And this is awesome: a new review of Seraphic Singles/The Closet's All Mine!
Hurry up and buy my book in large numbers, so that some nice publisher will ask me to write another one, and I can have all the fun of updating and pontificating. For example, I'm not sure I've made it clear enough that a girl must never tell a guy how badly other guys have treated her because guys, consciously or unconsciously, take their cues from other guys.
I've heard from one of B.A.'s pals that B.A. treats me like fine china. Now, I expect B.A. to live a good long time, but the tale that he treats me like fine china cannot be too widely told.
All men, bow before me and give me stuff! ;-D
Monday, 7 March 2011
What's It All About, Auntie?
After reading the college junior's essay in the New York Times yesterday, I wondered if there isn't some mass psychosis amongst the fathers of the world that makes them take their sons aside to say, "Listen, son. Monogamy is for losers. Life is short. I want you to go out there and get as much tail as you can. Quality's fine, but I'm talking quantity here, ya dig? Whatever you do, don't commit. Oh, and never volunteer."
The imaginary fathers in this scenario were nothing like most of the fathers I know, though. Almost all the fathers I know are married to their kids' mothers, and either have a job or are over 65 and retired. The only father I know personally who might conceivably make this speech hasn't seen his son his years and left the country shortly after he found out his girlfriend was pregnant. And why a kid whose father took off on him and his mom would listen to his life advice is beyond me--except that boys have a heartbreaking need for guidance from men.
That said, the above speech is basically the philosophy of Playboy magazine and therefore the alternative voice of the 1950s that became the dominant voice of the cultural elite of the 1960s and beyond. So, beyond the ancient adolescent male pattern of trying to score as much as possible before settling down (a pattern St. Augustine recorded), that's what we're dealing with. But sadly we're dealing with something else, too.
On TV the other night, I saw an advertisement for a marathon run against breast cancer. In the UK, people love to dress up in funny ways. I believe one year it was fashionable for a local woman to do a marathon run against breast cancer wearing her bra on the outside of her T-shirt. Well, in this advert, the women were wearing white fluffy bunny ears. And this made me uncomfortable because bunny ears on women means Playboy magazine and the defunct Playboy clubs. I cannot get the idea of adult women voluntarily donning THE symbol of women-reduced-to-sexual-animal before raising money for breast cancer research.
But, to make a long story short, many women have simply accepted the Playboy philosophy, and believe that the only way to hang onto a man (or get any male attention at all) is to look young and perpetually sexually available. The best book I've read about how this happened is Female Chauvanist Pigs. My new pal (yay!) Wendy Shalit also touches on the subject in her A Return to Modesty. And Dawn Eden writes about her depressing bed-hopping years in The Thrill of the Chaste.
Despite hundreds of generations of women telling their daughters that jumping into bed with men was not a path to long-term happiness and marriage, ever since the Second World War, young women keep thinking that it is. Or young women, obedient to the Playboy philosophy, claim they aren't interested in marriage anyway, and just want to have sex "like men". Yeah, you love it when man after man walks away--or when you walk away from the man you're in love with so he can't ditch you first. I believe you. Sure.
The saddest part of the NYT essay is not that the young men of New York and New England sound positively addled. It's not even the bad Jesuit novice/scholastic who dumps the author because she won't sleep with him on the third date. (Hey, and thanks for helping the Society's reputation, Brother Dirt-bag!) It's that the author keeps going to bed with these characters--although not, one notices, the Jesuit. I wonder if he had horrible zits, or what.
In Bridget Jones' Diary, Bridget's mother warns her not to sleep with Mark Darcy, a great matrimonial catch, because if she does, he won't marry her. Bridget is embarrassed and outraged and (PLOT SPOILER)--never mind the movie--never does marry Mark Darcy. But the point is that the wisdom of the ages was "If you want to get married, you must not sleep with him" and the current superstition is "If you want to get married, you shouldsleep with him."
Unsurprisingly, I agree more with the former dictum than the latter superstition, although I recognize that many women have indeed married men they had premaritally slept with. Premarital sex is not an immediate and universal deal-breaker although I want to grab any woman who sleeps with a religious, church- (or mosque-) going man and shriek, "Are you insaaaaaane?" There's no deal-breaker like religious guilt, cherie. You'll have noticed what our father Adam said as soon as he got caught.
Young men sleeping around before marriage is not new. What is new is that thousands upon thousands of young women are also sleeping around before marriage. Young men used to have rather restricted access to premarital sex. It was a challenge. They had to hunt for it. They often had to pay for it. They often pondered how mad their parents would get if they tried to get it from the servants.
They almost never found it among women of their own background because (A) prostitutes were a class of their own, (B) women of their own background had fathers, uncles and brothers of their own background who would have no problem thumping other men of their own background, (C) women of their own background were holding out for marriage with guys like him or better.
It was often just easier to marry a nice girl, a girl who did not remind him at all of his dumb, disspiriting sexual adventures.
But now a man with a good line of patter or sharp observational skills can go out and pick up upper-crust college juniors for one night stands, seemingly no problem. Society's numero uno way of herding men out of indiscriminate oat-sowing into positive family-building is gone. And guess whose fault that is? It's the fault of every poor woman who bought the lies of the sexual revolution and the morally-skewed women who told her to. Yes, I hold women to a higher standard. It's because I think women are naturally morally stronger than men. Sue me.
So in the end I didn't write a post about fathers. Outside of war zones, we women are our own worst enemies.
You may now be thinking, "But, Auntie Seraphic, if sleeping with a man does not get me a husband, what does?" And, once again looking at the statistics for marriage in the USA, I have this to say: Time.
Stop thinking about how to get a "boyfriend," but instead go out there and make as many business contacts, acquaintances and friends as you can. Don't treat men like women, but remember that sex is for husbands, not for boyfriends. Oh, how I loathe the word "boyfriend." A "boyfriend" is too often the guy or concept keeping a woman from getting married. I've never married a "boyfriend" in my life, and I probably never will.
The imaginary fathers in this scenario were nothing like most of the fathers I know, though. Almost all the fathers I know are married to their kids' mothers, and either have a job or are over 65 and retired. The only father I know personally who might conceivably make this speech hasn't seen his son his years and left the country shortly after he found out his girlfriend was pregnant. And why a kid whose father took off on him and his mom would listen to his life advice is beyond me--except that boys have a heartbreaking need for guidance from men.
That said, the above speech is basically the philosophy of Playboy magazine and therefore the alternative voice of the 1950s that became the dominant voice of the cultural elite of the 1960s and beyond. So, beyond the ancient adolescent male pattern of trying to score as much as possible before settling down (a pattern St. Augustine recorded), that's what we're dealing with. But sadly we're dealing with something else, too.
On TV the other night, I saw an advertisement for a marathon run against breast cancer. In the UK, people love to dress up in funny ways. I believe one year it was fashionable for a local woman to do a marathon run against breast cancer wearing her bra on the outside of her T-shirt. Well, in this advert, the women were wearing white fluffy bunny ears. And this made me uncomfortable because bunny ears on women means Playboy magazine and the defunct Playboy clubs. I cannot get the idea of adult women voluntarily donning THE symbol of women-reduced-to-sexual-animal before raising money for breast cancer research.
But, to make a long story short, many women have simply accepted the Playboy philosophy, and believe that the only way to hang onto a man (or get any male attention at all) is to look young and perpetually sexually available. The best book I've read about how this happened is Female Chauvanist Pigs. My new pal (yay!) Wendy Shalit also touches on the subject in her A Return to Modesty. And Dawn Eden writes about her depressing bed-hopping years in The Thrill of the Chaste.
Despite hundreds of generations of women telling their daughters that jumping into bed with men was not a path to long-term happiness and marriage, ever since the Second World War, young women keep thinking that it is. Or young women, obedient to the Playboy philosophy, claim they aren't interested in marriage anyway, and just want to have sex "like men". Yeah, you love it when man after man walks away--or when you walk away from the man you're in love with so he can't ditch you first. I believe you. Sure.
The saddest part of the NYT essay is not that the young men of New York and New England sound positively addled. It's not even the bad Jesuit novice/scholastic who dumps the author because she won't sleep with him on the third date. (Hey, and thanks for helping the Society's reputation, Brother Dirt-bag!) It's that the author keeps going to bed with these characters--although not, one notices, the Jesuit. I wonder if he had horrible zits, or what.
In Bridget Jones' Diary, Bridget's mother warns her not to sleep with Mark Darcy, a great matrimonial catch, because if she does, he won't marry her. Bridget is embarrassed and outraged and (PLOT SPOILER)--never mind the movie--never does marry Mark Darcy. But the point is that the wisdom of the ages was "If you want to get married, you must not sleep with him" and the current superstition is "If you want to get married, you shouldsleep with him."
Unsurprisingly, I agree more with the former dictum than the latter superstition, although I recognize that many women have indeed married men they had premaritally slept with. Premarital sex is not an immediate and universal deal-breaker although I want to grab any woman who sleeps with a religious, church- (or mosque-) going man and shriek, "Are you insaaaaaane?" There's no deal-breaker like religious guilt, cherie. You'll have noticed what our father Adam said as soon as he got caught.
Young men sleeping around before marriage is not new. What is new is that thousands upon thousands of young women are also sleeping around before marriage. Young men used to have rather restricted access to premarital sex. It was a challenge. They had to hunt for it. They often had to pay for it. They often pondered how mad their parents would get if they tried to get it from the servants.
They almost never found it among women of their own background because (A) prostitutes were a class of their own, (B) women of their own background had fathers, uncles and brothers of their own background who would have no problem thumping other men of their own background, (C) women of their own background were holding out for marriage with guys like him or better.
It was often just easier to marry a nice girl, a girl who did not remind him at all of his dumb, disspiriting sexual adventures.
But now a man with a good line of patter or sharp observational skills can go out and pick up upper-crust college juniors for one night stands, seemingly no problem. Society's numero uno way of herding men out of indiscriminate oat-sowing into positive family-building is gone. And guess whose fault that is? It's the fault of every poor woman who bought the lies of the sexual revolution and the morally-skewed women who told her to. Yes, I hold women to a higher standard. It's because I think women are naturally morally stronger than men. Sue me.
So in the end I didn't write a post about fathers. Outside of war zones, we women are our own worst enemies.
You may now be thinking, "But, Auntie Seraphic, if sleeping with a man does not get me a husband, what does?" And, once again looking at the statistics for marriage in the USA, I have this to say: Time.
Stop thinking about how to get a "boyfriend," but instead go out there and make as many business contacts, acquaintances and friends as you can. Don't treat men like women, but remember that sex is for husbands, not for boyfriends. Oh, how I loathe the word "boyfriend." A "boyfriend" is too often the guy or concept keeping a woman from getting married. I've never married a "boyfriend" in my life, and I probably never will.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Love in the New York Times
This is a rare Sunday post, which I am posting because I am so moved by this story.
When I read stuff like this, my first inclination is to blame that large and amorphous mass called "the Baby Boom." However, my second inclination is to remember that the Baby Boom were overly influenced by those about ten years older than themselves--their professors and whatnot. That lying weirdo Kinsey wasn't a Boomer.
Anyway, if this is truly what the lives of America's college students look like, it's time for another revolution, or the counter-revolution. It's time for the Restoration. And with that, I'm going to get ready for Mass now.
Update (Shrove Tuesday): A Guy's Eye View: also sad. Thanks to Urzula for sending it in.
When I read stuff like this, my first inclination is to blame that large and amorphous mass called "the Baby Boom." However, my second inclination is to remember that the Baby Boom were overly influenced by those about ten years older than themselves--their professors and whatnot. That lying weirdo Kinsey wasn't a Boomer.
Anyway, if this is truly what the lives of America's college students look like, it's time for another revolution, or the counter-revolution. It's time for the Restoration. And with that, I'm going to get ready for Mass now.
Update (Shrove Tuesday): A Guy's Eye View: also sad. Thanks to Urzula for sending it in.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Auntie Seraphic & Wanting To Guard
Dear Auntie Seraphic,
I thought you have probably answered this question before, but I perused a few of the archives and couldn't find it. Surely I'm not the only one with this problem...
There's a NCB that is pretty popular around my town, and I've begun to see him more frequently -- at Sunday Mass, diocesan events, etc. I always knew he was one of those NCB that seem too good to be true -- a great man of God who goes to daily Mass, makes a daily Holy Hour, pours out his life for the Church, and is always friendly and full of joy. But I've recently had several chances to talk to him, went to a party at his house, etc, and now I'm beginning to get a little crush -- the first in many years.
I know I'm supposed guard my heart -- he's a very busy guy, I'm sure a million other NCG have the same crush, and we barely know each other -- but I'm wondering how concretely I do just that. I've been praying about it, but praying about it makes me think of him, which just makes the situation worse...
I've told myself that I'm not talking to any of my girlfriends about it, except for the one who was with me [somewhere where he was]. (I just couldn't contain myself on the drive home and spent most of the evening afterwards gushing to her about him...)
I know this reticence will help, but beyond that, is there something I can do? I know intellectually what I have to do -- don't chase him, don't daydream, be patient and guard my heart -- but just how do I do I guard that little heart of mine? A friend once told me to imagine putting the crush in a box, wrapping it up, and placing it on the altar. That's great.... but what if he keeps getting out?
Wanting to Guard
Dear Wanting to Guard,
Getting a crush is like catching a cold. No matter how warmly you wrapped up, someone on the bus or (especially) airplane sneezes at the worst possible time, and hey presto, you have a cold.
My mum says colds always last for a week. You have to drink a lot of fluids, stay out of draughts, dress warmly and put up with the cold for a week.
Crushes can last longer than a week. However, you can downplay their impact on your life by minimizing their hold on you. You've had crushes before and they've petered out. This one will peter out, too. Sure, you'll suffer in the meantime, just as you suffer when you have a cold and you have to blow your nose every minute and your nose gets red and flakey. But it will pass.
As you say, you don't know this guy. You know only his reputation, which for all you know is undeserved. But you are certainly right to admire the characteristics he is said to have. So don't think about HIM, think about the characteristics. Thinking about him (whom you don't really know, anyway) is like standing in front of an open window in February when you have a bad cold. So don't. Distract your mind away by saying (out loud, if possible) "I don't know HIM, but I know I admire devotion to our Lord."
If in dire straits (or even before), it is helpful to ask God to take away your crush. Here is a sample prayer you might try: "Dear Lord, I know You love me and know me better than I know and love myself. I can't get rid of this crush, but I know You can do anything. So please take away this crush. Also, help me to admire best those people who know and love me. Thank you, Lord, for Your great mercy and love. Amen."
I hope this is helpful. Life hurts, but no hurt is forever.
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
P.S. Hit the little search word "CRUSHES" at the bottom of this post, and you'll find posts galore.
I thought you have probably answered this question before, but I perused a few of the archives and couldn't find it. Surely I'm not the only one with this problem...
There's a NCB that is pretty popular around my town, and I've begun to see him more frequently -- at Sunday Mass, diocesan events, etc. I always knew he was one of those NCB that seem too good to be true -- a great man of God who goes to daily Mass, makes a daily Holy Hour, pours out his life for the Church, and is always friendly and full of joy. But I've recently had several chances to talk to him, went to a party at his house, etc, and now I'm beginning to get a little crush -- the first in many years.
I know I'm supposed guard my heart -- he's a very busy guy, I'm sure a million other NCG have the same crush, and we barely know each other -- but I'm wondering how concretely I do just that. I've been praying about it, but praying about it makes me think of him, which just makes the situation worse...
I've told myself that I'm not talking to any of my girlfriends about it, except for the one who was with me [somewhere where he was]. (I just couldn't contain myself on the drive home and spent most of the evening afterwards gushing to her about him...)
I know this reticence will help, but beyond that, is there something I can do? I know intellectually what I have to do -- don't chase him, don't daydream, be patient and guard my heart -- but just how do I do I guard that little heart of mine? A friend once told me to imagine putting the crush in a box, wrapping it up, and placing it on the altar. That's great.... but what if he keeps getting out?
Wanting to Guard
Dear Wanting to Guard,
Getting a crush is like catching a cold. No matter how warmly you wrapped up, someone on the bus or (especially) airplane sneezes at the worst possible time, and hey presto, you have a cold.
My mum says colds always last for a week. You have to drink a lot of fluids, stay out of draughts, dress warmly and put up with the cold for a week.
Crushes can last longer than a week. However, you can downplay their impact on your life by minimizing their hold on you. You've had crushes before and they've petered out. This one will peter out, too. Sure, you'll suffer in the meantime, just as you suffer when you have a cold and you have to blow your nose every minute and your nose gets red and flakey. But it will pass.
As you say, you don't know this guy. You know only his reputation, which for all you know is undeserved. But you are certainly right to admire the characteristics he is said to have. So don't think about HIM, think about the characteristics. Thinking about him (whom you don't really know, anyway) is like standing in front of an open window in February when you have a bad cold. So don't. Distract your mind away by saying (out loud, if possible) "I don't know HIM, but I know I admire devotion to our Lord."
If in dire straits (or even before), it is helpful to ask God to take away your crush. Here is a sample prayer you might try: "Dear Lord, I know You love me and know me better than I know and love myself. I can't get rid of this crush, but I know You can do anything. So please take away this crush. Also, help me to admire best those people who know and love me. Thank you, Lord, for Your great mercy and love. Amen."
I hope this is helpful. Life hurts, but no hurt is forever.
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
P.S. Hit the little search word "CRUSHES" at the bottom of this post, and you'll find posts galore.
Friday, 4 March 2011
Hello to Serious Singles
It seems to me that most of the time I am writing to Searching Singles, those Singles who are trying to be okay with being Single but really want to be married or in religious life (but mostly married, really), and not as much to Serious Singles. This is because Serious Singles are somewhat rarer, and since they are generally happy and fulfilled being Single, they don't need to read about it so much. I think.
However, since the internet is not exactly crowded with blogs about the Single Life, it does not do to ignore the Serious Singles entirely.
Who are these Serious Singles?
Well, to shock the stuffing out of you all, I will begin by pointing out that most secular Catholic priests are Serious Singles. There are married priests (especially the ex-Anglican ones) and there are priests in religious life, and that suggests to me that the majority of priests are then Serious Singles, men who can't rely on a wife or a religious order as a sort of emotional/social/financial safety net. Ordinary priests don't take a vow of poverty, which means that they are often very poor indeed. It's a bit scary, sometimes, thinking of how hard secular priests work for how little money. And with fuel costs rising and with priestly dependence on their cars---eeek!
What Serious Single priests do have is a pulpit, so I wish they would use it more often (e.g. once a year) to talk about the Serious Single life, and not just the priesthood. There are a lot of devout men who, for various reasons, can't get into the seminary or are chucked out of it and (often for the same reasons) can't get married either. They don't need another homily about the priesthood, as important as such homilies are. They need homilies about how it is tough to be male and Single, but how such a life has its joys and opportunities, too. The married people can lump it one or two Sundays out of 52; they get oodles and oodles of attention.
Speaking of lay Singles, there are men and women who feel so devoted to their professional calling, like medicine or spreading L'Arche communities throughout the world, that they don't see how marriage fits into this. They deliberately make choices to travel to poor countries or live in L'Arche communities or do other things that makes it very difficult to find (or be found by) somebody to marry. They are seeking them first the Kingdom of God, and God bless them for it.
Then there are men and women who are not sexually attracted to the opposite sex, and therefore would find it very weird, uncomfortable and fake to get married. This has not stopped all such men and women, of course, from contracting disasterous marriages, but people of integrity tend not to marry innocent people as some sort of disguise.
Devout Catholics who are not attracted to members of the opposite sex, therefore, live their lives (or try to live their lives) as chaste Serious Singles. Sadly, just by being who they are, they risk criticism both from gay activists on the one side and from overly wound up fellow devout Catholics on the other. To quote my Inner Child, this sucks. If a Serious Single is Single because s/he isn't attracted to members of the opposite sex, that is his/her own business and if s/he don't feel like talking about it, leave him/her alone. Coming out of the so-called closet is not the human equivalent of a butterfly bursting out of a crysalis. It is not actually the eighth sacrament.
Then there are Serious Singles who have physical and psychological issues that make it very difficult for them to get married and have babies. There are some incredibly unselfish people who deliberately say no to marriage and babies so as not to pass on a genetic disease to another generation. I am not sure I agree with such decisions, since all things--like healthy babies regardless--are possible for God, but that is the decision of the Single person.
And then there are the extremely mentally ill and those with developmental disabilities so severe that although they can, of course, have friendly relationships with their families, carers and others in the community, they cannot take on the responsibilities inherent in marriage and parenthood or in religious life. These, too, are called to the Single life.
(By the way, there is a religious order for women with Down Syndrome, so developmental disabilities alone do not preclude religious life.)
Finally (although it might not be finally), there are Widows and Widowers, who have lived perhaps long lives as married people, and are done. The order of Widows is a very old one in the Church, and heaven knows what the Church would have done (and would do) without the activities and prayers of Widows all these past twenty centuries. Either B.A. or I will be Widowed one day, and I wonder what a job he or I will make of it.
Anyway, I am sure there are many more categories of Serious Singles, so if you belong to one, feel free to name it in the combox.
The Catechism, incidentally, says that Single people are especially close to Jesus's heart (CCC 1658).
However, since the internet is not exactly crowded with blogs about the Single Life, it does not do to ignore the Serious Singles entirely.
Who are these Serious Singles?
Well, to shock the stuffing out of you all, I will begin by pointing out that most secular Catholic priests are Serious Singles. There are married priests (especially the ex-Anglican ones) and there are priests in religious life, and that suggests to me that the majority of priests are then Serious Singles, men who can't rely on a wife or a religious order as a sort of emotional/social/financial safety net. Ordinary priests don't take a vow of poverty, which means that they are often very poor indeed. It's a bit scary, sometimes, thinking of how hard secular priests work for how little money. And with fuel costs rising and with priestly dependence on their cars---eeek!
What Serious Single priests do have is a pulpit, so I wish they would use it more often (e.g. once a year) to talk about the Serious Single life, and not just the priesthood. There are a lot of devout men who, for various reasons, can't get into the seminary or are chucked out of it and (often for the same reasons) can't get married either. They don't need another homily about the priesthood, as important as such homilies are. They need homilies about how it is tough to be male and Single, but how such a life has its joys and opportunities, too. The married people can lump it one or two Sundays out of 52; they get oodles and oodles of attention.
Speaking of lay Singles, there are men and women who feel so devoted to their professional calling, like medicine or spreading L'Arche communities throughout the world, that they don't see how marriage fits into this. They deliberately make choices to travel to poor countries or live in L'Arche communities or do other things that makes it very difficult to find (or be found by) somebody to marry. They are seeking them first the Kingdom of God, and God bless them for it.
Then there are men and women who are not sexually attracted to the opposite sex, and therefore would find it very weird, uncomfortable and fake to get married. This has not stopped all such men and women, of course, from contracting disasterous marriages, but people of integrity tend not to marry innocent people as some sort of disguise.
Devout Catholics who are not attracted to members of the opposite sex, therefore, live their lives (or try to live their lives) as chaste Serious Singles. Sadly, just by being who they are, they risk criticism both from gay activists on the one side and from overly wound up fellow devout Catholics on the other. To quote my Inner Child, this sucks. If a Serious Single is Single because s/he isn't attracted to members of the opposite sex, that is his/her own business and if s/he don't feel like talking about it, leave him/her alone. Coming out of the so-called closet is not the human equivalent of a butterfly bursting out of a crysalis. It is not actually the eighth sacrament.
Then there are Serious Singles who have physical and psychological issues that make it very difficult for them to get married and have babies. There are some incredibly unselfish people who deliberately say no to marriage and babies so as not to pass on a genetic disease to another generation. I am not sure I agree with such decisions, since all things--like healthy babies regardless--are possible for God, but that is the decision of the Single person.
And then there are the extremely mentally ill and those with developmental disabilities so severe that although they can, of course, have friendly relationships with their families, carers and others in the community, they cannot take on the responsibilities inherent in marriage and parenthood or in religious life. These, too, are called to the Single life.
(By the way, there is a religious order for women with Down Syndrome, so developmental disabilities alone do not preclude religious life.)
Finally (although it might not be finally), there are Widows and Widowers, who have lived perhaps long lives as married people, and are done. The order of Widows is a very old one in the Church, and heaven knows what the Church would have done (and would do) without the activities and prayers of Widows all these past twenty centuries. Either B.A. or I will be Widowed one day, and I wonder what a job he or I will make of it.
Anyway, I am sure there are many more categories of Serious Singles, so if you belong to one, feel free to name it in the combox.
The Catechism, incidentally, says that Single people are especially close to Jesus's heart (CCC 1658).
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Snogs, Snuggles and Sexy Puritans
Update: Welcome again, Patheos readers! I had no idea Max Lindeman was among the few men who still read my blog despite its rosy hue and swashbuckling protectors. Trads, sedevacantists, folkies, Max... Here comes everybody, indeed!
***
B.A. and others told me to read this post by an American convert who actually writes for Salon. I am always astonished and impressed when a Catholic writes for famous and seriously secular journals because I have a persecution complex as big as the six counties of Ulster.
Anyway, Max Lindenman's piece is making the Catholic blog rounds, so I thought I'd read it. The one piece of advice I'm going to give you ladies, especially all you ladies who LONG to know what men are thinking, before you dive in is that we don't always like what men are thinking. It can be insulting. It can be challenging. It can be pretty darn aggravating. But men are who they are and not who we want them to be, and fortunately we only have to marry one at a time, if we have to marry one at all.
I have a few thoughts about Max's account. First, Max is a good writer. He seems to be an emo-blogger, though. An emo-blogger is the guy who has his heart broken by Miss Perfect and then tells you all about it, even though the girl in question is presumably still alive. There are ways of doing it that are poignant and ways of doing it that are cringeworthy. Doing it the day of the girl's wedding to someone else is definitely cringeworthy, and Max didn't do that, so good on Max.
Second, Max writes about a weird world in which Christian girls in skintight clothing boast about the number of guys who tried to get them into the sack. He calls them the Sexy Puritans, and I hope none of my readers are acting like that. But Max also mentions seeing a girl in tiny shorts and a mantilla, ending his piece by suggesting that even trad Catholic girls are getting in on the Sexy Puritan action. Eek.
Third, Max hones in on a snuggle-bunny culture in which Catholic girls treat their boyfriends as if they were as temptation-free as teddy bears. Snoggy, snoggy, snuggle, snuggle. Now (super rare confession, mark the calendar) I used to behave like that myself, and my mother read me the riot act. Like Max's Nice Catholic Girlfriend, I thought it was okay to get as much physical affection as humanly possible without falling into sexual sin, without much pondering if treating boys to whom I hadn't made a firm commitment like squishy toys might not be itself a sin.
Max doesn't quite put it that way. In fact, as much as I enjoyed Max's piece, I wonder if there isn't a thread of passive-aggression throughout. He's trying to keep it light, but somewhere in there Max is seething "How come you get to treat us like squishy toys?" I suspect from the comments that a few outraged women have picked up on Max's anger, and his not quite subtle suggestion that there is a double-standard going on and that he tried to get "his".
But I wonder if Max would prefer to eschew all physical contact whatsoever. A snuggle simply does not have the moral equivalence of a [name obviously sexual act here], and heaven knows there are thousands of single men rather older and less attractive than Max suffering from skin-hunger. They would be happy for a bit of a snuggle. They would be happier for a lot more, of course, but a snuggle beats a kick in the teeth.
Anyway, Searching Single life is tough, and having a boyfriend or girlfriend or human teddy bear doesn't make it much easier. Dating relationships bring their own problems and they are no substitute whatsoever for marriage. And speaking of marriage, I don't snuggle with any men except my husband, so why are girls snuggling non-stop with men not their husbands? I don't say this in a judgmental way because, let's face it, I was a snuggle monster myself. I'm just throwing the question out there.
If it is totally okay and in keeping with Catholic traditions to snuggle non-husbands, then that is totally awesome, and I will keep my eye peeled for plump, warm, snuggly looking chaps. But somehow I don't think it is.
***
B.A. and others told me to read this post by an American convert who actually writes for Salon. I am always astonished and impressed when a Catholic writes for famous and seriously secular journals because I have a persecution complex as big as the six counties of Ulster.
Anyway, Max Lindenman's piece is making the Catholic blog rounds, so I thought I'd read it. The one piece of advice I'm going to give you ladies, especially all you ladies who LONG to know what men are thinking, before you dive in is that we don't always like what men are thinking. It can be insulting. It can be challenging. It can be pretty darn aggravating. But men are who they are and not who we want them to be, and fortunately we only have to marry one at a time, if we have to marry one at all.
I have a few thoughts about Max's account. First, Max is a good writer. He seems to be an emo-blogger, though. An emo-blogger is the guy who has his heart broken by Miss Perfect and then tells you all about it, even though the girl in question is presumably still alive. There are ways of doing it that are poignant and ways of doing it that are cringeworthy. Doing it the day of the girl's wedding to someone else is definitely cringeworthy, and Max didn't do that, so good on Max.
Second, Max writes about a weird world in which Christian girls in skintight clothing boast about the number of guys who tried to get them into the sack. He calls them the Sexy Puritans, and I hope none of my readers are acting like that. But Max also mentions seeing a girl in tiny shorts and a mantilla, ending his piece by suggesting that even trad Catholic girls are getting in on the Sexy Puritan action. Eek.
Third, Max hones in on a snuggle-bunny culture in which Catholic girls treat their boyfriends as if they were as temptation-free as teddy bears. Snoggy, snoggy, snuggle, snuggle. Now (super rare confession, mark the calendar) I used to behave like that myself, and my mother read me the riot act. Like Max's Nice Catholic Girlfriend, I thought it was okay to get as much physical affection as humanly possible without falling into sexual sin, without much pondering if treating boys to whom I hadn't made a firm commitment like squishy toys might not be itself a sin.
Max doesn't quite put it that way. In fact, as much as I enjoyed Max's piece, I wonder if there isn't a thread of passive-aggression throughout. He's trying to keep it light, but somewhere in there Max is seething "How come you get to treat us like squishy toys?" I suspect from the comments that a few outraged women have picked up on Max's anger, and his not quite subtle suggestion that there is a double-standard going on and that he tried to get "his".
But I wonder if Max would prefer to eschew all physical contact whatsoever. A snuggle simply does not have the moral equivalence of a [name obviously sexual act here], and heaven knows there are thousands of single men rather older and less attractive than Max suffering from skin-hunger. They would be happy for a bit of a snuggle. They would be happier for a lot more, of course, but a snuggle beats a kick in the teeth.
Anyway, Searching Single life is tough, and having a boyfriend or girlfriend or human teddy bear doesn't make it much easier. Dating relationships bring their own problems and they are no substitute whatsoever for marriage. And speaking of marriage, I don't snuggle with any men except my husband, so why are girls snuggling non-stop with men not their husbands? I don't say this in a judgmental way because, let's face it, I was a snuggle monster myself. I'm just throwing the question out there.
If it is totally okay and in keeping with Catholic traditions to snuggle non-husbands, then that is totally awesome, and I will keep my eye peeled for plump, warm, snuggly looking chaps. But somehow I don't think it is.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Why Are They Boring? Is It Us?
When I was a Single woman in my early twenties, I thought most Catholic men in their early twenties were frightfully boring, and now that I am a Married woman aged forty, I think most Catholic men in their early twenties are frightfully interesting. How inconvenient! Still, Catholic men in their early twenties come up to me after Mass now and tell me about their interesting lives, so I have profitted in the long run.It is a puzzle to me why I found most Catholic men in their twenties dull when I was twenty, when Catholic men in their twenties today are so interesting. Even more puzzling, during my recent travels, I spoke to a girl currently in her twenties, and she finds most Catholic men in their twenties dull.
And to add to the puzzle, the accounts of English debutantes of the 1920s and 1930s reveal that they found most of the young men that they met during the London Season indescribably dull. And yet, once the debs married, they had marvellous social lives and made friends with many men, young and old, not finding them dull at all.
What can all this mean? I have four hypotheses, which I will expound here.
1. The first hypothesis is that when I was twenty, I was too young to appreciate the merits of nice Catholic boys in their early twenties. Fancying myself an intellectual, I was more interested in men in graduate school. (When you are twenty and don't know any better, grad school status suggests that a man is a serious intellectual.) And I suspect that twenty year old girls find Older Men interesting because they seem to possess a glamour and a sophistication as yet lacking in twenty year old boys, to say nothing of the twenty year old girls. You want what you haven't got, in short.
2. The second hypothesis is that Catholic boys and girls in their early twenties are under a lot of internal and external pressure to find each other attractive and to be found attractive by each other. And since most of us are not really ready at 20 to marry, we rebel. "Marriageable" is a quality that means squat next to "fanciable." Boys our mothers are keen on ("He's a nice, stable boy with a good character. What more do you want?") leave us cold, and we all know wonderful girls who get passed over for nasty little passion-pots with bright red lips and talons.
Why? Because we aren't old enough to get married yet, that's why. In Canada, the USA, Britain and Germany (at least), our culture encourages us to stay teenagers (or "students") as long as humanly possible. (In Germany students get so many perks and discounts, losing your student status must be a serious economic tragedy.) I was a teenager until I was 30 or so. This is not a good thing. However, it was not entirely my fault. Society was to blame.
3. The third hypothesis is that Catholic boys and girls act in a very strange and fakely polite way around each other and relax only in front of oldsters like me, who privately think the youngsters are fantastically beautiful but usually have the brains to hide this. A relaxed and funny Catholic boy is a lot more interesting than a careful, hunted-looking Catholic boy. And a forty year old Catholic married woman, if she isn't too matronly, looks like an indulgent aunt--a cool aunt, with a job in publishing or television, who wants to know what the kids are saying these days. She never looks at a guy like he's a serial killer, which NCGs often do, and NCBs hate it.
4. The fourth hypothesis--and I admit this is a bit of a stretch--is that the most interesting twenty-something men are the ones who like to talk to forty year old women like me. Possibly the dull ones skulk off in corners, where I can't see and hear them. Only the cream of Scottish Catholic young man society is toodling up to me with teacups to ask me how I am, and that is awesome.
So to sum up my hypotheses, you might find Catholics your age boring because:
1) you're too young
2) you're too young to get married
3) you all need to relax
4) they don't have the social skills to talk to older ladies after Mass, and the best ones are talking to me.
One solution to this problem would be for forty year old married ladies like me to dress up to the nines and swan around town with twenty-something Catholic men. This would impart our worldly glamour onto the men, and twenty-something Catholic women, rightly resenting our trespass into their age bracket, would now sit up, take notice, and find the formerly boring Catholic men glamorous and even slightly wicked for running around town with married ladies. The only losers would be the husbands, but even then perhaps they would enjoy the fact that they no longer had to squire their wives around town and could stay at home in peace to watch TV and eat cheese on toast.
;-D
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