Monday, September 07, 2009

Only Boring People Get Bored.

I find that when I am not involved in something, be it school, a show, or just some kind of project, I get very depressed. It seems that I always need to be doing something or at least have a group of people to keep my mind off the fact that I'm not doing anything. I'm realizing this now because I'm taking of time from school to save money for the wedding. The Fiance has left so of course I'm upset about that. Also, I seemed to have lost some friends along the way that I didn't even realize had left. People I slowly sifted out of my life because I knew they were not leading me down a very good path. And yet I miss them. I miss the company most of all. I've also been living alone for the last month and a half, which gets INCREDIBLY lonely. When I was living in "The Mad House" with 3 other psychotic girls, I thought that it would be very nice to live alone. Not to have anyone get mad at you for leaving a crumb on the counter or leaving your shoes upstairs or blinking too many times. At first it was fun. Now its just depressing. Anyone who shows any interest in spending time with me, I cling too. That's how desperate I'm getting. I am NOT that person. I am just very VERY bored. I should be excited about planning a wedding and dress shopping and cake tasting but its all tastes very bitter when you can't afford it. Hence no school, hence no classes, hence no theater, hence no people, hence depression. I SHOULD NOT be feeling like this because I should be able to think of something clever and entertaining to do but I am having "entertainers" block. I should probably get a third job or something. I don't like being around "work people" because their lives are actually depressing and it makes me feel like a selfish idiot for feeling crappy. I should right a Requiem or an Opera or something. Too bad I don't have a piano...
I expect things to get much worse before they get better.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Damsels in Distress

I was talking to a friend recently about problems she was having with her boyfriend. After ranting for a while she got very quiet and started to tear up a little bit.
"Its my fault," she said, "I am expecting way to much out of him. I have suddenly developed this 'damsel in distress' complex. No body does that anymore, who does that? I can't have these expectations that he's going to fight for me like some *expletive* dude in some *expletive* fairy tale."

It was a very interesting point this young lady brought up, and the more I began thinking about it the more it occurred to me that all of us ladies have a small "D.I.D." complex. Maybe it is because we've been fed fairy tales all of our lives that this wonderful man is going to ride in, fight and kill if he has to, and sweep us off our feet. Its ridiculous to believe that this could ever happen in real life.
Maybe.

The D.I.D. complex doesn't necessarily call for such extremes but the expectation that someone would find you worthy enough to fight for is incredibly attracting. I think that it is a reflection of something greater. Several years ago we saw a cultural phenomenon with the movie, Titanic. Horrible inaccuracies aside, women were flocking to the theaters to see this movie over AND over again. I, of course, wasn't allowed to see it but I watched it a couple years ago while doing a show about The Titanic just to see why everyone was freaking out so much. Yes, Leonardo was cute, but really ladies, come ON! Then it occurred to me that it was the character himself that was so appealing to women. They had been reintroduced to a savior. Someone that loved a woman and would do anything for her, including dying for her. This type of character had gone into hiding for quite some time, replaced by a Don Juan, I don't give a crap, I just want that woman and that woman and that woman.
The character in Titanic reflected a very Christ-like character, be it on a very small level but still there. He was a man that sacrificed his life so that another could live. I'm not saying that every woman just wants a man to die a terrible death, though some might. They want a Christ-like love.

The problem with women is that they love fiercely and more often than not in this culture they can't find a man to be compatible with, therefore women will find other things to be their outlet. It may be their career, their children, addictions to sex or drugs, pretty much anything to share that love. Sometimes it can get a little scary, maybe a little "Fatal Attraction" but it all comes from a desire to need and be needed. Its what really separates us from men. Not saying at all that men do not love as fiercely as women, that would be very wrong of me to say. Woman have a very deep need to be needed, which men have too but just on a different level. We find now that men especially young adult men have lost the art of romance and challenge and fighting for a woman. It all comes a little to easy for them now. We have all gotten very very lazy. Women make it easy to be caught, going to bars, wearing skimpy clothing and standing with 10 or 12 different napkins with their numbers written on it. Even playing "hard to get" has been lost. Men no longer have to prove themselves to a woman.

Concerning the issue above, that dear young lady found herself with a young man and they had been dating for a few months but she felt like he no longer had to earn her affections but could just demand them. He probably felt that he already had the girl, what else did he have to do? This is a hole that the dating, engaged and even married man falls into all too easily. The hard part is over, getting her to date you, marry you, you've got that locked down. Unfortunately for you, women aren't satisfied with that. It is very easy to slip into the mind set that women are needy and that they are never satisfied, but love should never be satisfied. It is a hunger and it is a thirst that we need but that isn't always satisfied. God's thirst for us is never satisfied and will always be demanding more. I see men thirsting for it as well. They try to find satisfaction in becoming a serial dater, dating more than one woman, or just sleeping around. The depth of a relationship, married or otherwise, runs very deep. Our love for each other is a reflection of God's love for us. Too often its put on the back burner while career, friends, social activities etc. are given the front seat.

While almost every woman loves to love intensely, some would say dramatically, the "normal" man is terrified of that, especially when it comes to a wife. This intensity can terrify a man especially when it isn't "kept in check." I'm not quite sure why this is, maybe the demands and expectations of our culture. Women will bend and brake to this expectation in order to be loved and wanted at all. Women have been given the gift of fierce love and without it we could not survive. It is that love that allows us women to even think about bearing and bringing children into this world, to fulfill this wonderful covenant we have with God. A man to whom that deep love has been given, is a very lucky man. Any man who has been so deeply loved by a woman will tell you so. That love deserves to be nurtured, fought for, and earned. Its incredible how a woman will love you if you fight for her love, but unfortunately women have become cold and hard because no one is fighting on either side. Women aren't demanding it and men are running away from it when they do.

It is a strange fact that while women are without doubt the most lovable objects in the world, yet it is on a man that the greatest and most enduring passions are given.

A great many women go through life without ever having been loved by any man.

I very much doubt if any man ever went their entire lives without having been adored by some women.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Feminine Wiles

I was having an interesting conversation with my younger sister the other day, she is 16, about femininity and how she thinks women should act. I was very surprised and a little shocked when she told me that she agreed with women who used their sexuality to get what they wanted from men. Her defense for this was that women had been used for hundreds of years for sex and therefore it was appropriate and right for them to turn the tables on men and use sex against them or for their own benefits. After I picked my jaw off the floor, and decided NOT to call the principle of her school demanding to know what they were teaching, I realized I didn't quite know where to begin with my sister. I wonder if I had somehow failed as the eldest to teach proper feminine etiquette or...something. My sisters had never seen me strutting around the house in short shorts and halter tops. I had only recently begun to wear 2 piece swimsuits with a 6 foot towl wrapped around me. It frightend me, ever so slightly, that this was how my sister viewed things. Unfortunately I saw that this was how most women viewed sex and sexuality, as a game. The art, power and beauty of femininity had been lost somewhere throughout the years, yes, but now it had been lost to even "good Catholic girls." I would most definitely not call my self an expert in these matters but wouldn't say that I am completely incompetent. I began to understand the power of my own feminity when I started dating my boyfriend about 8 months ago. He once said, "Erin before I met you I didn't quite understand why men, a long time ago, used to make such a fuss over seeing women's ankles. Now I get it."
I'm pretty sure what he was refering to was how rarely I exposed my legs and never wore scantely clad outfits even in the summer time. I realized then that I wasn't trying to attract attention, I was even trying to avoid it, and yet I was holding my boyfriend by a string wrapped around my pinky finger. That was never my intention at all. Still, I possesed a great power that I hadn't been previously made aware of.
Women don't understand any more the strength and force they possess by just being women. They have lost the mystery. They just lay it all out there for men to come sniffing around like dogs so they can put them on leashes. I used to love watching scenes in classic movies where a woman, modestly dressed, would make men fall over or run into a pole or spill their beer just by walking down the street. There was always a grace and elegance she carried with her and possessed that has been replaced by booty shorts and a "shirt" that resembles women's lingerie.
I wouldn't really know where to begin in recovering the lost art of femininity. It needs to start with the young women. I cannot stress enough to the young girls that I talk to about the importance of being womanly and that there is nothing wrong or weak about it. Women have more power than they realize and its time to rediscover it.