls. If you're an unmarried Nice Catholic Girl, you cannot get away with overanxious boobage. If you go to a party with it all hanging out, other Nice Catholic Girls will shoot you foul looks and the Nice Catholic Boys will start sweating and looking for the exit. There are better ways to get attention. I once saw a very modestly dressed traddie girl in a whole new light when she accepted a cigarillo after dinner. One cigarillo once a year is not going to kill you; boobage can kill your chances with NCBs. Yes, you do so care.

6. Be Seen at Daily Mass. Now that I've got you nicely kitted out in a pretty, knee length (or ankle length) skirt, a modest but stylish top and cute shoes, I'm sending you to lunchtime daily Mass. I'm sending you for the wrong reason, in the hopes that you will keep going for the right reasons: to further develop your devotion to and relationship with God, giver of all blessings.

The truest hallmark of a Nice Catholic Girl is that she loves God and wants to obey Him. And the truest hallmark of a Nice Catholic Boy is that he loves God and wants to obey Him. And just as a Nice Catholic Girl wants to meet the right Nice Catholic Boy, a Nice Catholic Boy wants to meet the right Catholic Girl. And if he sees her at Daily Mass, so much the better, because Daily Mass is a clue to her NCG-ness. As we know, we have to go to Sunday Mass. And, alas, many of us do it out of habit or identity. Those who go to Daily Mass or evening devotions, however, show a more signal devotion.

Once again, here are the three stages of praying for a spouse:

1. Fun. "Saint Anne, Saint Anne, send me a man."
2. Petitionary. "Please, Lord, help me! Please, please, please! Help, help, help!"
3. Accepting. "Not my will, but Yours be done."

Obviously, #3 is best, but I, no saint, always found myself bouncing back to #1 and #2.

7. Don't, however, look bizarre. At the Extraordinary Latin Mass, wear a mantilla if that's what the other ladies wear. At the Ordinary Form of the Mass, wear a cute hat like a beret or go bare-headed. Never be the only woman in the church with lace on her head. Never be the only woman in the place with nothing on her head. Avoid being mistaken for either the Tridentine Avenger or the Feminist Crusader. Both ladies scare Nice Catholic Boys rigid.

8. Read historical romance novels on the bus. Yes, you have a fierce intelligence, and if you ever found yourself in an elevator with Christopher Hitchens, you would leave him a crying, defeated wreck of a man. But you don't have to prove this every second of the day. Contribute to discussions as well as you can, and do the best job at work or school you can do. But don't brag about how smart you are, and don't pose in cafes with Jean-Paul Sartre novels.

9. Don't say bad things about babies. In general, Nice Catholic Boys don't give a flying fig for your career until they fall in love with you. Then they care about your career only because you do. They aren't looking for husbands. They're looking for the feminine companion of their soul, the guardian of their home and the possible mother of their children. So although your guidance counsellor was impressed when you said you would rather be an astronaut than a mother, Nice Catholic Boys won't be.

10. Don't say the F-word. Alas, when I am in great perturbation of spirit (e.g. once a day), I say the F-word. And I am sorry because a cussing woman is not a lovely creature. It's called the F-bomb for a reason, you know. Do not use obscene or blasphemous language, however mild, and although you shouldn't nag men for the occasional mild indiscretion, in general do not allow them to use obscene or blasphemous language around you.

11. Think about how your words reflect on you. Do not trash other girls in front of men. Do not complain to men about all the past miseries of your life. Do not refer to the Holy Father as "Ratzinger". Do not talk non-stop about yourself, your parents, your friends, your anything. Ask other people about themselves, their ideas, their opinions and their feelings. That way, you'll never be a bore.

12. Be clean and smell nice. Clean you, clean hair, clean clothes, clean teeth, clean shoes. Not too much perfume: soap and deodorant are usually enough. A clean soul goes without saying, too, so don't forget to go to confession. As a priest once upbraided me in the confessional, "Don't stay away so long next time." Yes, sir!

The photo is from 500 Days of Summer, and no, Summer was not a Nice Catholic Girl, but she did dress like one.

Update: I'm reading and signing copies of Seraphic Singles in Crux Books at 5 Hoskin Avenue, Toronto (sandwiched between Wycliffe College and Hart House) on Tuesday, April 27, between 7 and 8 PM. Come on time and consume refreshments, compliments of Novalis!


Update 2 (April 14): Hel-lo, Catholic Match! I may be an "authorESS", but I'll trouble to remind you that I'm Canadian. Thanks ever so.

Update 3 (Jan 13, 2012): Okay, who is the super-popular person with a facebook account because I am having an avalanche of hits here today!

The Joy of Trashy Advice Books and Good Posture

There was, for a time, hidden from my mother under my Canadian single bed, an incredibly trashy but interesting book called The Seduction Mystique by Ginny Sayles. Because this How-To-Make-Men-Like-You book was padded with How-To-Do-Stuff-in-Bed information, it was not suitable for nice Catholic girls, nice Catholic wives or even nice Catholic divorcées like me back then. However, I refrained from reading the really naughty stuff in the back and stuck to the interesting advice in the front, which suggested that women should 1) stop resenting men, 2) wear bright colours and pastels instead of brown, black, beige and grey, 3) grow our hair longer and 4) wear makeup.

The mental exercise Sayles gave for removing one's resentment for men (which a woman might very well have after umpteen years of broken hearts and no husband) was to look at men in the street and think "Bless his little heart!" I thought this sounded bonkers, but I tried it out on some unsuspecting, balding soul, and lo! My mood immediately lifted. For awhile I went around silently blessing strangers. "Bless his little heart! Bless his little heart!" I suppose the phrase kicks in my maternal feelings or something.

I became fond of Snagging-Men advice books, trashy and classy, and occasionally bought them on sale. Now that I'm married to the Perfect Man for Me, of course, my interest in such things is completely academic. Yesterday I spotted a bright pink trashy one called Superflirt in Oxfam. It is full of photographs of winking Brits chewing straws and dangling shoes from their stockinged toes. The back cover trumpets: "Make Every Man Want You/Make Every Woman Melt."

"What trash!" I yelped.

It cost me ₤2.99.

I spent the evening perusing it and reading snippets to my husband, who was reading about the Gunpowder Plot.

"It says here that a man takes 30 seconds to determine if a strange woman is his type, but it only takes woman 3 seconds to determine if a man is her type."

"Oh, indeed?"

"That strikes me as true. Women jump to conclusions about men too fast."

"Mm-hmm."

"You can't rush a man in his 30 second process, I bet. You gotta let him have his 30 seconds. He looks once. Do nothing. He looks twice. Do nothing. He looks a third time. Smile, if you like him."

"Mm-hmm."

"Say," I said. "What made you fall in love with me?"

The husband politely closed the Gunpowder Plot over his finger and pondered.

"You were pretty, intelligent and Catholic," he decided.

"But that's your rational side speaking. There must have been something to attract your reptile brain."

"You were pretty?"

"Hmph," I said, not satisfied on the intellectual level but vastly pleased in my reptile brain, and after some chit-chat about my attractive, happy blog persona (which he met before he met the rest of me), I went back to Superflirt.

Okay, here in my own words are some tips from Superflirt. Some of them will sound very familiar.

1. Men and women are attracted to HAPPY AND CONFIDENT people. So if you are a Searching Single and you are neither happy nor confident, FAKE IT. Incidentally, I wasn't happy all the time I was writing my first Seraphic Singles blog. But I didn't think readers needed to know that. So when it was time to write, I summoned the stiff upper lip and wrote happy.

2. Faking it makes it, apparently. The book says that if you force yourself to smile, you can trick your brain into thinking you are happy. And this is certainly true for me. Writing happy makes me happy. Writing angry makes me angry.

Now at this point, many of you are saying "But I don't want to be fake" and "I gotta be who I really am". And I say, lipstick is way faker, but women wear it all the time. Shaving is also a bit of a dodge, but men shave all the time. If you can wear lipstick to pretend your lips are Toast of New York-coloured or shave so that your chin is as smooth as the sink, you can plaster on a smile. When you are going out into the world to make friends, you just can't let it all hang out. You have to be your most attractive version of you.

3. Your posture is worth a thousand words. If the world has been cruel, people will see it in your sagging shoulders, stooped back and lowered chin. And they will avoid you. If the world has been kind, you will naturally stand up straight and tall, put your shoulders back, keep your chin up and look everyone in the eye with a pleasant smile. And people will think, "Wow! Here's a confident and striking person!" And they will find you attractive. Is this fair? No. But there it is.

Therefore:

a) breathe to relax

b) stand tall

c) keep your shoulders back

d) keep your chin up

e) meet people's eyes when you talk to them; if you're too shy to do that, stare at the bridge of their nose

f) keep a relaxed posture: lean on your forward leg or lean on the walls or furniture. Leaning makes you look confident and relaxed. Who knew?

g) if in doubt, watch a confident-looking person and subtly do what they do.

h) wear clothes that reflect your personality but also say "I'm relaxed","I value myself" and "I am a long-term relationship kind of gal/man." Don't leave the house wearing sweatpants ever, ever, ever. And there's a fine line between modest and frumpy. Find it and remain on the side of light.

Incidentally, your eyes are very, very important in attracting people. Plucking your eyebrows makes your eyes look bigger and more noticeable. So keep your brows tidy, accentuate them cleverly if female and, if you are a rest the chin-on-the-hand kind of person, rest your chin in the L of your thumb and point to your eye with your index finger. Hey, that's what the book says.

Meanwhile, I knew a girl in high school who was a flamenco dancer. She had the best posture of anyone I knew, and I was in ballet classes for a long, long time. A tall girl, she never slumped. Her head was always up. Her movements were graceful. Her figure was good. Her clothes, which she paid for from her very good part-time candy-striper salary, were elegant. She was certainly striking. And the cutest, most spoiled, most sought after, boys in our circle followed after her like men stunned.

More unsolicited body language advice later.

Converse: How do you cope in a roomful of strangers?