четверг, 20 июня 2019 г.

A Rise In Temperature Doesn’t Mean a Drop In Class


The temperature in New York has risen to 80 and the summer like conditions means everyone moves from their winter outfits to spring and summer. When the temperature rises, it seems as if many women raid their closets of their sexiest club gear and wear it… during morning rush hour! There’s nothing wrong with a woman showing off her figure in the warm weather. There is something wrong when she gets offended when I look!

If you want men to take you seriously, especially during the day, you may want to reconsider your outfits. Being sexy doesn’t mean showing it all off. Knee high boots, stockings, a low cut shirt and a mini-skirt yell’s “take me home, NOW!” If that’s what you want, stop reading and continue to strut your stuff. If you want us to respect you, don’t look like a slut.

Understand, many men know women may wear an outfit because she wants attention. If you have a great figure, there’s nothing wrong with flaunting it. The problem is, you’ll get the attention from every straight man you’ll pass. Don’t be offended if guys ogle you because you’re showing off all of your cleavage during the afternoon rush hour. Men aren’t blind.

I’m not suggesting women should wear potato sacks over their body during the day. I’m suggesting, your options shouldn’t be a potato sack or thongs.


https://www.bloglovin.com/@jimplocker/complexities-interracial-dating-backlash The Complexities of Interracial Dating – The Backlash From Your Own
https://juliesmith.dreamwidth.org/446.html Dont Waste A Womans Time



вторник, 18 июня 2019 г.

The Main Ingredient Of A Nearly Perfect Relationship



Walking, writing this column on the right side of my brain … while the cold, damp morning air and the poison in my cigarette fills my lungs.

I could start by talking about the little midget girl I’ve seen running around, dressed in a monkey suit and carrying a shovel. The parties I’ve been to, the trips I’ve taken and the trips I’ve been on. I could write about the women I’ve had sex with, the women I’ve almost fucked, the women that fucked me (big time) and the women I didn’t … yet that will not cure me of the creative erection I’m sporting this beautiful morning.

I can feed your ego by lying to you in the most beautiful, subtle ways. I can promise you a cure for all your ailments, the woman of your dreams, money, fame and power. That will make you love this column … but this strikes me like more of a Jerry Springer sort of website rather than a Dr. Phil
.
I’m very arrogant, and you should be too … but make sure you have something to be arrogant about. There’s nothing worse than an idiot with an attitude problem. I know there are not many guys that are more brosome than I am; unfortunately we are all on a scale. There’s always going to be a guy with a bigger cock than mine, a more attractive personality, a better job and so on … and my girl, or your girl might find him. Be aware of it, try to better yourself but don’t focus on it … enjoy the journey even if it starts in the morning and it dies in the afternoon.

Allow yourself to fall in love, relinquish control … lay your heart on the ground and see if she’s going to crush it with her beautiful, tiny foot. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t … maybe she won’t right now, maybe she will later. Neither of us can predict the future and trying to do so will probably fuck you up. Loving and being loved is the closest I’ve been to heaven, and the closest I’ve been to hell. I can crash and burn with the best of them … and so can you. Having your heart stepped on sucks, but I know about a million songs that will sound a million times better when that happens. But if you choose to allow yourself to love her, love the hell out of her!

It feels like I’ve fucked about a million times, but I can count on one hand the times I’ve truly lost myself in fuck. Bros, if you do decide to fuck her … fuck her brains out! Have fire running through your veins, honey dripping off the tip of your tongue, use your brain not just your cock. Paint beautiful pictures on her body with your fingers, have a touch light as a feather and use your tongue as a whip … don’t be afraid to get a little physical. In my experience, even the strongest women like to be dominated. There will be times when she wants you to be an animal, and times when she will enjoy something deeper and more meaningful. You be the judge of that … make sure you understand what you see and know that there is a big difference between hearing and listening.

This is the first of what I hope will be a weekly column, fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the journey.

https://www.mahara.at/user/alkilfox/why-do-unqualified-people-insist-on-giving-marriage-advice-in-maryland Why Do Unqualified People Insist On Giving Marriage Advice in Maryland?
http://www.icollect.edu.my/view/view.php?id=13417  Someone Please Call Maryalnd 911...And Then My Ex!
https://elearning.alp.dillingen.de/mahara/view/view.php?id=661 "Fake It 'Til You Make It": Why It Works For Maryland Dating


Should You Let Maryland Online Dating Sites Do the Work for You?



In 2016, Time Magazine declared “YOU” its annual “Person of the Year.” Since then, it has really become all about “ME.” We want things our way. Our favorite Web sites remember our info. We can customize anything and everything. And every company, from iTunes to Netflix to Amazon, will recommend the products they think we’ll like.
Online dating sites are in on the trend, too. We no longer have to know what we’re looking for … they’ll tell us. You think it’s creepy when iTunes knows exactly what album you’ll love? Well how creepy is it when a Web site knows what guy you’ll love?

Match.com asks you questions about your interests and what you are looking for in a mate, and then offers recommendations based on that. If you’re not satisfied with your matches, you can simply browse for people whom you might be interested in, even if you aren’t a perfect “match.” Loveawake.com takes it a step further by having you take an intense personality test – and then shows you your perfect match based on your personality. The Match questionnaire is more about daily interests and activities, while Loveawake focuses on the big picture stuff. They want to know who you are … so then they can tell you who you want.

eHarmony is so committed to customer service and doing things for you that they actually … do things for you. Through “guided communication” (which is optional but they strongly recommend it), users don’t e-mail potential love interests directly. They request to begin communication. Then eHarmony will start the conversation. I can’t shoot off a message that says, “Hey Jeffrey, noticed you like astrology … me too.” I have to answer eHarmony’s question. “Well, Jeffrey, if my house was burning down, here are the five things I’d save…” And then he has to respond – not with a response to my question, but with an answer to an entirely different question… “I do believe in life after death, Rachel, and here’s why…”

Sure, it’s nice to discuss the “big” stuff, but it seems a little ridiculous to have to let the company guide the conversation for five rounds before you can finally just say, “So what was your major in college?” or “Hey, want to get a drink?” (This might be why eHarmony is less good for looking for booty calls than other dating sites.) Yes, I’m looking for love online, but can’t I do some of the work myself?

New site Pickv.com is all about doing the work for you, simply based on what you like. This site connects you with people based on movies, music, books, TV shows, and food. Seeking out people who like the same things as you do seems inherently narcissistic, like the old SNL skit “Me Harmony” showed. Everyone was matched up with themselves in drag. “At Me Harmony, we guarantee someone who is exactly like you … with different sexual organs.”

The obvious problem with this is that just because someone loves noodle bars as much as you do doesn’t mean you’ll have anything else in common. And we all know that sometimes opposites attract. It also makes first date conversations awkward. Do we have to talk about noodle bars? Do we have to go to a noodle bar?

While it’s flattering that a dating site knows so much about you that they can tell you exactly which guys you want to date, there comes a point when there’s a thrill in discovering a little quirk or bit of chemistry on your own. Sure, you know he likes dogs, but when you realize on your first date that you both have a secret desire to raise a gaggle of pugs, that’s exciting. If the dating site has already told you this, you might wonder if he actually is into you … or if he’s just more turned on by how much you have in common.
While it’s nice to have that kind of commitment from a dating site, we have to wonder if it’s really necessary. It’s like the difference between being set up on a blind date or having your pushy mother come along on the blind date and interrupt every few minutes to say, “Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Tell her about your greatest accomplishment!” Matchmaking is great … but meddling might be going too far.

четверг, 13 июня 2019 г.

How to Take a Grenade

It’s dirty work but somebody’s gotta do it. Hell, even women do it. You get stuck talking to the unattractive friend you wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole while your buddy is grinding up on the hot friend who won “most flexible” on her cheerleading squad.
When your buddy meets a chick he’s into at a party, all he really wants you to do is distract her friend long enough for him to seal the deal.  Easy enough, right? Not so much. She clearly doesn’t want to be there. The fact that her friend has been taken away from her is already starting to piss her off and get her granny panties in a bunch.  She’s ready to explode at any moment and bail to go find her friend. Then, BAM! Both chicks disburse out of plain sight and your friend is shit out of luck. Game over. You failed. These women are known as “grenades”, as brilliantly put by Mike AKA “The Situation” of the reality show, Jersey Shore.
In a perfect world, all the chicks at the bar would look like Kim Kardashian and there would be a hot girl for you and each of the guys you rolled up with. Keep dreaming.

What do you do?

Think quick grasshopper. What do you do? You’re talking to a girl who’s wound so tight, she looks like she’s closer to exploding with every tick of her Gucci watch…BOOM! Grenades are complicated. You can’t just dis the “grenade” and talk to another girl or it’ll be about T-20 seconds before she dives in like a hawk to swoop her friend out of your buddies grasp. When a “grenade” is thrown into the mix, you need to disarm, not dismantle, her with extreme care and caution before she throws some serious salt on his game. You need to act fast and you need to know what to do.

Even I’ve been the grenade

Let’s take a peek into a women’s perspective for a sec. When a friend of mine is talking to a new guy she meets at a bar, I’m more likely to leave the two of them alone if the wingman is entertaining− or at least not obnoxious and annoying for starters. The guy doesn’t have to be as hot as Brad Pitt. But, he’s gotta at least be able to hold a conversation and keep my attention. Otherwise, his words start to blur like a dull math lecture and I’m ‘bout to dismiss class freaks. I’m not gonna waste my time and energy talking to an idiot. I’d rather hang with my friend. Actually, I’d rather leave. So, yes, even I’ve been the “grenade.” Your duty as wingman, becomes to strategically handle the “grenade” so she doesn’t blow the chances for your buddy and his target. C’mon, take one for the team−because sooner or later, a player will have to do it for you. Trust me, it’ll happen. Or, he’ll at least buy you a couple drinks for your loyal efforts.

How to diffuse the “grenade”

Let me take you into the mindset of a “grenade” so you can learn how to diffuse her. There’s a “grenade” in most packs of girls. It’s usually the one girl who’s not as attractive as others in the pack or she’s hot but she just really isn’t feeling it and doesn’t wanna be there. She’s a bit jealous that her friends are getting the attention. She doesn’t want to be stuck talking to the bartender/wanna-be actor or staring at her Blackberry in the corner. She’s protective over her friends (most girls are) and she doesn’t want them hooking up with assholes because trust me, she’ll have to hear them whine about it later-sometimes for weeks! She’s not having fun and wants to go home. And she’s not going to leave without her friends. If you wanna stall her and get a HUGE return favor from your buddy, here’s your plan.
Ask her questions-not stupid ones. She’ll love the attention. Make her feel important. Try something casual like “How do you and your friend know each other?”  or “How is your night going?” Girls love to talk about themselves. But grenades don’t want to be interviewed. Stay away from questions that’ll require an elevator pitch such as “What do you do for work?” or “What are your top 10 favorite movies?” Barf. One time, a guy was so annoying, he asked what my favorite color was and I said, “Does it matter?” and walked away. Simple as that. Don’t ask stupid questions.
Try holding a conversation about what she wants to talk about. Think about it this way. She might be suspicious about why you’re talking to her in the first place. Women love to play detective. She’s thinking you either wanna get in her pants, you’re drunk and entertaining yourself, or you’re distracting her because you have to while her friend talks to your buddy. None of these options will work that well. You’ll need to act like you enjoy her conversation and genuinely care about her feelings. Yes, I said feelings. And act. So quit complaining. Hold her attention and keep her engaged in conversation before she gets frustrated with the situation and excuses herself to find her friend.
For example, if she responds that she knows her friend from school, cut her some slack and reveal a little info about yourself and what school you went to. If she responds that she’s not having a good time, she’ll probably be happy to tell you why−because that’s what’s on her mind. She’ll love that she has someone to confide in. A grenade doesn’t want to have to think too much, be “on” or put on a show. You get the jist.
Treat her like one of the guys. Hang out with her. Be real with her. If she can tell you’re not interested, she’ll be more likely to stay chill if you just hang with her rather than trying to pretend to be interested when you’re obviously not. If you both know you’re not attracted to each other, just have a good time. Have a few laughs. No harm, no foul.
Cater to her. She wants to go home. She’s tired. She either isn’t drinking or she’s drank too much. Her throat hurts from the smoke at the bar. There’s no one there she’s interested in talking to and her friends are busy. It’s up to you to meet her needs or she’ll bail. Think of a crying baby. Its either hungry or it wants to shit or sleep. You get the picture. If she says her feet hurt, find her a couch or bar stool to chill on. If she doesn’t want to drink, bring her water, fast.
Reassure her that your friend is a good guy. Chances are she’s worried about her friend. Most women tend to look out for each other. Guys, on the other hand tend to fend for themselves and let their friends run off and cab home alone assuming they are having a better time if they disappear. (Wink wink.) But, if you act like a good guy, she’ll be more likely to think that your friend is a good guy too that will treat her friend well. And score, he’s in.
If all else fails, there’s always plan B. Beer goggles. A seriously underrated tool. If you decide to drink a bit more, you may be able to better handle the wrath of the grenade and distract this downer till the game’s over or you may even wanna hook up with her and be charming enough to win her heart.

I never said there wasn’t a plan C. These things get tricky. Want a panic button?  If this “grenade” is about to explode or she’s harder to manage than Carrot Top’s hair, here’s the plan.  You politely excuse yourself, go tell your friend that he’s going to need to get the other chick’s phone number fast and make it happen another night before this “grenade” explodes.  

понедельник, 10 июня 2019 г.

Cyberbullying is Not a Women’s Issue. It’s a Human Issue.

MEN RECEIVE MORE DEATH THREATS ONLINE THAN WOMEN

Debates surrounding the place, presence and perception of women online manifests in an astounding way. Column inches and a plethora of posts online are dedicated to the cyber-harassment of women, which can be excruciating and vitriolic at times. Over the last few years, the issue has garnered much attention, but could it be that presenting cyberbullying as a gendered issue, instead of a human issue, negates the bigger picture and in turn victimizes women, impeding their progress?

A WOMEN’S ISSUE?


According to the most recent research conducted in harassment and cyberbullying by the nonpartisan think tank Pew Research Center of more than 2,800 people, 40 percent said they have experienced harassment online. That figure mushrooms to over 70 percent who have seen others being harassed.

Some have gone so far as to call these attacks gender terrorism.
Consider that an estimated third of the world’s female population experience gender-based violence. Not one country in the world has closed the gender pay gap, female infanticide has resulted in generations of “missing girls,” and its possible to infer that the subjugation of women is ubiquitous—and that online is no different to offline.

According to the Pew report, women (especially young women) are “significantly” more likely to experience abuse online. They experienced “disproportionately high” rates of certain, more severe forms of abuse such as stalking or sexual harassment that left them “traumatized.” Moreover, young women were twice as likely to find the abuse “extremely upsetting” than men.

Award-winning writer and Internet culture commentator Amanda Hess is among a number of female journalists who have spoken out against their trollers. Her crime, as she puts it, is doing her job. Because she’s a journalist, she expresses views and opinions that encourage debate and discussion. But for years, she has faced a brutal onslaught of rape threats and other forms of harassment.

“None of this makes me exceptional,” she writes. “It just makes me a woman with an Internet connection. A woman doesn’t even need to occupy a professional writing perch at a prominent platform to become a target. As the Internet becomes increasingly central to the human experience, the ability of women to live and work freely online will be shaped, and too often limited, by the technology companies that host these threats, the constellation of local and federal law enforcement officers who investigate them, and the popular commentators who dismiss them—all arenas that remain dominated by men, many of whom have little personal understanding of what women face online everyday.”
This issue is indeed an everyday occurrence for some women. Sites like Twitter have fundamentally changed the way that people communicate with its ability to disseminate thoughts and views to the world in just an instant. Its raw openness means that those who want to harass can do so with minimal effort but maximum effect.

For example, Caroline Criado-Perez, who led a campaign to for a woman (other than the monarch) to be featured on British currency, was one victim of vitriolic Twitter harassment. Her campaign was eventually successful, with author Jane Austen selected as the next famous Briton to appear on a banknote. But sexually lurid threats of rape and disembodiment, death threats and questioning of Criado-Perez’s motivations and credentials came in thick and fast. In some cases these were so severe that it drove Criado-Perez to shut her Twitter account down and report it to the police. Eventually Isabella Sorley and John Nimmo were convicted and sentenced for “extreme threats.” Two years on, the feminist activist, now returned to Twitter, reflected on summer on 2013 and the trauma it caused her.

Until now, it’s unclear what drove the level of hatred toward a woman who was campaigning for equality. Criado-Perez has not been deterred and continues to use social media to raise awareness for her campaigns. But cases like hers have increased in the last few years.

For Brianna Wu, head of development at Giant Spacekat and radio presenter, rape threats were not the worst of the abuse directed at her on image-board website 4chan. Wu was forced to leave her home after threats and packages were sent via mail. She was labeled the derogatory term, social justice warrior, for speaking out against the male-dominated gaming and tech industry by those who rallied around the exclusion of women in gaming culture—the Gamergaters.

Brianna Wu, head of development at Giant Spacekat received a number of rape and death threats online for working in the male-dominated gaming and tech industry. Shannon Grant Photography.

“I’ve gotten so many harassing tweets and emails that I now have an employee who works full-time handling them,” she explains. “They’ve shared my home address so many times that I now keep a baseball bat by the front door, and any unexpected knock can send me into a panic. To them, no area of my private life is off limits to use against me.” Wu says that at the last count, there were more than 400 pages dedicated to exposing her as a “free speech hater” and “militant feminist.”
Wu is not the only woman involved in the Gamergate saga to be harassed by trolls. Zoe Quinn was accused of sleeping her way to the top‘ Anita Sarkeesian, a vlogger and writer, was the subject of a game where you could beat her upJenn Frank and Mattie Brice ended up leaving their professions because of similar attacks.  

Wu believes that the harassment she is getting is because she is a woman. She says, “I absolutely think that women experience significantly more harassment than men, and in ways that men could never possibly consider to be harassment.”

THE MALE VICTIMS


Cyberbullying is regularly deemed a female-centric concern, however more men are the targets of physical and death threats than women—and this statistic is all-too-often overlooked. To negate (as some feminist critics, bloggers and thinkers have done) the fact that men receive a higher sum of the total abuse online is tantamount to not seeing the true problem.

Key is that Pew’s research also finds that “online men are somewhat more likely than online women to experience some level of online harassment overall.” This finding may at first seem inconsequential but is hugely important when it comes to understanding cyber-harassment.
Demos, a UK-based nonpartisan think tank, in collaboration with Sussex University, analyzed over two million tweets and found that in all, male public figures are “several times” more likely to receive harassment on Twitter. The only group to buck that trend were female journalists (like Amanda Hess) who received about three times more abuse than male journalists.

“[W]e realized that year after year, there were predictable episodic periods of very public crisis around trolling and abuse especially being raised by very prominent women, and especially, prominent journalists, but it was stretching to women in lots of different fields,” says Carl Miller, co-founder and Research Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos.

Miller has been researching language and decorum online and says, “In terms of extent I didn’t see an imbalance in the level of hate that women get compared to men. In terms of kind, yes. So when abuse aimed at women was meant to be hurtful or disturbing, people were groping for the most damaging words they could which, unfortunately, in this sense for women, are sexually aggressive words.”

Miller continues, “We do something called corpus linguistics which is essentially tipping all the tweets into a great big bucket and start looking at word frequencies and distributions within this massive bucket of words and the abuse towards women was certainly more sexualized, it was certainly more focused towards their physical appearance, and it certainly used a constellation of sexually aggressive language that was not coming up in the male category.”

Another counterintuitive finding when looking at perpetrators rather than victims of online harassment is that there seem to be just as many women hurling abuse as men. Miller finds that, “women tended to send more abuse to women, men sent more to men, but men did tend to send more to men and women.”
Cyberbullying is often considered a women’s issue, which negates the bigger picture as a human issue that affects women and men alike. (Dean Bertoncelj/Shutterstock.com)


A HUMAN ISSUE


Rather than amplifying the view that women are merely suffering due to comments from loser men, it may be key to open the debate and understand it as a wider issue of persistent and ongoing misogyny in popular culture by everyone, regardless of gender.

Cathy Young, columnist and author of Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces To Achieve True Equality, argues that calling it “gendered” harassment is exacerbating the problem. “I have seen several times women on Twitter retweet or screencap an abusive tweet that they got which isn’t necessarily gender specific, and they will post it with a comment like ‘just another day of being women on the Internet,’” she explains.

Young says that there are gender-specific comments that men get and “we tend to think of men as the default human being and so what happens to women is gender specific. I’ve seen men get accused of being rapists or child molesters over something that they wrote and…not a whole lot of women get called child molesters because again, men’s problems just get called human problems.

“Feminists have often criticized this way of thinking, but we are also perpetuating it. We need to look at this as a human issue not a gender issue.”

A recent investigation by academics into the types of people that sexually harass women online finds that “low-status males increase female-directed hostility to minimize the loss of status as a consequence of hierarchical reconfiguration resulting from the entrance of a woman into the competitive arena.” But that higher-skilled players were more positive towards women.

Replace the word misogyny with misanthropy in much of this article and the result would be the same. Perhaps a viable explanation as to why women face gendered harassment online is not because they are women, but because they are successful, articulate or popular.
Cyber harassment exists and the experiences of many women, famous or otherwise, proves that it can destroy lives, but it’s important that we recognize it for what it is rather than reading gender into the problem.

It may be that labeling the abuse women get on the Internet as “online misogyny” and assuming that women get more of it than men is making it a woman-only problem, thereby placing it in the realm of women’s issues and women-only discussion groups that relegate the debate onto the path of didactic intellectualism—a woman’s problem for women to sort out.





четверг, 6 июня 2019 г.

Deception


It was very clever, I will admit that. I was surprised at the level ingenuity and the Machiavellian underhandedness. I couldn't be angry about it though, it was just too damn funny.

 It started back in January. My Mother who is currently taking a course in psychology and at the same time was scheduled to have knee replacement surgery. She knew she would be missing some classes and would probably fall behind in the course work.

When February came around, she was struggling to keep on top of the work. Or at least that is what she told me. I had just returned to work, when I received a phone call from her. She told me about how she was feeling after the operation and eventually the conversation turned to a book she would need to read and review for her year end assessment. She asked me could I do it for her, as she would not be able to find the time to read the book and write the review, whilst at the same time, stay on top of the course load from the time she was hospitalized. She sent me two books in the post. Courage To Change by Ursala O'Farrell and Emotional Rational Emotive Therapy Behaviour In Action by Wendy Dryden. We agreed that I would read and review the latter, as it was the most simple and straight forward of the the two and would not need to be too involved.

 At the same time, I had just started my new job and I was learning so many new things, when I was finishing in the evening. I was so exhausted but I would read a few pages every evening. To be honest, it became a thorn in my side, with the new information I was taking in everyday at work, I was not able to absorb the contents of the book as well as I might have done in normal circumstances. It took me two reads, to get around the complex subject matter. I was really struggling. Eventually, I got it done.

 A few weeks later, having read the books twice and struggled to understand its contents, I eventually got a rough draft of the review sent to my Mother, explaining also, that I had struggled and it might not have been good as she was expecting. She didn't really push on it, or go into more detail and thanked me for trying and suggested I also read courage to change. I thought it strange, that she didn't get more upset about it. My Mother tends to have a short temper when the actions she has requested of you are not done satisfactorily. Also, as I read the book, I could help but notice if focused on the behavioural therapy, that identifies certain personality types and tries to encourage counselling to change damaging personality disorders or behavioural patterns. As, I read the book, I eventually found what would probably describe my personality type. Some of the key factors of the type, being more prone to addiction and procrastination. Which to be perfectly honest, described me to a tee.

When I read those passages, I couldn't help but wonder. Had she sent me this book, under the guise of helping her out, to make me see damaging patters in my personality type and then change them? Turns out, that is exactly what it was. She knew that I would not read the book of my own accord, she also knew that if she brought it up and recommended why she wanted me to read it, I would not.

So, she cooked up this little plan, which I have to admit, was very clever, even if it did not necessarily work in the way that she hoped it would. I have never been under an illusion that the behaviours I engage in can be damaging, that the way I live my life is some what unseemly. It's not identifying the personality type that is the issue anymore, its breaking out of the habits that have engulfed the last ten years or so.

My addictive personality, which means, certain things like drugs, or overspending have me and my family much hardship and conflict. My inability to plan to far into the future and my habits of procrastination which have hampered my development. I am also inherently lazy, if something seems to difficult, boring or involved, I shy away from it and use some other kind of justification, to explain my way out of it. I want to learn, I really do. I have such a keen interest in the writing or the law and I want to get into those fields so badly, I just don't know where to start and It scares me that I would need to change the way I live, to accommodate that goal. Even if the way I live, seems so unseemly to some. It's all I really know.




ONE MAN’S JOURNEY TO MARRIAGE


In many ways I am a stereotypical guy. I like sports, cars, beer, burgers, golf and swearing. On any given weekend you can find me combining the swearing part with a few of the other likes. But there is one aspect of my life that has been anything but typical. I’ve never been married. Not even engaged. If I were writing this as a 24 year old, talking about never being married would sound stupid and you’d probably tell me to shut it. But I am 40 years old. Did I expect to be 40 and unmarried? No, not a chance. I have bounced between lots of short term and long term relationships over the last 20 years but nothing ever took. Which is good – I dated alot of nutcases! But all that is about to change on June 1st when I finally tie the knot.
I have been dating my fiancé for about 4 ½ years and we bought a house together a year ago. I have affectionately called her my “Lady Friend” over the years because I had a hard time being a guy of a certain age, dating a woman in her mid-30s and calling her my “girl” friend. Sorry, it just seemed weird. But this is officially the longest relationship of my life and the first relationship where I could truly say without a doubt that I have no desire to ever date anyone else again. So I’m taking the plunge.
We are having an extremely small ceremony. How small? Including us there will be a total of seven people in attendance, our parents, the minister, and us. And as far as I’m concerned even some of the seven are optional. This is partly because of our age, as having a huge wedding at 40 seems a little silly. But it’s also because she was married before and went through the big production that time. And as they say, the wedding is really about the bride. If she wants it to be small – it’s going to be small. Even though I usually enjoy attention and have a healthy ego I have always thought a smaller wedding would be better, so this suits me just fine. And it’s CHEAP.
Even though it’s going to be simple, small and short (similar to my sex life) we are still having it in a Lutheran church. For those of you unfamiliar with us Lutherans we actually outnumber Catholics here in the Upper Midwest. We’re a lot like our Catholic brothers and sisters, but without all the stupid rules about when and what you can eat at different times of the year. As if God cares that I throw down a burger or two on Fridays. I’m guessing he has better things to worry about. But since the wedding is in a church we get to go through something called Prepare-Enrich. It’s basically a relationship test followed up by a handful of sessions to talk about our “compatibility.”
Last week we took the test individually and it included a lot of generic personality assessment crap that you’d expect on find on this type of test. It seemed like an attempt to weed out crazy people. And not just any crazy people, but that special kind of crazy person who is also dumb enough to answer honestly – thus exposing themselves as a crazy person. Believe me, I was tempted to have a little fun with this thing and make myself out to be a little crazy. But I played it straight. My Lady Friend likes to goof with people herself so I think there is a chance she did NOT play it straight. We don’t know each other’s answers and won’t find out any results until we have our first session with the assessor in the next few days.
I think I’ll save my goofiness for those sessions. Might as well have fun with it right? I’ll fill you in on all that next time. Stay tuned!