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.