I so rarely go out on Friday nights, I'm excited that I went out last night. One of my Polish readers is in town, and I suggested we meet after she saw some sights. (Edinburgh Castle is amazing, but there are only so many times a permanent resident of Edinburgh wants to wander around the Castle.) My proposed venue was the Polish vodka bar, as she has been living outwith Poland for years.
When I was single, especially when I was young and single, I thought it was utterly horrible not to go out on Friday night. And I could not understand why my parents did not go out on Friday nights. From what I saw on television, adults were supposed to be at nightclubs. And even in books adults were at nightclubs. Why did my weird parents not take advantage of their freedom, money and escape from the tyranny of their own parents to go to nightclubs?
It was because they didn't actually LIKE nightclubs. At least, my father didn't like them, and my mother hated what happened to pop music after the Beatles, except for the Swedish Beatles, aka ABBA. And no doubt they were too tired from a week of working and parenting to want to do much more than watch television and--in my mother's case--crochet.
I should really learn to crochet because on Friday night B.A. does not really want to do much more than watch television and I have learned from experience that the Goth scene in Edinburgh is pretty pathetic, and most of the Goths look sixteen years old, and I no longer get a buzz simply from being in a club that plays Goth stuff.
From a meeting-people point of view, going to any club is a stupid idea, for dancing at clubs (especially Goth clubs) is a solipsistic activity, and the music is too loud for anyone to say much, and the drinks are usually terrible. Now that I am 39++, I do not want alchopop, I want an excellent cocktail or vodka, and now that I know more about vodka, I do not want Smirnoff, I want Chopin.*
No, for meeting members of the opposite sex, I recommend that you all take up partner dancing, especially the tango, and join a local partner dancing society. Partner dancing is a community activity, and you are expected to chat between breaks, and the drinks are besides the point. Drunkenness is definitely discouraged, and men are there primarily to dance, not to drink or pick up chicks. Men and women are prized by each other as people to dance with, and the rules of dancing offer is a return to old-fashioned gender roles and courtesy.
I am not particularly interested in meeting members of the opposite sex, so I am unlikely to develop an interest in partner dancing for my own sake. But I do like meeting up with women around my own age for delicious drinks, and I also like Polish stuff, including vodka so good one sips it like wine. Thus, I have been longing to have a good excuse to go to the Polish vodka bar, and my Polish reader provided it. Yay!
Although Top 40 dance hits blared from a speaker, it was a comfortable place to have a three-hour girl-chat and drink a lot of really good vodka. From now on, readers who want to see me in Edinburgh after six will be taken to the Polish vodka bar, so be warned. Polish, incidentally, is now the second language of the United Kingdom, except perhaps in Wales, so for a real taste of Modern Britain, you ought to do or eat or drink something Polish.
Meanwhile, the Polish vodka bar was interesting in that the men lined up along the actual bar were not all Polish. They were a mix of Poles and Scots, and I saw one South Asian man who might have been what is called a New Scot. Women did not stand there with them, but sat at tables with their friends. And although the men at the bar occasionally turned around and looked at the women at the tables, they kept to themselves. The servers--Polish girls all--were very nice and chatted with my reader and me in Polish and English.
At about ten my reader and I went out into the gloaming--at this time of year it does not get dark until about 10:15 PM--and went for a walk in the light rain before getting our bus. And I was reminded of why I really don't mind staying at home on a Friday night when I heard drunk young men baying at the top of their lungs. Fortunately, we were on our bus by 11 PM, which was still relatively early. What makes Edinburgh--and, indeed, many British cities--so unpleasant on Friday and Saturday nights are noisy crowds of drunken, shouting men and shrieking, stumbling women.
*As most North American readers will know, the screwdriver is a cocktail consisting of vodka and orange juice. For years I hated the taste of vodka without orange juice, and now I know that this is because the kind of vodka you mix with orange juice is disgusting and there is no excuse for it.
UPDATE: My friend lives in Pittsburgh, and that reminds me that it might be time to have Seraphic Singles evenings without me. I know there's a reader in Washington DC who wants to meet up with other readers, and there are multiple readers in many American cities. I am pondering how to make it easier for readers who want to meet each other to meet each other. Possibly I need team captains. More on this anon.
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Showing posts with label Over-25. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Over-25. Show all posts
Vronsky's Wife
Thursday, January 3, 2013
"Should I be concerned that you are watching the Anna Karenina preview on youtube?" asked B.A.
"Noooooooooo," I said. "I am checking to see if I still think Vronsky's dye job is funny."
Vronsky's dye job is still pretty funny. Dear me, how I laughed in the cinema. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of book-loving women who sat on the edge of our seats dying to see what the new Vronsky would look like and then all shrieked with horror or amusement when we saw the pretty powder-blue uniform, the deep blue contact lenses (I suspect) and the curly blonde hair. Someone please tell someone that women are not gay men.
I understand that the idea must have been to contrast Keira Knightley's dark eyes and hair with the blonde and blue-eyed looks of a made-over Aar*n Johns*n, and although in general I approve the aesthetic vision of the film, I think that was a pity--unless the whole idea was to make Anna's and Vronsky's mad passion somewhat ridiculous. I see that director Joe Wright is a married man. Hmm...
Out of curiosity, I next looked up Aar*n Johns*n to see what he really looks like, and he is a terribly good-looking, dark-haired young man of 22. He has also changed his name to Tayl*r-Johns*n since he married the mother of his children, a talented film director with an OBE. She is a striking blonde woman who was born in 1967.
"Holy cow," I said. Actually, I said something other than that, but I won't put it on my blog. I rechecked my arithmetic because, really, I am very bad at anything involving numbers, and Mrs Aar*n is still older than me.
Excuse me while I go stare in the looking-glass in the bathroom.
Okay, I am back. I am not too depressed. I had a good night's sleep and the miracle of Grandma's good genes blesses the skin of another generation. It is not beyond the limits of my own imagination that were I a talented divorced film director I could attract my...let's see now...2009...nineteen-year old star.
Nineteen! Nine-teen!
Excuse me while I go pour some Bailey's Irish Cream into my coffee. It's still Christmas, after all.
Nineteen!
How did a nineteen year old convince a forty-two year old woman to enter a romantic relationship with him? I'm asking you because if I asked friends nearer my own age they would say, "That's disgusting. Why are we even talking about this? Let's pray a novena."
When I was nineteen, a six-foot-something blonde Bavarian-Canadian of fifteen used to lurk me around me at my summer job, and I was, like, "No, thank you." I am not sure why, as he was really cute, and I would not have contemplated anything immoral or illegal, so I think it must have been convention. And it's not like he tried that hard, so actually there may have been some good sense involved, too. Adolescents are so volatile. Tattoo that to your brains.
Could it have been because Aar*n was playing a teenage John Lennon at the time? John Lennon was born in 1940, but surely that would have made the real John Lennon too old for a woman born in 1967? On the other hand, as she was 42, I would say no. After you are 40 there really isn't any such thing as "too old" for you if you love the person. But when you are under 30...
I suppose isn't any of our business, and we wouldn't know about the marriage if the married couple were not in the Arts, and people in the Arts are different from you and me, unless we are in the Arts, which I sort of am, in my small way. And so I know that one of the big questions that governs the Arts is "Why not?"
However, one answer to this is that although in the Middle Ages seven was considered the age of reason and teenagers were considered adults, in the 21st century most nineteen year olds in the West, despite having the rights to drink and vote and drive, are still children. Women are supposed to guide and protect children, not get involved with them. However, once a man has children, he is no longer a child, and the married man under this scrutiny now has two, so I will shut up...
...after I observe that quite obviously life does not end at 42. Whoo!
"Noooooooooo," I said. "I am checking to see if I still think Vronsky's dye job is funny."
Vronsky's dye job is still pretty funny. Dear me, how I laughed in the cinema. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of book-loving women who sat on the edge of our seats dying to see what the new Vronsky would look like and then all shrieked with horror or amusement when we saw the pretty powder-blue uniform, the deep blue contact lenses (I suspect) and the curly blonde hair. Someone please tell someone that women are not gay men.
I understand that the idea must have been to contrast Keira Knightley's dark eyes and hair with the blonde and blue-eyed looks of a made-over Aar*n Johns*n, and although in general I approve the aesthetic vision of the film, I think that was a pity--unless the whole idea was to make Anna's and Vronsky's mad passion somewhat ridiculous. I see that director Joe Wright is a married man. Hmm...
Out of curiosity, I next looked up Aar*n Johns*n to see what he really looks like, and he is a terribly good-looking, dark-haired young man of 22. He has also changed his name to Tayl*r-Johns*n since he married the mother of his children, a talented film director with an OBE. She is a striking blonde woman who was born in 1967.
"Holy cow," I said. Actually, I said something other than that, but I won't put it on my blog. I rechecked my arithmetic because, really, I am very bad at anything involving numbers, and Mrs Aar*n is still older than me.
Excuse me while I go stare in the looking-glass in the bathroom.
Okay, I am back. I am not too depressed. I had a good night's sleep and the miracle of Grandma's good genes blesses the skin of another generation. It is not beyond the limits of my own imagination that were I a talented divorced film director I could attract my...let's see now...2009...nineteen-year old star.
Nineteen! Nine-teen!
Excuse me while I go pour some Bailey's Irish Cream into my coffee. It's still Christmas, after all.
Nineteen!
How did a nineteen year old convince a forty-two year old woman to enter a romantic relationship with him? I'm asking you because if I asked friends nearer my own age they would say, "That's disgusting. Why are we even talking about this? Let's pray a novena."
When I was nineteen, a six-foot-something blonde Bavarian-Canadian of fifteen used to lurk me around me at my summer job, and I was, like, "No, thank you." I am not sure why, as he was really cute, and I would not have contemplated anything immoral or illegal, so I think it must have been convention. And it's not like he tried that hard, so actually there may have been some good sense involved, too. Adolescents are so volatile. Tattoo that to your brains.
Could it have been because Aar*n was playing a teenage John Lennon at the time? John Lennon was born in 1940, but surely that would have made the real John Lennon too old for a woman born in 1967? On the other hand, as she was 42, I would say no. After you are 40 there really isn't any such thing as "too old" for you if you love the person. But when you are under 30...
I suppose isn't any of our business, and we wouldn't know about the marriage if the married couple were not in the Arts, and people in the Arts are different from you and me, unless we are in the Arts, which I sort of am, in my small way. And so I know that one of the big questions that governs the Arts is "Why not?"
However, one answer to this is that although in the Middle Ages seven was considered the age of reason and teenagers were considered adults, in the 21st century most nineteen year olds in the West, despite having the rights to drink and vote and drive, are still children. Women are supposed to guide and protect children, not get involved with them. However, once a man has children, he is no longer a child, and the married man under this scrutiny now has two, so I will shut up...
...after I observe that quite obviously life does not end at 42. Whoo!
Frank Talk on Money, Long Engagements & Religious Guys
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Today I present you with a three part post because that is the mood I am in.
MONEY
It strikes me that the wrong men are worried about how much money they make and what women think of it all. Young men, the ones who wish to marry young women, should indeed plot and scheme to get a good job with opportunities for career advancement so that they will be able to support a wife and family.
Yes, most young women are also interested in getting good jobs with opportunities for career advancement, but most young women are also interested in having babies. If they are devout Catholic women, they are usually going to have babies sooner rather than later. This will take them out of the work force for months or years, and someone has to pay the bills.
But middle-aged men, the ones who wish to marry middle-aged women, should stop worrying so much about how much money they have because middle-aged women don't worry so much about that ourselves. If we are still Single, we are used to supporting ourselves anyway. And if we don't have children, we know that we are unlikely to have more than one or two at this point. And at this point, we just want someone to lean on, to leave parties with and to love. Middle-aged women have more confidence than young women, so we are less worried about "being taken advantage of". So what if we work 9-5 and he just potters around his pottery kiln, selling the odd figurine to the odd tourist? So what? Who cares? If he's kind and funny and attractive, that's enough for us. The older I get, the more looks seem to matter.
I'm not touching the subject of young men who wish to marry older women and of middle-aged men who wish to marry young women because that's two whole other blog posts.
LONG ENGAGEMENTS
I think long engagements are stupid and cruel. If you are so much in love with with somebody that you want to marry him/her, you probably want to sleep with him/her. Sexual passion is one of the strongest forces known to man, so it is really hard to keep it bottled up. It is easier to keep it bottled up if you know the exact date drinks may be served.
For the record, the "Priest must be informed one year before the wedding" instruction in parish bulletins is cruel, uncanonical and unenforceable. Ever since I was an undergrad I noticed that the most pious Catholics got married in a matter of months. They would call up a priest-uncle or priest-cousin or priest-pal and have a nice little wedding in record time. It was the more lackadaisical Catholics, or half-Catholic, half-nothing couples who dated for a very long time and then were engaged for a very long time. These couples would be mainly concerned about "the hall." Never mind the diocese and its stupid "One Year" rule (which you can challenge, btw, as it is uncanonical). Some couples were willing to wait two years for the perfect hall of their dreams.
When I was younger and as innocent as a newborn lamb, I was surprised at the pious for their unseemly haste and impressed by the couples who could patiently wait for so long. Now I am a woman of the world, and know that although the pious were dying to have sex, the not-as-pious were often already having it.
Nancy Mitford joked about the size of an engagement ring being the measure of how much a man thought your virtue was worth. This suggests that even in the 1920s, engaged couples were sleeping together. And I believe there are parts of Italy where it is so assumed an engaged couple are sleeping together, that bickering couples marry and divorce rather than just break off the engagement, for otherwise the woman's reputation would be ruined.
So I am not throwing stones at engaged couples who sleep together, the love-struck little poppets. I just think they should get married ASAP if the temptation is that bad. And obviously they'll have to go to confession first.
Meanwhile, B.A. and I tried to strong-arm my parish priest into marrying us in four months after I first talked to the priest. He looked at my annulment papers and quailed. The marriage tribunal wrote somewhere or other that I'd better know the next guy I married real well. The priest looked at me hopefully when he mentioned this. We got married six months after I talked to him. There was no stupid hall. The reception was in my parents' house. I got a priest-pal to say the Mass.
I love to say that I don't believe in single men's words--I believe only in their diamonds. I figured unless there was a ring and unless he had told his mother, an engagement wasn't real. But now I am upping the ante and saying an engagement isn't really real unless there is a wedding date.
RELIGIOUS GUYS
In general it is stupid to sleep with someone unless you're married to him or at least there is a clear,fixed and widely-known wedding date. Men in general are so terrified of marriage, they either have to be promised something really good in order to go through with it or be terrified of what their mothers will do if they don't.
A girl might think religious men exempt from this because religious men are very pro-marriage and want nothing more than to please God by getting married, so seducing a religious guy is the way forward. But no.
It is my humble opinion that if a man really is that into you, there's not much you can do to dissuade him from marrying you, short of cheating on him or killing something or someone. So merely sleeping with your devoutly Catholic fiance will probably not ruin the whole relationship, although obviously it is a mortal sin, so you ought not to do it.
However, there are certainly a lot of religious men who would be so personally devastated at having committed a mortal sin with their girlfriends that they will never see their girlfriends the same way ever again. In fact, they might even consider it virtuous to break up with those satanic temptresses so as to marry pure girls, girls who have not gotten in the way of their primary relationship with God.
It is always a good idea to seem even more chaste than your chaste Catholic boyfriend, even if inwardly you are a volcano of lust. You know you are, and your best friend knows you are, and I know you are, but he doesn't know you are, and that's fine. By appearing as pure as a bowl of vanilla ice cream, at least next to him, you are inspiring him to be good, a better man than he is, etc., etc.
I am sure there are all kinds of depressing examples that you will now write in about your boyfriends to whom you were angels of purity and light who ditched you for flashing-eyed bad girls with roses in their teeth. But in general I would say to be particularly sensitive to the hopes and beliefs of deeply religious men and don't try to tempt them into things for which they will later be very angry with you.
I have found "Don't touch the hottie" to be a particularly effective mantra.
MONEY
It strikes me that the wrong men are worried about how much money they make and what women think of it all. Young men, the ones who wish to marry young women, should indeed plot and scheme to get a good job with opportunities for career advancement so that they will be able to support a wife and family.
Yes, most young women are also interested in getting good jobs with opportunities for career advancement, but most young women are also interested in having babies. If they are devout Catholic women, they are usually going to have babies sooner rather than later. This will take them out of the work force for months or years, and someone has to pay the bills.
But middle-aged men, the ones who wish to marry middle-aged women, should stop worrying so much about how much money they have because middle-aged women don't worry so much about that ourselves. If we are still Single, we are used to supporting ourselves anyway. And if we don't have children, we know that we are unlikely to have more than one or two at this point. And at this point, we just want someone to lean on, to leave parties with and to love. Middle-aged women have more confidence than young women, so we are less worried about "being taken advantage of". So what if we work 9-5 and he just potters around his pottery kiln, selling the odd figurine to the odd tourist? So what? Who cares? If he's kind and funny and attractive, that's enough for us. The older I get, the more looks seem to matter.
I'm not touching the subject of young men who wish to marry older women and of middle-aged men who wish to marry young women because that's two whole other blog posts.
LONG ENGAGEMENTS
I think long engagements are stupid and cruel. If you are so much in love with with somebody that you want to marry him/her, you probably want to sleep with him/her. Sexual passion is one of the strongest forces known to man, so it is really hard to keep it bottled up. It is easier to keep it bottled up if you know the exact date drinks may be served.
For the record, the "Priest must be informed one year before the wedding" instruction in parish bulletins is cruel, uncanonical and unenforceable. Ever since I was an undergrad I noticed that the most pious Catholics got married in a matter of months. They would call up a priest-uncle or priest-cousin or priest-pal and have a nice little wedding in record time. It was the more lackadaisical Catholics, or half-Catholic, half-nothing couples who dated for a very long time and then were engaged for a very long time. These couples would be mainly concerned about "the hall." Never mind the diocese and its stupid "One Year" rule (which you can challenge, btw, as it is uncanonical). Some couples were willing to wait two years for the perfect hall of their dreams.
When I was younger and as innocent as a newborn lamb, I was surprised at the pious for their unseemly haste and impressed by the couples who could patiently wait for so long. Now I am a woman of the world, and know that although the pious were dying to have sex, the not-as-pious were often already having it.
Nancy Mitford joked about the size of an engagement ring being the measure of how much a man thought your virtue was worth. This suggests that even in the 1920s, engaged couples were sleeping together. And I believe there are parts of Italy where it is so assumed an engaged couple are sleeping together, that bickering couples marry and divorce rather than just break off the engagement, for otherwise the woman's reputation would be ruined.
So I am not throwing stones at engaged couples who sleep together, the love-struck little poppets. I just think they should get married ASAP if the temptation is that bad. And obviously they'll have to go to confession first.
Meanwhile, B.A. and I tried to strong-arm my parish priest into marrying us in four months after I first talked to the priest. He looked at my annulment papers and quailed. The marriage tribunal wrote somewhere or other that I'd better know the next guy I married real well. The priest looked at me hopefully when he mentioned this. We got married six months after I talked to him. There was no stupid hall. The reception was in my parents' house. I got a priest-pal to say the Mass.
I love to say that I don't believe in single men's words--I believe only in their diamonds. I figured unless there was a ring and unless he had told his mother, an engagement wasn't real. But now I am upping the ante and saying an engagement isn't really real unless there is a wedding date.
RELIGIOUS GUYS
In general it is stupid to sleep with someone unless you're married to him or at least there is a clear,fixed and widely-known wedding date. Men in general are so terrified of marriage, they either have to be promised something really good in order to go through with it or be terrified of what their mothers will do if they don't.
A girl might think religious men exempt from this because religious men are very pro-marriage and want nothing more than to please God by getting married, so seducing a religious guy is the way forward. But no.
It is my humble opinion that if a man really is that into you, there's not much you can do to dissuade him from marrying you, short of cheating on him or killing something or someone. So merely sleeping with your devoutly Catholic fiance will probably not ruin the whole relationship, although obviously it is a mortal sin, so you ought not to do it.
However, there are certainly a lot of religious men who would be so personally devastated at having committed a mortal sin with their girlfriends that they will never see their girlfriends the same way ever again. In fact, they might even consider it virtuous to break up with those satanic temptresses so as to marry pure girls, girls who have not gotten in the way of their primary relationship with God.
It is always a good idea to seem even more chaste than your chaste Catholic boyfriend, even if inwardly you are a volcano of lust. You know you are, and your best friend knows you are, and I know you are, but he doesn't know you are, and that's fine. By appearing as pure as a bowl of vanilla ice cream, at least next to him, you are inspiring him to be good, a better man than he is, etc., etc.
I am sure there are all kinds of depressing examples that you will now write in about your boyfriends to whom you were angels of purity and light who ditched you for flashing-eyed bad girls with roses in their teeth. But in general I would say to be particularly sensitive to the hopes and beliefs of deeply religious men and don't try to tempt them into things for which they will later be very angry with you.
I have found "Don't touch the hottie" to be a particularly effective mantra.
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