The Important of Telling Grown-Ups Stuff

Being a teenager was difficult, but I was lucky. Until I was eighteen, I mooned around vaguely wishing I had a boyfriend. I never had to actually deal with having a boyfriend.

Now I don't want to demonize teenage boyfriends. It could be that many, perhaps the majority, of teenage boyfriends are like boyfriends on television or romance novels or movies like Juno, where the person calling all the shots is the girlfriend. It probably is that there are as many different kinds of teenage boys as there are different kinds of grown men. I don't really know because I went to an all-girls school, and generally I only ever saw teenage boys in the bus station and at dances.

But, as you can imagine, girls in my school talked about boys and boyfriends quite a lot. I knew one girl whose boyfriend was a perfect gentleman, who called her once a week, and took her out once a week. I knew another girl--actually at least two--whose boyfriend pressured her for sex. And I knew another girl whose boyfriend said he would never pressure her for sex because he loved her.  I knew girls who never lacked for boyfriend because boys asked them out all the time, and I knew girls who were absolutely forbidden to date. I knew a girl who entered into an arranged marriage right after high school. (I know what you're thinking, but actually she was Italian.)

Many of us talked incessantly about boys, which was probably a good thing, but I am not so sure many of us talked to adults about what was going on, even when what was going on was seriously messed-up. You would think that a girl being pressured to have sex by her boyfriend would tell her parents, but only if you have completely forgotten what it is like to be a teenage girl. Teenage girls develop strong feelings of loyalty towards other teenagers, and get mad when their parents don't respect these feelings.

Parents run roughshod over teen friendships at their peril: my mum's response to my crying over a sexually active friend's bad treatment by her sexually active boyfriend was to tell me not to be friends with that girl any more. What I wanted to hear was something like, "That's very sad. It's very sad that So-and-so, who is such a nice, friendly girl, was so poorly treated. Teenage sexual relationships are such a bad idea, because teenage girls' emotional intensity crashes into teenage boys' horniness like a truck. I wish they would drop Romeo and Juliet from the curriculum." Meanwhile, my poor mum had probably read some newspaper article about how girls are more likely to have premarital sex if their friends have premarital sex and did not know that I would rather have thrown myself out a window than have had premarital sex.

Parents are not mind-readers, so as embarrassing as it is, teenage girls should strive to tell their parents what they think, believe and value and not just shut up and go away and stop telling adults anything. However, if it is just too agonizing to tell parents stuff, then teenage girls should talk to trusted adults, and by trusted adults, I mean favourite aunts and uncles, grandparents, favourite female teachers and, perhaps, guidance counselors and youth ministers.

Update: Drat. Blogger is going very weird things today, and I have just lost half this post.

A Rare but Heartfelt Endorsement

I have been neglecting my reponsibilities to the blogging community by not mentioning other blogs I like. So I should mention the Orthogals today, because they are a hoot. Here's what they wrote about trying to find fellow Eastern Orthodox Christians on dating websites.

The struggles of young men and women in small, devout, liturgically, er, colourful Christian communities cut across ye olde ecumenical divide. One of the problems is the small dating pool. Another is that the small dating pool is full of people stubborn and eccentric enough to belong to a small, devout, liturgically colourful Christian community instead of to much bigger and much more easy-going communities. And if the people are stubborn and eccentric about religion, they might be stubborn and eccentric about other things, too.

Fortunately, there is such a thing as love. If you fall in love with someone, you don't care if he is obsessed with Peak Oil or the JFK assassination. Maybe, out of love, you too will read up on Peak Oil and stare at grainy images of grassy knolls. And if he falls in love with you, he will fall in love with your collection of garden trolls and forgive you for your obsessive and somewhat embarrassing hatred of whales.

A Word about Math

I very much enjoyed reading responses to yesterday's question, "What if you were kidnapped by space aliens and they zapped you with alien technology so that all your XX chromosomes warped into XY chromosomes and when you regained consciousness, you were really and truly a man?"

The point of the exercise was to ponder what it might be like to be a man. Occasionally I ask men what it is like to be men and they usually say they have nothing to compare it with, so they don't know what to tell me. Possibly this is to avoid saying, "It's like being intellectually shackled to a frustrated sex maniac," which is not something the men I know would like to say to inquisitive NCGs.

Anyway, in this thought exercise some of us changed our professions, not just because our imaginary new muscles gave us new opportunities, but because we figured our new male brains would give us other interests. And this is why conscience directs me to say something about women and math. 

I grew up in Canada, and I believed that girls were bad at math. I believed that girls were bad at math because in Canada and the USA, it was believed that girls were bad at math. I can't quite remember when I hit the rocky patch in elementary school that convinced me that I was bad at math, but I remained firmly convinced. My struggles with math blighted my teenage life. So much time wasted in worry, self-hated and procrastination. I wish with all my heart I had spent the summer between Grade 8 and Grade 9, or between Grade 9 and Grade 10, learning that I could learn to do math. 

It was not until I went to Rome two years ago and met an Eastern European reader who is also a mathematician that I heard that most women in Eastern Europe can do math. I already suspected that education was different for women in Eastern Europe, at least in Communist times, because years before I had met a young Slovak nun who had been trained as an electrician. She did not at all think it odd that she had been trained as an electrician. However, I did not realize that there was such a gap between North American women and Eastern European women when it came to math and science. And it shocked my Eastern European mathematician reader to the core that women in the USA were, in general, so deficient in math and science skills, and had so much less of an interest in math and science than women in her country.* 

It seems that the gender gap between English-speaking women and English-speaking men when it comes to math is about culture, not brains.  It may be true that men are more likely to be TOP mathematicians ( I just checked the Faculty list for Warsaw University and  only 77 of the 330 people on the Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics are women.) However, this in itself is no reason to despair that more American, Canadian and British women could become skilled in math. 

It's amazing how our assumptions about gender and intellectual ability can hold us back. I was struck by the remark of a young Polish man who glumly decided that women were better at languages. He was almost entirely fluent in English. 

In a climate where it amounts to a thought-crime to say that men and women are fundamentally and radically different, I believe that men and women are fundamentally and radically different, and that our differences are complementary. However, I do not think that these differences involve intellectual ability, at least not on anything but the elite level. (This is to say that I believe that something besides culture has resulted in more top male mathematicians than top female mathematicians.)   

One day I hope to prove this to myself, too, by going to night school and learning all the math I so frustratingly could not learn in high school. Meanwhile, I do wish there was the same panic around girls not being able to excel in math as there is about boys not being able to read. When boys can't read, nobody says, "Oh well. Boys can always just become hunters, trappers or fishermen."

*True story: I was translating a Communist-era Polish comic song about mathematicians, and I got entirely bogged down in a line where one of the mathematicians clumsily kisses another mathematician. I was completely confused that there was such a explicitly homosexual element to this Communist-era song. A Polish girl (a biochemist) had to explain to me that the other mathematician was a woman. Isn't that pathetic? I was so ashamed.  

Extreme Empathy

Thanks to your prayers, I slept like a log. I don't have to go in for this blood test for some hours yet, so I will calm myself by returning to "Let's Praise Men Week." (In case you didn't read my terrified midnight post, by 14:20 British Summer Time I will be in a waiting-room waiting to have a blood test. I suffer from an irrational fear of blood tests, so there is a Pray-for-Seraphic campaign going on.)

Today's topic is, "What if you were kidnapped by space aliens and they zapped you with alien technology so that all your XX chromosomes warped into XY chromosomes and when you regained consciousness, you were really and truly a man?"

Being married to a former lecturer in Philosophy, I already know that there are deep theological and philosophical objections to this question. I also know that men so much hate thinking about what women they know would be like if they were men that I am recommending Anonymous replies from all Single women today, so that the sneaky Eavesdroppers don't start picturing you as men and throw up.

It is, however, too late for B.A. who said he didn't want to think of me as a man, and anyway if aliens turned me into a man there would be no me anymore, and no continuity between the woman that was and the man that is, and the soul is the form of the body, and my soul is feminine so how could I have a feminine soul and an actually male (because totally XY, responding to androgen, etc.) body at the same time? Et cetera. Et cetera. Men are simply no fun at all when you ask "What if I were kidnapped by space aliens and they changed me from a woman to a man?"

So never mind them. Paradoxically, we will have to ignore men's squeamishness in our quest to identify with them. Today we are going to imagine what we would be like if space aliens transformed us brain and body into men, leaving us with our memories intact.

There should be some honesty here, though. Don't say you would look like Ryan Gosling unless your brother looks like Ryan Gosling. (One of my brothers is a dead ringer for Ryan Philippe, but I am waiving my right to look like Ryan Philippe.) And don't say you would be a tall dark guy if you are a short red-headed woman. The idea is that the aliens have zapped you in such a way that if you mother saw you, she would do a double-take, for you would look exactly like a son she never had, like a male version of her daughter who, sadly, was abducted by space aliens.

For example, I am the shortest woman in my family, so I don't think my alien zapping would make me any taller than 5'7". I would be a short, healthy, moderately fit, nearsighted, ginger-headed man of 39+. Male pattern baldness is present but not a given in my family, so I'm choosing to imagine I would have a bit of a receding hairline. To make up for this receding hairline--stop reading now, B.A.!--I would be otherwise hirsute, like a ginger Sean Connery.

Poor me. Thanks to these cruel space aliens, I am now a short, fit, hairy yet slightly balding, ginger, 39+ year old man. Fortunately I live in Scotland, so I could blend right in after the scientists let me go. (I know from the annals of science fiction that the first thing that happens after space aliens zap you is that scientists do a lot of intrusive tests.) Obviously I would divorce poor B.A. at once, and let the canon lawyers sweat over the annulment process. Stumped you now, canon lawyers!

The first thing I would do is to refuse to talk to a grief counselor about my losses because my XY brain would hate that kind of thing. Then I would go to the gym. Every day. Maybe twice a day. Obsessively.

If  I were zapped, I would be all about upper body strength. Never mind male social privilege. I'm 39+, so it would be too late to reap the most of the benefits of what remains of that. I would simply be stronger, and doors would be easier to push open, and groceries lighter to carry, and I would want more and more of this magic physical strength power. I would also want to be stronger than  the other men around because a male version of me would most definitely be thinking, "I could take 'im. I could take 'im, too. That one might be difficult."

In terms of work, I would march into the retraining center and learn a lucrative, upper-body-strength trade like fishing or plumbing. (Okay, plumbing is way more lucrative than fishing.) B.A. says I wouldn't, and I would be bored, but I am telling you, if the aliens zapped me, all I would care about would be (A) strength and (B) money. My present reluctance to allow people to tell me what to do would sky-rocket and so either the fellowship of fishing boats or being an independent contractor would be the way to go, not some white-collar job being pleasant to managers. Ick. I would spend holidays doing all the stuff I would be way too afraid to do as a woman, keeping in mind that although I could take on a lot of bad guys, I could not take on all of them, or more than two at once. Going camping by myself would be really cool, as would hitchhiking across Europe on my own. Were I 25, I would still worry about truckers making passes at me, but being 39+, not so much.

In spare moments, if I had any, between work, the gym, and eating high protein suppers out of cans, I would write philosophical reflections on being a fisherman or a plumber. For company I would go down to  the pub and drink too much or go to a football game. If the budget allowed and I still lived in Edinburgh, I would most definitely get season tickets for Easter Road. No matter how lousy Hibernians are playing, they are my team and that's just the way it is. For relief I would occasionally take a cheap Ryan Air flight to Germany and watch Bayern.

My problems would involve loneliness and wanting to be friends with women while fearing they might look at me as if I were either a potential rapist or the solution to all their problems.

I would worry that people wouldn't be my friend or hire me if they found out I was that guy who was a woman until completely zapped by space aliens, so I would never ever talk about it or admit it.

I would worry a lot about having  enough money saved against the day I just couldn't lift heavy stuff  anymore, although hopefully I would eventually hire guys to work for me. Plumbing is really starting to look better than fishing.

I would be a bit worried about being beaten up, but generally men  don't like to pick fights with short, middle-aged gingers with the muscles I would obsessively develop. (I might go back into boxing, too.)

I would hate going to the doctor even more than I do now, and sulk when he told me I drank too much.

I would go mental over the extremely lousy playing of Hibernians.

I would also go mental if tall men stood very close to me in an attempt to intimidate me with their height.  Bad idea, Stretch.

If I were still straight--weird thought--I guess I might eventually get married so as not to be so lonely, but only to a woman who really loved her job and didn't complain all the time about being bored and unfulfilled. I would like having kids, for sure, especially if my wife believed the Man is the Head of the Family and the Woman is the Heart of the Family stuff the priest says, so that my familial duties were mostly reduced to shouting and handing out pocket money.

If B.A. reads this he is going to wonder how the aliens managed to make me working-class as well as male. The truth is I would not want to be a middle-class guy after 39+ years of being a middle-class woman. If I had to give up being a woman, I would really be all about strength, money and calling all the shots in my life, and that would mean a decent trade. Besides, I saw Fight Club, and I do not want middle-class guy problems. No way. No way, Hosea.

Well, I enjoyed that. Your turn. I very strongly suggest you remain Anonymous for this one. Or, to really freak out the Eavesdroppers with impunity, pick a guy's name. Don't give yourself any advantages you are not likely to have. If you are a short girl, ponder the difficulties short men face. If you are a tall girl, exult in the unfair advantage tall men get in this unfair world.

P.S. Don't forget to pray for me at 14:20 BST (8:20 in Chicago, 9:20 in Toronto, 15:20 in Berlin and Warsaw).


UPDATE: Here I am back from the medical center. Thanks to all those who prayed, either before or at or after 14:20 BST! I think the first needle went in around 14:35. At any rate, the nurse was very kind and listened hard when we discussed how we were going to do this. I didn't cry and I didn't freak out. I made myself do the stuff I had to do (like straighten my arm) and when the needle went in I just said "+Jesus+-remember-me-until-You-come-into-Your-kingdom" under my breath about 250 times in the space of 90 seconds or however long it took to get three vials of blood out of my poor wee arm.

"Whatever you're saying, it's working," said the kind Scottish nurse.

I did not think that up in advance; that's just what came out, and later I wondered why that particular wording. And then I realized: Taizé. Which is very funny given my mad traddery, but there it is. And I was very comforted, indeed, as I hurried to the centre, to know readers were praying for me. Vobis gratias ago.

Kryptonite

Long-term readers know that I am scared of British doctors. However, I made myself speak to one two weeks ago. She understood right away when I said that IVF was out of the question, so I tried not to mind that she consistently used the word "fetus" instead of "baby" and mentioned "termination" twice.  There is a measles epidemic in Wales, the effects of which could be catastrophic to a "fetus" and she supposed I would consider a "termination" out of the question. Yes, I said. I would consider it out of the question.  So this means being checked for immunity to measles on top of everything else.

Anyway, since I have been declared clear of the yucky diseases all wannabe mums get tested for, the next step is blood tests. And this may sound very silly and wimpy, but I hate blood tests more than anything, even dental surgery. I am more frightened of being tied off like a junkie than I am of speaking in public, speaking in public in Polish, and sleeping overnight by myself on the floor of Stansted airport the night before speaking in public in Polish.   

I usually weep, which is not very nice for whoever has to do the job, and I am afraid that if I get hysterical, they won't do the blood test at all. And poor B.A. is in charge at work tomorrow afternoon, and his mother is in Dundee, and I don't want to fall apart in front of a friend or make a friend come all the way from central Edinburgh just to watch me freak out for ten minutes. Thus, I am going in alone.

I know. It's a First World problem. And maybe if I had concentrated less on my "career" and more on getting married and having kids, blah blah blah blah blah. But, actually, the older I get, the more likely it is I will have to give blood anyway. The sooner I get over this irrational phobia, the better. 

At this point, I think I need supernatural aid. Would readers remember to pray for me tomorrow at 2:20 PM (14:20) British Summer Time? This is 8:20 AM in Chicago and 9:20 AM in Boston and Toronto and 15:20 in Poland and Germany. That way when I am waiting in the hallway---and it is a nice hallway, really, newly painted white, with lots of natural light and fresh pinewood fittings--I can think of you who are already awake praying, and I will feel a lot better. I don't care if it hurts. (It will. My veins are small, and in the past they have always poked around trying to find a good one.) I just don't want to panic or cry. 

I am sure it would be helpful. Thank you in advance.

Auntie Seraphic & the Unsuccessful Matchmaker

It's "Let's Praise Men Week" here on Seraphic Single because whether or not y'all are Serious Singles or Searching Singles, getting along with men is something we have to do. Sometimes this is difficult, so it is good to concentrate on the virtues of the good ones we know and the ornamental charms of scrumptious strangers. Ooh la la.

Of course, we cannot reduce men to mere sex objects, even if it crosses the mind of some of the eavesdroppers that they would not mind this.  But if they think they wouldn't mind, it's because they don't realize that young women usually reduce men to mere sex objects by expecting them to act like Ryan Gosling in a Ryan Gosling film or like the hero of whichever romance novel we they last read. Young women's imaginary sex objects say a lot of nice things and scatter diamond bracelets like frost from a windscreen.  Possibly some older women are a lot more like men when they we reduce people to sex objects, although I imagine all those poor Egyptian waiters must have to work very hard and tell a lot of lies for their British and German old lady tips.

What a thought. Anyway, here is the letter:

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

What are your thoughts on the following situation?

 A pleasant young bachelor has recently entered my social circle (rather devoid of eligible males) and one of my good friends has a crush on him. He has paid her some attention, but hasn't asked her out. I wanted to get the two of them together, so I organized a group event and invited them both. The young man was unable to attend, so that effort didn't go anywhere.

However, lately he has been paying me some attention, possibly thinking that since I invited him out I am interested in him. I didn't intend to send that signal, and I am worried about my friend thinking I am pursuing him and feeling hurt. She has told me, unprovoked, that she thinks it is awful when girls get territorial about someone who isn't actively dating them, but I know it would hurt her feelings all the same.

I am not particularly attracted to the young man, but he is pleasant and civilized, and if my friend weren't interested I would probably say yes if asked for coffee, in hopes he would turn out to be a fascinating and dashing character. On the other hand, I think he could be just right for my friend and wish he had the sense to ask her out. Unfortunately, though, my friend is very reserved around people she likes.

Should I tell mutual (married) female friends that I wish he would ask my friend out (knowing they will repeat it to him) or is this going too far?

Am I really, really, over-thinking this one?

Unsuccessful Matchmaker

Dear Unsuccessful Matchmaker,

I'm delighted that a pleasant young bachelor has entered your social circle, especially as eligible males are rare there. It is too bad that your friend came down with a crush on him, but that is not unusual. In fact, it would be odd if nobody got a crush on a pleasant new young bachelor.

Your email is pleasantly full of the guessing, second-guessing and machinations I expect in any nice social circle of young people, but, yes, it all adds up to over-thinking, frustration and, worst of all, DRAMA.   

I have many thoughts. 

The first is that the pleasant young bachelor is a human being and potential friend in his own right, and only he gets to decide which girl he is into. Your first attempt to attract him to your friend failed; stop trying to attract him to your friend. Stop. Stop at once. I know you are fond of your friend, but the one thing you cannot give her is The True Love of a Good Man. A new lipstick, yes. Mr. New Guy, no. So DON'T involve your mutual friends.

The second is that I would not at all be surprised if he took your invitation to a group event as your action on your own behalf (or, better, his own) and as evidence that you think he is a decent human being you'd like to spend time with. This is one reason why it is good to invite a man to parties instead of on dates: it signals interest in him as a human being without giving off aggressive vibes. The man now thinks, "Ah, at least in all this crowd of strangers, I know the woman who invited me to her party/group event must like me a little." It could be the little dab of encouragement a man needs. Smiles help, too.

The third is that you could save a lot of time and guesswork by asking your friend how she would feel if you did go for coffee with Mr New Guy. You don't, in fact, know how she feels. You won't know until you ask her. And you don't actually need to ask her unless Mr New Guy does ask you out for coffee or unless she repeats her cryptic remark.

Meanwhile, Mr New Guy has not asked you out for coffee, and possibly never will, especially not if you have started behaving coldly to him (if you have) as a way to bounce his regard from you to your friend. All that will do is confuse the poor man, and you don't want, at the end of your life, to hear Someone say, "I was a stranger, and you only welcomed me until I didn't fall in love with your friend."

I hope this is helpful. 

Grace and peace,

Seraphic

It occurred to me after I wrote this letter that Mr New Guy might prefer sunny, confident, busy women who organize group events to reserved girls who are too scared to talk to men they think are cute. Some men prefer the quiet, shy type, and some men don't. Meanwhile, a new guy is almost always going to feel a bit awkward coming into a new group, so of course he is going to gravitate towards the funny, friendly dames who invite him to group stuff. It's the confident, established guy who is most likely to notice the shrinking violet in the corner.


Update: Okay, okay. I admit that many of the British and German old ladies who go on holiday to Egypt, Turkey, Cuba and other places packed with good-looking dark-eyed young men do not make the first move and actually believe their waiters/tour guides/drivers when they say that age means nothing and that they love them.

And I also admit that many of these waiters/tour guides/drivers are not motivated by love of money but by love of unpaid sex with exotic foreign women who are leaving in a week.

Really, it should not be an ego-boost to be 45+ and hit on by an 20-something Egyptian. It should be an ego-boost to be 45+ and hit on by a 20-something year old Swede. If, when I am 45+, I am hit on by a 20-something Swede, I will buy him a drink as I indicate my wedding ring and then rush off to brag blog with glee.

Update 2: Just remembered I was recently hit on by a 20-something Swede. Yay, me!

Update 3: Actually, I think he was probably over 30. Oh, well.

Let's Tell Men What to Wear

How much if you throw in the lot?

Kidding! I'm just kidding. I belong to the "Accept them as you find them, or leave 'em alone" school of thought. That title was just to spark a discussion about what we like men to wear. I suspect men are interested in what women like them to wear even though if we told them what to wear they would get all mulish, like a ten year old who has decided he is old enough not to have to listen to his mother's opinion on the topic anymore. And fair enough.

But I think it sad that clothes are so ugly now. Last night B.A. and I went out to see  Du Rififi Chez Les Hommes, a French film noir of 1955, and I was charmed by how, even on their way to a heist, the French crooks wore snappy suits. The street scenes of Paris showed every man, young or old, in a smart suit and every woman, young or old, similarly well-turned out.

Where did you get that hat?

Okay, sure. The crooks walloped their ex-mistresses or slapped their wives on their behinds and said "Run along now, chérie." I'm not holding up the Paris Underworld of 1955 as some sort of model society. But their clothes were better than ours.

This is what I was thinking as our double-decker bus stopped at stop after stop, and I looked down (literally) on the crowds of people in black, grey and denim blue jackets, sweats, jeans. Urgh.

Fortunately, this is Scotland, and here many men choose to wear kilts to sporting events. Unless they were bought for £20 by a tourist in a tartan tat shop or worn without socks, kilts are inherently smart, even with a rugby shirt. A guy who goes to a rugby game in a kilt, knee socks and rugby shirt or (better) cable-knit pullover is infinitely better dressed than 99% of the men who don't.

Also infinitely better dressed than the average guy at an Edinburgh bus stop is a Young Fogey in tweed. No matter how wild the neuroses and opinions of a Young Fogey become, at least he presents a pleasant appearance.

Feel free to tell the men of the world via my combox what they should wear. They can't see you, so they may actually pay attention. Continuing this week's "let's praise men" theme, emphasize the great outfits you've seen men wearing.