He's Not My Type

I had an interesting discussion the other day with a couple of women.  They were both married - happily so - and we were talking about relationships and the advice that young women need to help them avoid dating the wrong kind of guys.

One of these women said that when she first introduced her future husband to her close friends and family, they said, "He's not really your type."  She had to point out to everyone that her type really hadn't been working out for her so far, and this was a great guy, even if he wasn't the type of guy she would ordinarily have dated.

At this point, the other woman chimed in that her husband wasn't really 'her type', either, which got me wondering how many women dated a certain type of guy unsuccessfully for a while before maturing and realizing that they needed to date a different type of guy in order to be happy.

So for all you happily married women out there, is your husband the type of guy you always dated, or did you have to wise up and change your dating choices before you found true love?

If this is your type, it might be time for your dating strategy to evolve.

Rule #1

In chapter three of my book, I give four simple rules that girls can follow to avoid getting into relationships with jerks.  The rules are simple, but that does not mean they are easy to keep.  Especially rule number one.  In fact, that rule is the most controversial part of the whole book.  It is also one of the most important parts.  For those of you who have read the book, you already know the rule.  For the rest of you, I would like to take you on a little thought exercise before we discuss the actual rule.

Pretend you have a rich cousin.  Let's call him Sam.  He's rich.  Like really, really rich.  Richey Rich rich.  And he's younger than you - let's say he just started the 5th grade.  You've known Sam his whole life, and he trusts you.  One day at the family reunion, Sam confides in you that he doesn't have any real friends.  He breaks into tears as he explains that all of the kids want to hang out with him, but when he isn't around they talk bad about him and don't respect him.  Sam tells you that he is pretty sure the only reason people hang out with him and pretend to like him is so that they can take advantage of the fact he has money - they like his house, his pool, his toys, and his super awesome birthday parties.

Now you know that Sam is a nice kid.  He's a genuinely sweet kid that nobody can see because all they see when they look at him is dollar signs.  The poor kid just wants to have a real friend his age.  What advice would you give him?

I've thought about this, and discussed it with other people, and the same two solutions keep coming up.  First, Sam could choose to only be friends with other rich people who won't care about his money.  An interesting solution, and one that we will consider later.  Second, Sam could quit using his money.

Let's consider the ramifications of that second solution, because you are going to have to prep Sam for what he is about to go through.  First thing that will happen is nobody will want to hang out with Sam.  All those 'friends' he had are going to disappear once they see that being with Sam yields exactly the same monetary benefit as hanging out with any kid on the same street as them.  In fact, a lot of people are probably going to resent Sam and talk trash about him - saying that he is selfish, stuck up, and paranoid.

It's going to be rough, initially.  Sam is going to feel like he went from very popular (every kid in the city wanting to be at his birthday party) to being an outcast.  But what he will have to remember is that he didn't lose any friends.  All he lost were people that flattered him to his face, used him for what they could get out of him, and despised him inwardly the whole time.  Them leaving is not a loss, but it is still going to sting.

So you tell Sam that he is going to have to keep his resolve, and over time things will change.  If he rides the same beat up bike that every other kid rides, if he wears his clothes until they start to wear out, if he doesn't have the newest Xbox games, if he doesn't take his friends out to eat at extravagant restaurants, and if his birthday parties are humble affairs with cake and some pizza - then eventually things are going to change.  It may take years, but he will become just another kid, and some kids are going to get to know him and they are going to become friends just because they click.

Now that process isn't going to be easy for Sam.  The downside of not playing with his money is that he doesn't get to play with his money.  Sam wants to have cool toys, nice clothes, and awesomely legendary birthday parties.  What kid wouldn't?  But he is going to have to sacrifice that if he wants to have friends.  And eventually, he will find those friends.  After years of not giving out money, people will realize that they won't get anything from Sam, and they will start to see him as a person.

So when does Sam start getting to use his money?  How long does he have to be friends before he can invite someone to a birthday extravaganza?  Could throwing too much money around ruin his friendships?  Those are tough questions, and not ones with any definite answer - it will take a lot of maturity, wisdom, and advice from his trusted cousin to get him through it.  But at least he has finally made some real friends.

So where does that leave us with girls, jerks, and dating?  If a girls wants to get rid of all the jerks that just want her for her body, there is are some simple rules.  And Rule #1 is this: NO KISSING!

The physical gratification that girls can offer guys is better than money.  That's why many guys will offer to trade money for it.  And many guys can't see past what a woman has to offer him to see who the woman is as a person.  They really just don't care - they want sex.  That is the nature of scumbags.  So how does a girl find someone with whom to enter into a real relationship? Someone who will appreciate her for her ideas and talents and personality? Like Sam, she needs to quit giving away the exact thing that is getting in the way.

This is not easy.  A girl that sticks to this and the other three rules may initially find herself very single.  Once guys know that a girl isn't going to put out as much as a kiss, they aren't going to have a lot of interest.  This is going to make a girl lonely.  Not only that, but kissing is fun.  Normal people want to kiss.  So not kissing will be a sacrifice.  I totally understand that.  But the question is whether you want shallow relationships with guys that just want to use you, or are you willing to sacrifice for relationships that are deeper and more fulfilling?

Or is there another way to avoid jerks?  Remember that first piece of advice we could have offered Sam - just be friends with rich kids?  What if Sam didn't want to hang out with other rich kids?  And what if you're not the type of girl that wants to just hang out with other girls the rest of your life?  Hypothetically, you could just hang out with other girls and never date guys again and lead a celibate but simple life until you grow old and die.  That would be another way to solve your dating woes.  But that advice doesn't help women that want to date men, which is why I wrote Rule #1.

Say What?

Even though I wrote a book with an entire chapter devoted to the fact that men are scum, I am still amazed at the extent to which that is true.

I was recently involved in a conversation with four other guys - normal guys in their late teens - debating who was the greatest basketball player ever.  It was a heated argument over Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.  Someone mentioned that at least Michael Jordan wasn't a rapist.  That was immediately rebutted by a Kobe fan that pointed out that the charges were dropped.

"That's just because he paid her off," interjected one of the Jordan supporters.

"Doesn't even matter," said another guy. "She admitted that she went to the room with him and started making out with him.  And you can't think any guy's gonna stop once you get all started like that.  It doesn't matter if she told him to stop, it ain't his fault 'cuz a guy can't just stop like that.  She should've known that."

Everyone acknowledged that he had a point, and the rape issue was nixed from the debate.  Which left me wondering, "Do a majority of guys really think date rape is justifiable?"  I mean, I think guys are scum and jerks and all that, and I even knew there were ones that were okay with date rape (that's why it happens), but I never thought it was that widespread.  None of these guys struck me as particularly prone to sexual perversity or violence - they were your normal, everyday type of scummy men.

I'm going to be optimistic and say that it was an unlucky sample of men.  I really hope that 80% of men are not closet rapists.  But it is still a shocking insight into how some men - men that appear normal - are truly scum.

The False Premise of True Love - Part II

(This is a continuation of a previous blog entry, “The False Premise of True Love”)

After writing the first part of this exposition on finding “True Love,” I came across a piece of writing by C.S. Lewis that spoke on the same subject and expressed the same ideas. I like to think I could have phrased it as well as he did, but I am no C.S. Lewis, so I will be quoting him liberally as we explore what true love is, and whether or not there are any films that accurately portray it.

As mentioned before, entertainment media portrays love as purely romantic, exciting, and fun. Those are all aspects of love, but are only a small part of it. If we think that is all that love should be, we end up feeling like our relationships have fallen short of what we deserved. The initial part of being in love is often called the “honeymoon phase,” because it is so romantic, thrilling, and fun. C.S. Lewis calls it “being in love,” and says this about it:

[Being in love] is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling, [and] no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity...Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called "being in love" usually does not last.

If the old fairytale ending "They lived happily ever after" is taken to mean "They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married," then it says what probably never was nor ever could be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships?

 

Any of us that have known someone about to get married can relate to that last statement – I have seen straight A students in college slip to B’s and C’s, a man that owned his own business get way behind in fulfilling orders, and I myself remember not getting any sleep during that time because I was so preoccupied with being romantic or taking 3 hours to say goodbye on the phone. Being in love is fun, but it is emotionally and physically impossible to sustain. The honeymoon has to end eventually – it’s natural, normal, and perfectly okay. Lewis explains:

…ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from "being in love" is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit ...They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be "in love" with someone else. "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

It is possible to be “in love” with anyone that we have some sort of strong romantic, physical, or exciting attraction to. But that attraction – that exciting feeling of being “in love” – does not mean that you have or will ever develop the deeper, unifying love that holds people together until they die. Being “in love” is relatively easy, but “loving” is significantly more difficult, and requires a lot of investment.

Everyone has experienced this deeper, more difficult love. It is what binds families together despite disagreement, trials, and sometimes over great distances. It takes work for me to stay in touch and be invested in the lives of my brothers and sister and parents as life scatters us about and preoccupies me with my own problems. There are cousins and friends whose relationships I have regretfully let go over time – not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t do what was necessary to maintain them.

“Happily ever after” only happens when two people realize their lives can be made complete, and their joy filled, by being fully invested in each other as companions. They agree to work their way through the tough times and the dull times because the joy they find in each other is worth the effort and sacrifice they have to put into it. It’s not thrilling – it’s fulfilling.

If you disagree with me, of course, you will say, "He knows nothing about it..." You may quite possibly be right. But before you say that, make quite sure that you are judging me by what you really know from your own experience and from watching the lives of your friends, and not by ideas you have derived from novels and films. This is not so easy to do as people think. Our experience is colored through and through by books and plays and the cinema, and it takes patience and skill to disentangle the things we have really learned from life for ourselves.

People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on "being in love" forever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change—not realizing that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last.

C.S. Lewis has said it perfectly – and it is good advice for more than just love. How many of us have given up a hobby or abandoned practicing a new talent because the thrill wore off? A lot of people want to learn to play an instrument, but few spend the tedious hours necessary to master an instrument and experience the joy that playing an instrument can bring. Careers grow tedious, exotic places become ordinary, and caring for a pet can feel burdensome – but if we stick with it, each will yield great rewards. Why would true love be any different?

With that being said, I would like to list the movies that have very accurate portrayals of what true love is like. There are not many, but for those of us lucky enough to have found true love, these movies stand out:

• Up. Pixar weaves a powerful story of commitment and love through a life of joy, trials, and setbacks, all in the first five minutes of the film.
• The Village. Not typically thought of as a love story, but the scene with Ivy and Lucius talking on the porch about their relationship was one of the most convincing portrayals of love I have seen in a movie, furthered by the sacrifices that Ivy then makes for Lucius.
• The Vow. Kind of depressing, but shows what you will do for someone you love, and what the commitment of marriage should really mean. If you read the true story behind it and you aren't moved, then you have no soul.
• The Notebook. The first part of the movie is typical Hollywood staged romance, and the girl is a total jerk that the guy was way to good for...but the love story between them when they are older, with him going and reading to her everyday just for a moment of being with the woman he loved - that's true love.
• The Family Man. This movie does a great job of portraying how unromantic being married can be, but how great the rewards being partners in marriage and child rearing can be. I cannot watch the end of this movie without crying.

What's the difference between these and all the other romantic comedies out there? Anyone can love and be happy when your relationship is novel and times are good - and that's what most romances portray. But these movies convinced me not only that the characters loved each other, but that they loved each other with a commitment that would last beyond the fun times and romantic gestures of their prime years and clear through the heartaches, roadblocks, and grueling day-to-day grind that life inevitably is. Happily ever after isn't "We're both happy to be together until hard times hit." Happily ever after means "We're happy because we're together when the hard times hit."

The False Premise of True Love

Ahhh, romance.  It surrounds us, it moves us, it motivates us.  Deep down inside, most of us want to find someone to live "happily ever after" with.  The problem with finding true love, though, is just that - finding it.  It is terribly elusive.  Right now, only half of the adults in the U.S. are married.  Not only that, for every two couples getting married, one couple is getting divorced.  That means that, statistically speaking, you have a 1 in 4 chance of a happy, lifelong commitment to someone you love.

Bummer.

So who's to blame for that?  A lot of people.  Especially people themselves.  But I think that the Romance industry, especially romance for entertainment, is contributing to the problem.  And considering the female gender spends more time watching the "Lifetime" channel than males do, I'm going to go farther and say that Hollywood is hurting girls more than it is hurting guys when it comes to finding true love.

The problem here is that none of us were around to watch our parents fall in love.  If we see a couple now that has been married happily for sixty years, what we don't get to see is how that love first came about.  The only love stories we get to see from their genesis are on TV and in movies.  It's a major problem that very few people seem to recognize.

Everyone is quick to point out how unrealistic television and movie portrayals of war, child birth, fires, car wrecks, fist fights, and computer hacking are.  In fact, many groups vehemently protest the way Hollywood depicts violence, drug and alcohol use, vehicle handling, etc.  They even protest the unrealistic expectations set by celebrity physiques.  But I never hear anyone protesting how they portray people falling in love, even though it is equally unrealistic, and I can prove it.

The typical movie love story goes like this: Guy and girl meet, eventually like each other, have a major catastrophe that almost causes them to break up forever, but then someone says something to make it all better, they get back together, and the credits roll across the screen.  In and of itself, that is pretty realistic.  I know a lot of couples that had relationships like that.  They are all divorced, or they broke up before getting married.  It is a totally unrealistic plot for a love story that ends in "happily ever after."

So if it is so unrealistic, why is it so common?  Three reasons.

First, fiction is usually a lot more fun that reality.  No one wants to see the hero dive through a window and then bleed to death from multiple deep lacerations - it's way more fun if he emerges from the shower of glass unscathed.  The same is true of romantic cinema.  We want to see our characters overcome impossible challenges to find true love.  However, when we take that formula and apply it to reality, it just doesn't work.  The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have been trying to apply typical romantic formulas for a combined 23 seasons.  Candlelight dinners, wine, roses, exotic dates, fancy settings, very attractive men and women having fun together - how could that not result in love?  But it hasn't.  Out of 23 couples, one is married, and one is engaged.  All of the others broke up.  That is a 91% rate of FAILURE!  It's enjoyable to watch and fantasize about, but it just ain't real.

Compare this to The Biggest Loser - a bunch of grossly overweight people under extreme stress, struggling and working together, forming camaraderie as they pursue a common goal.  In just 13 seasons, there are seven couples that have formed and stayed together, three of which are married, and two of which are engaged.  That would make The Biggest Loser 442% more romantic than The Bachelor and The Bachelorette combined.  Obviously the process of falling in love has more to do with friendship and common goals than it does with physical attraction and fancy dinners.

Second, the people making the romantic movies have no idea what they are talking about.  I researched the backgrounds of the writers, directors, and stars of the top romantic films of the last year to see who was married and who was not (marriage being an easy to measure indicator of possibly being in love).  Of the 20 people I could find information for on their relationship status, 13 were divorced or hadn't been married, and seven were married.  That means that two thirds of the people responsible for portraying true love on the big screen this year have no idea what it is or how to find it.  Throw in the fact that celebrities in general have over twice the rate of divorce as regular Americans, and it is clear that these are not the people that we should be looking to for models of how to find love.

Third, it's emotional pornography.  Just like guys want to watch movies and believe that every girl in the world just wants to strip naked and get busy with the nearest guy, girls want to watch sappy romances and believe that true love is...well, romantic, and that they will get to have a similar love story.  Writers and producers in the porn and romance industries know what sells, so that's what they make.

While I would like to advocate that we should all boycott romance movies (so Friday night dates with my wife would consist entirely of manly movies), that isn't necessary.  What is necessary is that we all keep in mind four things when we go to the movies:

• When you jump through glass, you get cut. 
• When you stand up in a room engulfed by flames, your lungs cook and you die.
• When you duck behind a car door to avoid bullets, bullets go right through and still hit you.
• When people fall in love and resolve their problems in 110 minutes, if they made a sequel it would be about that couple getting divorced.

If people don't keep this in mind, the influence of Hollywood Romance can interfere with finding true love in two ways.  First, most of the relationships in these stories are based on superficial qualities - physical attraction, some sort of tension, witty banter - not on qualities that are important to a healthy, lasting relationship.  It gives a completely wrong impression of what you should be looking for in a partner.  Second, these movies show the "honey moon" phase that always exists at the beginning of a relationship, when things are fun, partners are still discovering each other, and the rest of life looks rosy.  Problem is that the credits roll before this phase ends, leaving the impression that love is always like that.  When life hits, people compare the gritty reality of what they are going through to the romantic glitz they see in theaters and decide what they have isn't the love they were promised, and they give up.

So what does true love look like?  Are there any movies that portray it realistically?  I will answer that in my next post.

Disclaimer:  I know that marriage is not the only measure, or best measure, for true love.  Two people can be at the beginning of a great relationship and not be married yet, and two people can be married and not happy.  Also, some people don't believe in marriage, but most do. And without watching a relationship until one of the people is dead to say it really did last, it is impossible to measure "happily ever after", so I use marriage as a convenient metric.

Vampire Romance - How Reality Bites

Is there a connection between why girls loved the "Twilight" series and why girls date jerks?  Could we learn anything from the Edward and Bella other than girls like guys who suck?

Vampire romance has been around for a while, but "Twilight" really made it popular with the teenage audience.  As a high school teacher, I was thrilled to see so many girls reading something other thane text messages at lunch, but I was very curious - why were women so interested in Vampires?  Being an academic, I did some research, conducted some surveys, and even read "Twilight" for myself. (I hope you all appreciate the sacrifices I made to write this article.)  In the end, I came to some interesting conclusions about what we can learn about women from vampire romance, and what women could learn about love from these fictional flings.

When I asked women of different ages and from different places to describe vampires, there was a long list of traits - older/mature, experienced, strong, well traveled, perpetually young, rich, multi-lingual, suave, etc. but the top three characteristics were:

• Vampires are mysterious and a bit dangerous.
• Vampires are handsome and know how to charm women.
• Vampires can be changed by falling in love with the right woman. 

Over and over again, as women described vampires, they used terms like "kind of dangerous," "a little dangerous," or "just dangerous enough to be exciting."  They rationalized the true nature of vampires, including the fact they were dangerous as if it were some small quirk that just happened to make them sexy - like Russel Crowe's accent.

This provided me with a huge breakthrough on how women think about men.  Think about what vampires really are and what the world would be like if they truly existed.  They are the ultimate hunters - possessing strength and cunning but without mercy or souls.  Strong enough to take life by force, they enjoy employing camouflage and luring victims willingly to their death.  Every father would fear the monsters that hid in plain sight and stole their daughters from the safety of their own communities.    In a world with real vampires, every woman that fell for a vampire thinking that she loved him and he truly loved her and she could change him would show up with a neck piercing and a fatal case of dehydration.  That's the reality of vampires.  Women have rationalized one of the most deadly creatures ever imagined into being "just a bit" dangerous.

What does this mean about real women in the real world with real men?  It means there is almost no limit to the number or severity of character flaws that a woman can rationalize away if a man meets one or more of the following requirements:

• His flaws make him exciting because he is intriguing or a bit dangerous.
• He's a player that is good looking and/or a smooth operator.
• He makes a woman believe that she can change him with their love.

This is a major problem for women.  While the odds of meeting a nice guy are better than the odds of meeting a vegan vampire, they are only slightly better.  The majority of males- especially teenage males - are jerks.  They care nothing for love or commitment or even friendship when it comes to the opposite sex - they just care about the sex.  Like vampires, these men will deceitfully woo a woman until she satisfies his hunger, then he'll dump her like a cold corpse.  They know that if they frame themselves as exciting, dangerous, smooth, or reform-able then women will willingly waltz past all the red flags and straight into their trap.

So how does this change the world?  I don't know.  I just thought it was an interesting insight.

The (Premature) Death of a Nice Guy

I would like to relate a conversation that I think women will find very enlightening on how men think.  It occurred over the summer when a former student of mine looked me up to ask me about the military.  He was thinking about joining the marines, and he remembered that I had been in the army, so he just wanted to know a little more about military life and what advice I could give.  I explained to him the difference between the army and the marines, and how the benefits of each depended entirely upon the goals he had for the future.  Was he looking for a career, or just money for college?  Did he want job training, or did he want to blow stuff up?  One of the things I always ask in such a situation is whether or not the person wants a family.  The type of job a person chooses can have a huge affect on their family and should be carefully considered.  When I asked him this question, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

"Joe" told me that he did want a family.  In fact, he said that recently he had begun to feel a real longing for a deep relationship with a woman, like there was an emptiness in his life without a meaningful, permanent relationship. 

"It's not like I don't get girls," he said, trying to reassure me of his manhood.  "My buddies and I go out like three times a week and we always bring girls home.  I have sex with at least two or three different chicks every week.  And that's nothing.  I have one friend that will bag like three different girls all in one night.  I mean, he and I have some fun together.  We always score because girls around here are so easy.  But I'm thinking now that I want a real girlfriend, you know?  Like a girl that I know and we could be together for a long time and everything."

He went on to ask me about what that was like and how to get it, since he knew I was happily married.  One of his big questions was where to find that type of girl.

"All the girls I meet are super hot, you know, but you can't talk to them, you know what I mean?  Like they are totally great for a night, but they aren't the kind of girl I'm looking for.  I want a girl that isn't for a one night stand.  I want to get to know her before we have sex, you know what I mean?  Like really be in love, and you can't do that with the girls around here.  Where can I meet like, you know, better women?"

So we talked about the idea that what better women were looking for (hopefully) were better men, and that they definitely deserved better men. 

"Look,"  I said, "If you want a better relationship, you have to change what you're doing.  If you want a woman for a long-term relationship, you have to quit picking up one night stands.  You can't keep having the fun and using women like you are and think that you'll just stumble onto true love.  You have to make a commitment to be a different kind of guy before you find that different kind of girl.  Otherwise, you probably aren't going to find that girl, and even if you did, as soon as she realized what kind of guy you are, if she was smart she would dump you."

We talked about that concept for a while.  He had never thought of women that way before - like they deserved something better than him.  When he left he was subdued and contemplative, and I could tell that he was going to go home and mull this over in his mind for a while.  It gave me hope.

A couple days later I heard back from him.

"I thought about it a lot, man.  And I totally see what you're saying about how it's gotta be if I want something real.  But I just don't think I can do that right now.  I mean, I like women, you know what I mean?  I can't give that up right now.  Maybe later, you know, but right now I'm having too much fun and I just like getting women.  I mean, I really like going on the hunt and bringing them home.  Me and my friends, man, we get laid a lot, you know, and I just can't give that up yet, you know what I mean?"

So I count it as a small victory.  It sounded like he realized that his practices were unfair to any girl that was looking for something more, so hopefully he won't be out there playing with women's emotions and breaking their hearts.  On the other hand, he's still using women more than he's using protection, because he values the former less than he values the time it would take to engage the latter.

But on to the main point  - or several main points - that I want women to take away from this conversation.

1.) This guy is a very normal guy.  He is very representative of how a vast majority of young males in America feel about women.

2.) Men are contemptuous of women that are easily convinced into sex.  As hypocritical as this seems, it's the truth.  Women are prey to them, and they look down on them the same way a hunter looks down on the animals he's killed.  That type of woman might be good enough for gratifying his sexual desires, but she's definitely not good for anything beyond that.  She's a sex toy, an object, something to be used, enjoyed, and passed around.

3.) When it comes to a choice between sex and love, sex wins (most of the time).  Other than heroin users, most guys agree that sex is the best thing on earth. It is a rare man that values love, trust, and commitment more than sexual gratification.  Most women don't realize this until it is too late because they don't make their men make the choice.  They give love and sex simultaneously (and many times they give the sex before love is even a factor) so they don't know where his loyalties lie.  If you want to spot the man that has developed his capacity for love more than he's indulged his lust, just make him choose.  Make him commit to you and honor that commitment before you have sex with him.

Compatible Partners

Recently there was an episode of a popular medical drama that involved the upcoming marriage of one of the characters, a woman.  It comes out that this woman is about to get married, but has never slept with her fiance.  Another character spends the rest of the episode railing against this woman for her stupidity, and telling her how she needs to find out if they are sexually compatible before they get married.  The show had no characters arguing the other way, and the woman in question had no decent reasons for sticking to her course of no sex until marriage.

This isn't a new idea, obviously.  The reasoning is that a couple needs to be sexually compatible in order to have a happy, healthy, long lasting marriage.  If either partner is unsatisfied by the sex, the union is doomed to failure, and should never happen. 

I have three arguments that I would like you to consider in support of my opinion that the above way of thinking is, in my opinion, incredibly stupid.

1.) Compatibility is not the issue - immediate sexual gratification is.
Pretend that you are a woman, and you happen to have a lot of money, and you have just started dating a man that does not have as much money as you do.  He is really wonderful, and the two of you are falling in love, but before anything can progress too far, he says:

"Honey, I think you are wonderful.  I'm sure that as I continue to get to know you better, my love for you will continue to grow.  But before we invest too much time in this relationship, and before we grow so fond of each other that we would consider a lasting partnership, I need to know if we are financially compatible.  After all, finances are an important part of marriage, and we need to know if we can merge our finances and financial habits smoothly.  So what we need to do is combine all of our assets and accounts into one joint account, equally owned by both of us.  I will add you to my lease agreements and car title, and you will add me to the title of your home and three cars, as well.  Then we'll put all of our money into a joint checking account for which we will both have access.  Also, you need to add me to all of your lines of credit, and I will put you on my credit card.  Add me to your health insurance, as well.  Oh, and we should name each other beneficiaries of our life insurance policies."

Would that raise any red flags for you?  Would you be thinking, "He must really love me to want to know if we are financially compatible."  Or might you think that he is after your money?  It may be true that he loves you, but do you really feel like his love for you is the top priority? 

How many of us, if we had a friend in a similar situation, would tell her it was a good idea to go ahead and make all of her property joint property with this guy she's dating?I think most of us see it for the stupid idea that it is.  Obviously the guy wants the benefits of her financial situation before he is ready for the commitment that is normally and prudently required first.  My assertion is that the "sexual compatibility argument" is really just an "I'm horny now" argument.  It's a reason that one or both parties uses to get something that would be wiser for their relationship if they waited, but for which they don't have the self discipline to defer fulfilling their desires.

2.) A person's priorities are revealed in their 'deal breakers'
If a person won't marry you because you don't want to have kids, then it means that children are a very high priority.  If a person won't marry you because of religious differences, then it means that religion is a very high priority.  Couples can have differences and still make long term commitments to each other as long as the difference isn't supremely important to them.  I have known couples in which one loved red meat, and the other was a vegan, and they were happily married.  Diet was important, but not that important.  The same thing goes with music, sports, travel, politics, etc.  Sometimes those are deal breakers, sometimes they are differences that deepen a marriage.  It depends on how high of a priority each item is to the individuals involved.

Imagine that you are about to get engaged, and your significant other says, I can't marry you if you aren't into music - you need to sing with me, learn an instrument, go to the opera with me, etc.  Music is my life, and you need to share music with me if you are going to share my life with me. 

Imagine also that music isn't that important to you.  You listen to the radio and you enjoy a good song when you hear one, but you don't have a drive to learn an instrument, and you don't know a thing about musical theory.  You have a major decision to make.  You can agree to go along with it - after all, you think it would be cool to play the guitar, and an opera isn't that big a deal, as long as you are sharing it with the person you love.  Such a compromise could get you the love of the person that you long to be with.  But would it?  What if something happened, and you couldn't share the music?  What if you just couldn't learn an instrument, or if your lack of true enthusiasm lessened the value of your effort?  Isn't this person telling you that they love you, but they love music more?  And if you ever came between them and music, they would dump you? 

I'm not saying it is wrong to love music - or anything else - that much.  It is important to have passions, and it is important to fully disclose them up front in a relationship.  It is equally important that those passions are shared.  If one person is more passionate about something than they are passionate about their spouse, the spouse should share that passion.  If not, the relationship is in for some rocky times.  My religious faith is more important to me than my wife.  My wife's religious faith is more important to her than I am.  We share a common faith, and our marriage is not hurt by our passion for God.  My wife really loves basketball.  I dislike basketball.  My wife loves me more than basketball, and I love her more than I dislike basketball, so compromises are made, and our marriage is great.  If loving basketball was a deal breaker for my wife, we would not be married, because we would not share that passion.

This all sounds like an argument in favor of sexual compatibility, doesn't it?  If sex is that important to one of the people, it better be that important to both of the people, right?  They need to be sexually compatible, right?  Here's the catch.  If your significant other suggests that your future relationship depends upon finding out if you are sexually compatible, and you don't feel that way, then you have already discovered that you are not compatible.  You didn't have to have sex.  If your partner feels that way, and you don't, then you know that sex is a higher on their passion list than you are.  If sex is not that high on your priority list, then the two of you are probably not a good match - even if it turns out that the sex would have been awesome.

3.) 100% Compatibility is a Myth
To think that you need to be, or even could be, completely compatible is the myth of fairy tales and overly mushy romantic fiction.  Marriage is defined as a union of two different people, not the same person to himself or herself.  Different people are just that - different.  Not only that, but the world changes, life changes, and people change.  Things that you agree on now might become an issue later, and things that are issues now might go away later.  And life is probably going to hit you with something you never saw coming.  As long as you are compatible in your top priorities - those priorities that are bigger than you are to each other - then the rest is details.  Sure they require some working out, but they can be worked out together.

The questions is not 'Are you compatible enough?'  The question is, 'Do you love each other enough to make a commitment and stand firm, no matter what?'  I observed a lot of happy couples growing up, and they all had challenges that they had to overcome to stay together.  They told stories of how it was hard, of how they struggled, but their love and commitment won out, and now they had their happy ending.  These were not small struggles.  I'm talking about medical conditions that incapacitated a wife early in their marriage, and the husband cared for her as an invalid for many years to come.  I'm talking about a couple that had three children with down syndrome.  I'm talking about a husband that went to prison for 15 years on false charges, and his loving wife waited for him.  I'm talking about soldiers that were deployed, people that suffered depression, couples that went bankrupt.  These are things that destroy many marriages, but it didn't destroy these ones because they loved each other and they were committed to each other.

There is no way to know what challenges lay ahead in a relationship.  You can only know which ones you have overcome already, and whether or not your commitment is enough to overcome all of them.  Having seen these trials in other's lives, I asked myself before I got married, "If she was hit by a car and was paralyzed from the neck down three months after we were married, do I love her enough to stay with her and care for her for the rest of our lives?  Does she love me enough to do the same for me?"  I think that any couple that can honestly answer yes to that question doesn't need to worry about how they hang the toilet paper, or any other detail that is lower on their priority list than their significant other.

As a personal example, I love being active - hiking, camping, canoeing, soccer, softball, paintball, etc.  My wife is also very active, and we loved that about each other.  There was no way of knowing that pregnancies were going to be difficult for her, and that from the first bout of morning sickness, to the day of delivery nine months later, she would be incapacitated.  Not only would she not be active, but I would spend so much time caring for her that I would not have time to do what I wanted to do, either.  But it never even crossed my mind to leave her.  I see women that stay active through their whole pregnancy.  I wish that my wife were like that.  Heck, my wife wishes she was like that.  But that doesn't change our love for each other, nor does it lesson my commitment to her.

According to the logic of needing to be totally compatible, I should have gotten her pregnant before we made a long term commitment to each other.  That way I could see how she fared, and when it turned out she was sick for nine months, then I would have said, "Sorry, you just don't meet my needs.  Have fun with the kid."

That's ludicrous.  There is no way of anticipating and testing every possible situation that might come up.  So just suck it up, make the commitment to the one you love (if you truly love them that much), and hang on tight to each other so that you never come apart.  The trepidation of wanting to try everything out is just a sign that your relationship is already doomed to failure.  That's why couples who live together before marriage have significantly higher divorce rates than those who take the plunge before moving in with each other.

Is sex that important?
Having said all that, the question is where does sex fall on your priority list?  Do you love it more than you can love another person?  If so, sexual compatibility could be an issue.  But if you feel that that way about sex, I would make the assertion that your life is shallow, and you need to get some priorities straight.  But that sounds like a whole separate blog entry to me.

Really?

The purpose of this blog is not to argue with anonymous naysayers possessing no depth of reasoning, so unless someone has a real question or valid argument, I will not be responding to your comments in the future. However, since the (self-proclaimed) "Anonymous Coward" (I use that title to differentiate him/her from the bazillion other anonymous commentators on the internet) specifically asked for me to post their comment and respond, I will oblige them this one last time.

Anonymous said (and I quote exactly as they typed):

I see that you failed to post my last comment. Kindof validates what I wrote, you are a little too interested in the socio-sexual development of adolescent girls, hmmmm?

For anyone else who suffers similar confusion, a comment automatically posts when you post it. That's why it is called "posting a comment." When you post it, it is there for the world to see. The reason there were a bunch of responses to Anon.'s comment on "A Quick Rebuttal" is because the comment was posted.  I didn't have to do anything, other than not delete it, in order for it to be posted. If anyone is really anxious to see their comments posted in an actual blog entry, they may start their own blog. The only reason I post the comments when I talk about them is to save the reader the time of navigating to a different part of the blog. I don't have to do that in order for a comment to be "posted", though.  If you doubt, click on the "comments" link under my last post, and...whoa, look at that! A bunch of comments!

Second, the reason that I didn't blog about the second comment is because it was basically the same as the first. But since Anonymous insists, let me break it down for you all, one line at a time:

Dear Saint Pervious,

In their attempt to be clever, Anon. failed to realize, or is just ignorant (surprise, surprise) that pervious is not a play on the word pervert, but is actually a real word, which means that an object can be permeated or affected by something. For example, if something is pervious to water, water can get through it, or it can be ruined by water. The more common usage of the word is impervious, which means the opposite, as in, "My waterproof watch is impervious to the rain." But maybe Anon. knew that, and I just failed to grasp the incredibly clever meaning of the salutation.

My apologies if my rancid breath doth tarnish thy halo or spook thy snowy steed, but I had a few more comments.

Well, that's interesting, since I usually take the phrase 'a few more comments' to mean new comments addressing some aspect of a situation that hasn't been addressed.

Someone who, with no apparent credentials or qualifications, has taken it upon themselves to write a book about the sexual relationships of young women, set themselves up as the savior of soiled doves whose judgement is not up his standard and then use those experiences to promote his scarlet letter crusade.  Add to that the fact that these young women are high school students under your position of authority.

I admit, my credentials are not apparent, but least I've shown that my qualifications include the ability to write in complete sentences. I'm also at a loss of how Anon.'s credentials are any more apparent. I didn't know one had to have credentials to write a blog.  If I were selling advice - such as charging for therapy sessions - then I could see why credentials were important.  But for a blog?  As I stated in my first post, I'm just writing what I think, and people can take it or leave it.  If they like what I say, fine.  If they don't, fine.  I don't think there is a law requiring credentials to voice one's opinion.

Also, can we assume from the above statement that Anon. has read my book? I really doubt it. But Anon. can prove me wrong by telling me what my adage is for evaluating the wisdom of a decision. Anyone who has read my book knows that it is not about the sexual relationships of young women. Anon.'s critical reading skills, however, are below par, as we will see in a second, so maybe they have read my book, and just didn't understand what they were reading.

Anyway, the general gist of the paragraph is that I'm not qualified to give girls advice about relationships, so I am bad for trying to do so.

So the fact that you "care" is not in question, you have shown that you care maybe more than is appropriate. What is at issue is why you care. Now only you can know your motives, but from an outside observer, the red flags are starting to fly.

The second-to-last paragraph of "A Quick Rebuttal" explained in detail why I care. That's what I meant by Anon.'s lack of critical reading skills. Other than that, this paragraph is just more of the same - I am creepy and bad for trying to help my students.

I mean really, publish a book, create a website, start a blog(that details professional behavior that is questionable)? That is not an insignificant allocation of resources and taken together it is not unreasonable for one to question the motivation behind all this work.

I get it. Anon. thinks that I care more than is appropriate. The entire comment consists of (1) saying I have no apparent credentials, while failing to provide any of their own, and (2) saying that I show an inappropriate interest in my students. Since I don't care if people approve of my credentials, then this whole thing boils down to the idea that my level of caring is questionable. That happens to be the exact same idea of the first comment by Anon. Since I already gave a lengthy response to that accusation, I don't think I need to respond to it again.

On the other hand, Anon. didn't answer any of my questions. When I asked, "Why is that inappropriate?", Anon. just repeated the fact that they found it inappropriate. What a stellar argument. I could have saved a lot of writing if I were capable of such clever come-backs.

If, however, Anon. would like to write an actual response to the questions and accusations I posed in either of these rebuttals, they may feel free to do so, though their comment will probably remain in the comment section.

The anonymous coward

I think we can all agree with that.

Before I finish, I have one more question, and this is for anyone reading my blog: When did I talk about the sexual relationships of my female students? I twice mention that I have students that are pregnant, but if stating that someone is pregnant is an inappropriate reference to their sex life, then my wife would have been very offended every time someone asked when she was due. So I'm curious, what is the exact statement about my student's sexual activity that crosses the line? Again, I think Anon. is reading too much into stuff, probably because of their own perverted mind. But I leave it open for Anon. (or anyone else) to prove me wrong.

A Quick Rebuttal

I would like to comment on a comment that was left by the illustrious 'Anonymous', who is always the most courageous of commentators on the internet.

Anonymous said...

"Let me get this straight, you are a male high school teacher opining on the dating life of one of your female students? commenting on her personality and her appearance? asking her to defend her choices?

There are all sorts of creeps, some are over-sexed teen boys looking to score and some are self-righteous yet vaguely pervy teachers who get involved the love lives of other father's daughters to a degree that is probably inappropriate."

There are a couple of problems with the above way of thinking.  First of all, it is assumed that the student has a father, when in fact she does not.  At least not one that has been in her life at any point in the last ten years.  In fact, she doesn't have any sort of positive male role models other than teachers, so is it any wonder that she would go to a teacher for help?  Not surprisingly, I very rarely see students with strong families and supportive parents outside of normal classroom hours.  The students that I most often assist, both academically and otherwise, are those who who come from single-parent or no-parent homes; those who are being raised by relatives or foster parents because their parents are in prison, in rehab, or are just plain absent.  I have students that stay after school sometimes because when they get home, their lives are miserable, and they just want an extra 15 minutes of peace sitting in a classroom where they are safe. 

Anonymous, despite his or her superior knowledge and wisdom,  obviously knows nothing of such things.  Perhaps they are too good to keep company with people from such backgrounds.  Or perhaps they are just stupidly ignorant of the world around them, and spend their time in frivolous attacks, incapable of doing anything positive while burdened by such naivete.

Even more telling is the assumption that a male and female can not have a relationship that does not in any way involve sex or desire.  If I compliment my sister on how nice she looks, am I incestuous?  If I tell my neighbors that they have beautiful children, am I a pedophile?  Does thinking that another guy is handsome make me gay? Or could it be that I can appreciate beauty and intelligence in another person because I appreciate that person, not because I lust after them.  Has Anonymous never truly loved a friend of the opposite sex without wanting to have sex?  The depravity they assume in others is really more of an admission of their own.

Finally, why is it inappropriate to care about the welfare of my students?  I became a teacher to help those who needed help.  Why shouldn't I care?  In a society and community rife with teenage pregnancy, STD's, and sexual abuse, is it any more inappropriate for me to care about these problems than for me to care about drug abuse, drunk driving, gang affiliation, fighting, or larceny?  I lose students to jail almost as frequently as I lose students to pregnancy.  And it is depressing.  But as I sit in parent-teacher conferences where the mother of my 15 year old student is younger than me (I am 31), I see that the only way to fix my community is to fix the families.  Kids giving birth to kids does not constitute a family.  Girls having babies in high school perpetuates poverty, ignorance, and abuse.

And so I care.  I care deeply.  If Anonymous finds it inappropriate, so be it.  One truth that I have found in life is that when arrogantly ignorant people approve of your decisions, it is probably time to rethink them.  Disapproval of such people, on the other hand, is an affirmation that you are on the right course.

Parental Consent

I just found out that another student (though not one of mine, this time) is pregnant. I hate to say it, but I'm not surprised. Sad, of course, because she had a bright future. She was smart, contagiously happy and energetic, talented, and very pretty. But as a sophomore she was dating a senior. The sort of senior that you definitely don't let a sophomore date (not that sophomores should date seniors at all!). But this guy was not a "nice" guy. Both of the parents worked at the school, so they knew what kind of guy he was. But they let her date him anyway, and now she's pregnant.

I bring this up because of a conversation I had recently with some parents about managing teenage girls. This particular group of parents asserted strongly that it was impossible to ensure your daughter did not get pregnant. They claimed that in today's world, with today's entertainment and today's influences, girls are either going to get pregnant or not - regardless of what parents do. "Sure," one parent said, "I try to teach to my daughter. I tell my her what I expect and explain the consequences, but I still have her on birth control."

Maybe I'm naive, but I refuse to believe that my role as a parent plays such a minuscule part in my daughters' lives. The fact that I didn't sleep around with girls in high school and college didn't have a little to do with my parents, it had everything to do with my parents. And I saw the same patterns with my siblings, cousins, and friends. In fact, I can't name a single girl that I've heard was pregnant that I was just completely shocked. The signs are always there.

I know that parents can't guarantee that their kids won't choose to have sex, just like I can't guarantee that I'll never get in a car accident. But I can do a lot to reduce the risk - a whole lot. In fact, as I think about it, the driving example might not be so bad.

My parents made me wear a seat belt as a kid, and I still wear a seat belt now, even though my parents aren't around to make me. I know other people whose parents made them wear seat belts, and now that they are grown up and on their own, they don't. What's the difference between those that choose to wear seat belts, and those who don't? Their belief systems.

My belief in two things makes me wear a seat belt. First, I believe that wearing a seat belt will probably save my life if I am in an accident. Second, I believe that I could get in an accident at any time. Some people believe the first, and some people believe the second, but it is believing both that makes a person wear a seat belt. Nothing - not habit, not law enforcement, not even annoying beeping dashboards will ensure that people wear their seat belts if they don't believe in them. For now. I make my girls wear seat belts because they are too young to understand. When they are older, I will make them wear a seat belt even if they don't believe in it. My role as a parent will be to instill that belief in them before they are able to drive a car without me. That is the only way to be sure that they will make the correct choice.

Unfortunately, instilling children with a belief system is easier said than done. In fact, it is much easier to rely on constant supervision, building habits, and (when necessary) enforcement through rewards and punishment. Any adult figure can provide one of the former, but it takes true parenting - patient, loving,time-consuming parenting - to convert your children to a belief.

Also, if you are going to convert someone to your belief, then all of your actions and decisions must be consistent with your belief. If I want my daughters to believe in seat belts the way that I do, I can't let them not wear a seat belt just because I'm tired of listening to them cry. And if I want my daughter to believe that she shouldn't have sex in high school, I have to enforce guidelines that will protect her even if it means a fight, all the while working to convert her to my belief.

If I do my job right, and if my beliefs are true, my children will be converted, and I won't have to worry about the decisions they make about safety, relationships, ethics, or finances.

If I never take the time to try and convert my children, then all I have done is sent the message that I don't believe it enough myself to make it matter to them, and that it isn't important enough for it to matter to them. The forbidden fruit becomes just another fruit, and my lack of parenting becomes a form of parental consent.

Bad Habits

One of my favorite things about being a teacher is trying to figure out how to explain a difficult concept in a way that will make sense to a student. It's harder than figuring out the difficult concept in the first place, and I enjoy the challenge - especially since it changes with each new student.

My most recent challenge had nothing to do with chemistry. I have a student that is a fantastic girl - smart, sweet, athletic - the type of girl that catches a lot of guys eyes. Her boyfriend is none of those things. She is waaaaaaaaay out of his league. I would say that there is no explanation for such a mismatch, except that I know how low her self-esteem is, and how manipulative he is.

I had a conversation with her about college and her future, and her boyfriend came up. I was faced with the question of how to explain to her why dating this guy was a bad idea in a way that would make sense and not make her defensive. I won't recount the whole conversation, but I want to share an idea that I hit upon, and one that I think merits some thought by any woman dating a loser.

Girls form habits in the kind of guys they date. If they have two or three boyfriends that are similar types of guys, they rarely switch the type of guy they date. Even though it turns into a string of failed relationships, it becomes a habit. Just like the clothes we wear.

Have you ever tried to change your style? We all have a style of clothes that we are comfortable with. Usually it is a style that we picked up from our parents, siblings, or friends. It's something we happen upon, without even a whole lot of thought. But it is a difficult thing to change styles. You stand in front of the mirror wearing clothes that would look fine on anybody else, but they look ridiculous on you.

If it happens with something as simple as clothes, wouldn't it be more likely to happen with the people we date? A lot of girls think that who they date as a teenager doesn't really matter. They have the attitude that they can have fun while they're young, and then find a nice guy to settle down with later. The problem is that they form bad habits, so that when they start looking for a nice guy later, he's just not their style.

It seems crazy, but I've known girls that dumped guys because they were nice. The girl wasn't used to a guy that respected them, gave gifts to them, listened to them, and deeply cared for them. They thought it was weird. They admitted that there was nothing wrong with the guys - they just weren't comfortable with how nice they were. In other words, the girls had a style, and that style wasn't nice guys.

I asked my student what kind of guy she wants to be with ten years from now when she is out of college and in her mid-twenties. She described a guy that was the exact opposite of what she has been dating. Especially telling was when she said that she wanted a guy that respected her, and then went on to say:

"It would be nice if we didn't fight and he didn't yell at me, but I suppose everyone fights and yells."

She's already developed a bad habit. At the age of 16, she already expects her boyfriends to yell at her! What are the odds of her finding her dream guy ten years from now if she doesn't believe such a guy exists, and has grown comfortable with guys that aren't good enough for her?

I pointed this out to her, and explained my theory. She agreed with my reasoning, and conceded that she should dump her boyfriend.

I hope it all works out, but we'll see.

After all, bad habits are hard to break.

My wife is an '8'

I was chaperoning a field trip yesterday when some students sitting behind me started discussing how attractive foreign accents were. Most of the girls said they didn't think accents were anything special, to which I replied that they were full of it. I told them that I had seen how girls reacted when I was in high school and an Australian student move in, and I was sure they would fall for an accent the same way. They turned it back on me and asked what I thought about it, and I told them that "a woman with an Italian accent is way hot."

"You can't say that - You're married!" they protested.

"Why not?" I asked. "My wife and I rate guys and girls on movies all the time. I'll ask my wife, 'Is that guy hot?' and she'll tell me. I tell her which actresses are the prettiest. If you asked my wife which actress I thought was the hottest, she would tell you it was a toss up between Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jessica Alba."

They stared at me, dumbfounded. Finally, one of them said, "But that's mean."

"How so?" I asked.

"Because," she explained, "You're supposed to tell your wife that she's the most beautiful woman in the world. Don't you think you're wife is beautiful?"

"Sure I do," I said. "I think she's a total hottie. But she's not the most gorgeous woman on the planet."

They gasped at this statement, and I could see their shock and confusion. 

"Look," I said, "I didn't marry my wife because she's the sexiest woman on earth. And I know that I'm not the best looking guy she knows, either. We got married because we love each other. I love my wife more than anyone else on the planet - that's why I married her. I don't care how hot another woman is, I don't want to spend eternity with any woman but my wife. She knows that. And I know that she feels the same way about me. And when we talk about how good looking someone else is, it's like admiring a work of art or a sculpture. We can admire their beauty without it changing the way we feel about each other."





          (My wife, who I think is
          very, very beautiful)





I could see that this was making sense to them.  Continuing on I said, "So if some smoking hot Italian chick with a sexy accent started hitting on me, I would say, 'Look, I think you're beautiful and all, but I'm already married to the love of my life, so beat it."

"Awwwww," they cried in unison, "That's the most romantic thing we've ever heard!"

Never one to pass up an opportunity with a rapt audience, I hammered home my point.  "When you get married, make sure it's because he loves you and you love him. You're both going to get old and ugly someday, and if looks is a major reason for the two of you being together, it's over when that happens. Relationships based on sex appeal are over as soon as the sex somewhere else looks more appealing."

Losing Patients

Teaching in public schools is a lot like working in a hospital. Having worked in hospital ICU's and ER's, I can say that the stress is very similar to teaching - you are working to save a human life. You pour your heart and soul and sweat into doing everything you can to keep someone alive, and sometimes everything isn't enough. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, and it doesn't matter how much you care or how much you know. Those are exhausting days, because you are not only tired physically and mentally - you are also tired emotionally. Your soul is tired.

But there are moments that make it all worth while. Seeing a baby come off of life support and start to breath on her own is thrilling. It's an emotional high that makes all the stress, discouragement, tedium, and tragedy disappear - at least until the next crisis.

Teaching is like that, but on a much longer time scale. Instead of the minutes that matter in an emergency room, sometimes you struggle over the course of four years. And sometimes you lose.

Today was one of those days. Today I found out that another one of my students was pregnant. That makes four in less than a semester. I found out at lunch, and I felt sick the rest of the day. I never know what to say to these girls when they tell me the news. All that runs through my mind as I stare at them standing in front of me is that they just ruined their life, and the life of their child. All of my work and effort to try and get them out of this school and out of this town so that they can get an education has been for nothing. If we're lucky, they might finish high school. If we're really lucky, she might even make it through college. But the overwhelming odds are that she'll never go on - and neither will her child.

There are people in this town that know their great great grand-daughter. They had a baby when they were 15, who then had a baby when they were 15, who repeated the pattern until you have a 60 year old woman holding her great great grand-daughter. And they all live in ignorance and poverty in the middle-of-nowhere, New Mexico.

Perhaps I sound depressed and over-dramatic. Yes to the first, but not the latter. Though I don't usually talk about such grim realities unless I am feeling defeated. Tomorrow will be better. I'll continue the battle, and I'll keep hoping that my book has managed to help at least one girl and prevent at least one tragedy, because the success of others is what teachers live for.

Glee-fully Stupid

So my wife was watching "Glee" last night, and since I like hanging out with my wife, I ended up watching Glee also. That's how much I love my wife. Nothing against Glee - I love the music. But since I teach high school, I just don't feel the need to watch an over-dramatic version of high school in the evening.

Anyway, so last night's episode was all about Madonna, how powerful Madonna was even though she was a woman, and how the female characters in the movie were trying to empower themselves. At one point in the episode there are three different female characters that all decide they need to have sex with their partner in order to empower themselves in the relationship. One girl even states that the way to get control over a guy is to take his virginity.

I was livid. This is exactly the sort of glamorized garbage that leads to all of the problems that girls have with relationships. Having sex with a guy does not give you power over a guy. The guy WANTS to have sex!!! How does giving someone what they want give you power?

I would like to point out that all of the writers and the director of the episode are men.

I have two daughters - ages 3 and (almost) 2. They are constantly trying to empower themselves in our relationship. They are super cute, and I love them to death, and they try to use this to their advantage to get things that they shouldn't have. The other night they wanted to lay in our bed to go to sleep instead of their beds. They were just cute enough (and I was just tired enough) that I was tempted to let them. But I had to consider the ramifications of giving them what they wanted. If I let them go to sleep in my bed, their demands would be met for one night only. Having set the precedent, they would undoubtably make the same demand in the future - and with more force and conviction because they would have a greater expectation of getting what they wanted. Not only that, but if I refused them later, their protests would be much more vehement - screaming, crying, kicking - because their higher expectations would lead to greater disappointment. I knew that if I gave in that night, it would only get harder to not give in, and I would end up with two little girls squeezed in between my wife and I every night for the next several years.

My daughters, Bethany (in red) and Claira (purple) reading books in their pj's.

It was obvious to me that if I gave them what they wanted, it would empower them - not me. I also want to point out that I wanted to give them what they wanted. I love to cuddle them, and I was really tired, so letting them lay down with me would let us all get to sleep earlier. But it would have been a dumb move. And I knew that as much as I wanted to give in right then, I would regret it later.

Same thing with women and sex. Giving sex to guys does not give women power in the relationship. It gives the power to the guy. And a girl saying that it's okay because she wants to have sex, too, is definately not a good enough reason to give that control away. Teenage girls are not mature enough to make that big of a decision, which is why so many of their relationships turn into tragic failures.

Women have got to wake up and quit getting their information from shows written and directed by men if they ever want to understand how to make the relationship work for them instead of the guy.

Do women really care what nice guys have to say?

So, out of curiosity, I did a few google searches on things like "nice guys", "finding nice guys", and "men are scum". What I found was that if any woman was actually googling those things looking for real answers, they probably weren't going to find anything. Mostly it was a bunch of women who were asking those questions, not anyone really giving answers. But I had to wonder: If a nice guy actually got on the internet and tried to answer those questions, would women actually listen?

Actually, I don't blame you that much for not listening. Most of the supposed "nice guys" on the internet are either A) not really nice guys, B) real losers, or C) all of the above. For some reason everyone thinks the definition of a nice guy is a guy that can't get girls. A porn-surfing, pervert-minded geek that is awkward around girls isn't a nice guy, he's just a jerk that doesn't have game. But that's the type of guy that gets on the internet and whines about how nice guys finish last, and how shallow girls are for not being interested in him just because he's unattractive. But he's just as shallow for only wanting the type of girls that are not interested in unattractive guys like him. But those are the guys that post the most stuff about "how to find a nice guy" on the internet.

(A quick warning to any girls still reading this: if you just go after unattractive guys thinking that they are nice guys, you are going to end up with a lot of stalkers)

Then you have the Jerks/Players posing as nice guys giving totally bogus advice just to keep girls confused and steer them into their traps.

So who do you trust? How do you find a nice guy to give you real advice about finding nice guys? It's kind of a catch 22. But you're in luck. You found one.

Me.

Here's how I'm different, and why you can trust me: I'm not in the game any more. If girls wise up or not, it doesn't affect me because I have already found my one and only true love. I'm not going to whine about how nice guys always finish last, because it's not true. I got top prize - true, everlasting love. I get to spend the rest of my life with her. Not only that, I have three (well, three in July, anyway) beautiful daughters that are the world to me.

So, if you want to know about "happily ever after", I'm living it right now. And it's awesome. And just like when you see a good movie or eat at a great restaurant and you want to tell everyone about it - I want to tell everyone about how great it is to be where I am right now.

I hope that doesn't sound arrogant. I don't want it to. I can't take much of the credit for where I am now. I got here because a lot of people that had written their own "happily ever afters" gave me a lot of great advice on writing mine. That's advice I would love to share with anyone searching. So if that is you, I hope you'll find this useful. And feel free to email me or leave comments if there are specific questions you have or things you would like to know about.