The Skinny on Christian Dating

On Monday, November 22nd, 2010, I wrote this as my Facebook status: “Catholic/Christian guys, us girls took a poll: you better start stepping up and being better men and realising how awesome some of the Catholic/Christian women in your life are, or there will be consequences. We know we're not perfect either, but we're the one’s that are supposed to be yearned for, not the other way around.”

I’ve recently been speaking to several of the Catholic women in this city, and the general consensus is that it is nearly impossible to find a good Catholic/Christian husband nowadays. Scratch that. It is nearly impossible to find a good Catholic/Christian boyfriend.

My best friend was expressing to me her frustrations over this. She said that because men aren’t stepping up, us women are left feeling that we either need to do all the work, or that we have to lower our standards. I think she is absolutely right.

Men know that they are the minority, at least in religious circles. They know that us women want husbands, and so they are sitting back and letting us fret and stress over the matter.
This is not how things should be. Women should not be coveting men. Men should be coveting us. I’m not saying they necessarily know this consciously. Quite frankly, I doubt men know anything consciously. But their subconscious’s know this!

Women, we are beautiful treasures that drive men wild. Men are supposed to be dying to be so lucky to have an amazing woman in his life.

As Dave Chappelle once said: “Chivalry is dead. And women killed it”. He also said this: “the magazines trick the women. The magazines start picking at your self-esteem: every page you turn you start feeling fatter, and uglier, and you feel like your clothes aren’t good enough. And the magazines have you forgetting how beautiful you are.”



For a guy who says some pretty controversial and risqué things, who couldn’t applaud those two statements?

So men, you better start stepping up. Start by reading this blog: http://artofmanliness.com/.
Be gentlemen.

And women, we need to step up too. Let the men in your life be gentlemen. A man knows you are perfectly capable of opening a door yourself. But maybe he wants to open it for you, because he respects you.

I understand also that dating within Catholic/Christian circles is difficult because as soon as there is any interest brewing, all your friends start asking if you’re discerning marriage. Talk about scaring away a potential partner? Oh my gosh, you like me?? I like you too! Let’s discern marriage! Wow. All the while, the poor guy is sitting across the table thinking The only thing I was discerning was what flavour tea I wanted…








Either way, if you men don’t start stepping up, us women will begin our official protest, because we deserve better.


PS: If you leave a comment, please leave a first name so I can properly respond, rather than saying "2 posts above", etc.

Things That Make Me Smile

100% Guarantee.

1. Bruce from Family Guy. Particularly the "mayor bee" bit.




















2. Christmas Music. Especially Charlie Brown Christmas music.

















That is a picture I drew of holly, and Charlie Brown, next to a picture of real holly I took in Wales a few years ago.

3. Some Good Movies

Because that is broad, I have provided you with a movie graph, outlining what has proven to always have positive effects on my mood.




















4. Old Letters

I have two shoe boxes under my bed, STUFFED with old letters from friends in high school.















You see, I grew up in a small farm town in Eastern Ontario. Cell phones didn't hit my school until after I left. We did use things like Messenger and email, but, we only had acces to those things at home. What to do while at school? How to pass time in boring classes? So we wrote to one another. Usually, we would write while in class, then exchange letters once class ended, and would read them in the next class.

How I made the honour roll, I'll never know.

5. A really good conversation about theology and/or God.

(I have no idea what to draw for this. I'm open to suggestions)

Why I Hate Birds #2

I was 7 or 8.

It was summer and I lived in Eastern Ontario. My parents thought it would be nice to drive a few hours down to Scarborough to visit the Toronto Metro Zoo.

What a fantastic day this was!

I saw every animal you could imagine. Except the Tazmanian Devil because it was being a douche and wouldn't come out from under the bush. But I saw every other animal! I was ecstatic to see pink flamingos, balancing on one leg, just like in the cartoons. I saw lions and tigers and elephants. Giraffes, koalas, black bears, hippos. Rhinoceri, peacocks, polar bears.

I was amazed.

It took the whole day to tour the whole zoo, and we couldn't even cover it all.
We took a break at a picnic table, which had loads of Canadian geese around it.

Let me give you the backstory here:

EVERYWHERE in the zoo are signs that say: DO NOT FEED THE GEESE.

End of backstory.

Well, naturally, we thought it was because people food would be bad for the geese.

WRONG!

My dad. I love him. But, when he reads a sign, he laughs at it, and decides to do the opposite of what it says. Today was no exception. Our little family of four stood near the picnic table, eating our snacks, which happened to be Fruit Roll Ups. Yum! My dad decided to experiment, and gave a little piece to a goose who was brave enough to approach him.

Apparently, Fruit Roll Up is like cocaine to geese.

That stupid goose. He went back and told all of his other little goose friends about this newfound delicacy.

Once more, it all happened so fast.

They came closer. All the geese, and surrounded the table. I was the only one sitting at the table. They zeroed in on me. My family stood on the outside. I stood on the table. (I didn't want to get bit again!) They came closer.

Next thing I knew, I was completely surrounded by these chanting geese, trying to sacrifice me to their goose god.

My reaction was a mix of this:




















And this:



















After what felt like hours of being trapped on that table, my dad FINALLY barged in and scared them away.

What took him so long, you ask?

He and my brother could not stop laughing at my trauma.

Why I Hate Birds

I was 5. Maybe 4, the trauma has left my memory a little fuzzy.

I lived in Southern Ontario, and my kindergarten class was taking a trip to what I believe was some sort of petting zoo, with no animal petting involved. I remember a cool playground, and a cage of turkeys. The children would surround the cage, and scream: "GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!!!!!" until one of the turkeys would gobble. When it did, everyone cheered.

I'm not talking about caged turkeys.

No, I'm talking about rogue swans.

If you have never experienced swans, then you are lucky. AVOID THESE BIRDS. They are evil, hateful beasts with no fear and a vendetta against all of God's creations out of bitterness for God making them ugly as ducklings. No bird carries a grudge like a swan.

But on that day, I had never seen one before.

My mom was one of the parent volunteers, supervising the kids. Her and I took a little stroll, and found ourselves on a wooden footbridge. We stopped, and looked down at the stream running under the bridge.

And there it was.

"Mom, look!" I said, and pointed to the beautiful bird. My mom informed me that it was a swan. We watched as it was about to swim under our feet.


















It all happened so fast.

The swan was right under our feet. All of a sudden, the evil creature from the dark waters began gnawing on my little foot, which was poking out of the bottom of the bridge. It was eating my little pink rubber boot! It had a wild look in its eyes, and I'm pretty sure it had razor sharp teeth.













I screamed. And cried.

I was pretty sure my foot was being bitten off by this psycho bird, sent from hell.

My mom comforted me by saying, "Calm down. You have boots on. You can't even feel any pain".

Maybe not, but it was the principle of the whole thing.

Shoes

This is my mother's account of the "rude" incident.

I was 2 years old.

We lived in Germany, in an appartment.
My mom's friend Sandra was visiting.
This was not an odd thing to occur. Sandra visited often, since she lived across the street.

I wish I knew what had been going through my head. I wish I could remember the burst of extraverted-ness that overcame me that day.













They were sitting on the couch talking. Probably about the stresses of being military wives, living in a country where you don't understand the language. Wife talk.

I walked into the room.
In my hands I was carrying Sandra's shoes. They both looked at me, puzzled.
I placed and/or tossed the shoes toward Sandra.

"Go home" I said.













My mom (the one of the left) was horrified at how rude her child was being.

The only thing I can say in my defense: if her visiting was such a regular occurence, I clearly felt she had exhausted her visit, and I wanted my space back. People always put their shoes on when they leave. I connected the dots. Bam.