I get a lot of flak from family and friends for my current state of being a single male in his early 20s never having been in an actual relationship before. I don't really blame most of them. It is the ones who are in a very successful relationship who pressure me the most to get a girlfriend, but I don't hate them for it. They probably just want me to experience the great pleasure of loving and caring for someone in an intimate way that I have yet to share with another. Either that or they just like to see me get down about the whole situation. I prefer to assume the first reason.
So one must wonder, "How is it that Lem has never had a girlfriend before?" and it is a valid question. How did I, being so charming and incredibly good-looking, go 22 years without a relationship? Well, don't look at me for the answer! As Tristan Miller has so eloquently put it, "While I'll be the first to admit that my chances of ever entering into a meaningful relationship with someone special are practically non-existent, I staunchly refuse to admit that it has anything to do with some inherent problem with me."
Miller has written a brilliant article/essay/paper/blog (whatever you would like to call it) on why it is so hard to get a girlfriend today. Simply using demographics and some elementary statistical calculus, Miller has given a plausible reason for why some, or rather most, of us are just unfortunate in the relationship category. Here is the link to the blog. It's a lot of reading, but it's very well written, and Miller was smart enough to put the most important facts in gargantuan font size for those who would rather skim all of it...like me.
Take a look, it will open your eyes!
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
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3 comments:
You think you have it tough, try being a woman. Ten times worse, because we have to wait around till you guys ask us out. I wrote a post on this earlier this week (written almost entirely in U2 song titles, FYI. What man would not want to be with a woman who can do that!).
man. pretty true stuff that the guy says. now i know why I'm in the same plight lem. haven't dated.. note married, not currently involved. yup.
so many things have to match up. i guess that's why it is always 'a miracle' when couples DO form and marry.
did you read the footnote about chastity? shocking. thought provoking, and possibly the most significant thing of the whole paper.
This quote is attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien:
"Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world' or even with a little more care in this imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are married to."
That's why I think that the attitude expressed in the "chastity" quote that you liked, Luke, is actually the problem with marriage today. It's not that people settle for less than they can get: that attitude is going to make you an idiot searching for some impossible reality, scaling great heights of rediculous expectations: sure to disappoint and ruin you. No, you find someone that you can love and serve for the rest of your life happily, through the grace of Jesus Christ.
I really think that's the only condition. If you can promise to do what it says in the marriage vows, and follow through with it, than you can marry that person and live happily with them forever.
I first came upon these thoughts when I was musing on divorce back in high school. It seems to me, I thought to myself, that it's awfully harsh of God to make us stay married our whole life.
Later, I learned from St. Augustine that God actually really wants us to be happy, and that all the laws that God gives us help us to do that. They are a kind of grace, a special guide to the faithful.
And so I realized that God must not be trying to ruin us with unreasonable expectations, and so my thoughts about marriage from high school must have been wrong.
That's how I got to what I said at the beginning.
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