Single Over 50

Princess Diana's Mother, 1989

A woman in the Telegraph writes about what it is like to be "Single" (she's divorced with children) in her 50s. There's a lot of sadness in her article. She advises discontented married friends not to get divorced.  At the same time, though, she notes that there is a lot of unhappiness in middle-aged marriage.

Well, you know, there is a lot of unhappiness in middle age although, to be frank, in the west these are what might be called First World Problems: oh wah, it's harder to stay thin, one is not as attractive as one was at 27, one does not have so much potential, one is less likely than ever to become a millionaire, one's spouse has not given up that annoying habit after umpteen years, one's dear same-age friend has been diagnosed with cancer, one's knees ache half an hour into a dance (if one even goes to a dance), one sometimes feels a shooting pain in one's hand--is it early on-set arthritis?!

Frankly I feel very lucky to have met B.A. a few scant years before I turned forty because he is the right sort of person I need to have around when I am mooching about feeling middle-aged. First World Problem Story: I took out two beautiful young things for dinner and a concert as a sort of chaperone, and--no word of a lie--on my way to the power-room I glanced in a mirror and was instantly reminded of Princess Diana's mother. When, after an evening of accompanying blooming youth, I found B.A. asleep in bed, and I was enormously comforted because he looked as old as I did.

But to go back to dating at 50, good heavens. Surely at 50 it is really time to stop thinking in terms of dating and more in terms of making friends--or keeping--friends? Not only is one too old to have children (or more children), which is what sex is primarily for, SORRY,  but one is too old to adopt babies. (Many countries won't let you adopt babies after you turn 40.) If at 50 one decides to marry a friend, old or new, then that's lovely. But surely one of the joys of being in late middle-age is that it really doesn't matter as much?

My grandmother Gladys was widowed at 60, and although terrifically popular with elderly men, she never showed the slightest interest in romance, dating or marriage. She went on holiday with her old pals, she carried on volunteering with her pals (they had a band), she went to seniors events, playing cards and doing aerobics and whatnot, she listened to the radio, she smoked until double-pneumonia told her to stop, she read bodice-rippers and "sagas" late into the night and on Sundays she visited family, i.e. us.

The author of the Telegraph article says that it seems to her better to have been married with children and then divorced than to be single-never-married at 50, but then I suspect she is horrified by the very idea that her children might not have existed. There are many 50-something nuns who are quite content to go on being nuns, and I imagine (indeed, I hope) there are many 50-something women who have passed through their sorrow at never having married and had children and realized that not only are they at peace with it, they wouldn't have it differently now. (I'm still going through BA-and-I-can't-have-children grief myself.)

What is cheerful about her article is that she points out the personal freedom Single women have. The Single woman who is financially independent of a husband or family does get to make all the decisions. She doesn't have to ask permission to go on this trip or that trip or to take early retirement to go back to university or to sell all that she has and give it to the poor.

One thing that interested me most in the article was the cheeky questions the author gets as a "Single" woman over 50. I think she is too optimistic when she says no-one asks young blondes about their sex life, as everyone just assumes they have one. Maybe they didn't when she was a young blonde, but I can assure her that older married people (like male bosses) started asking me such questions when I was 17

As for remarks about married life, I agree that in general in the UK married women are considered sacrosanct and you just do not ask them such questions. An American once did make a salty remark about my marriage at a dinner party, and I hit him with my handbag, right there and then. Were I a widow, I imagine I would level a cold stare at the impertinent person through the top halves of my bifocals (which I am beginning to need) and say that I am devoted to the memory of my late husband. It seems to me that dozens of generations of over-50 British women had something to teach us about dignity.

Update: Someone who married older that I did written in to suggest I am too dismissive of later marriage. I apologize for that. Although the subject of being a Searching Single after the menopause is indeed very important, it is something of which I have no firsthand experience. The best I can say is that I think it must be much different to be a widow, looking back fondly (or not) on one's married days, than to be a Single-never-married. However, I hold out the hope that being Single might matter less, not more, the older we get.

American Thanksgiving Survival for Singles

I have been married for six years now, so I am growing foggy on domestic developments in North America. Is it still awful to be over 25 and unmarried at big family gatherings, or are married uncles and aunts too cowed by the new possibilities to ask about your love lives?

Uncle Herb: So, you got a fella yet?

Auntie May: Now, Herbert, these are modern times. You can't assume Mary Beth has a fella. She could have a female friend. Or female friends. Or a female friend who used to be a fella.

Uncle Herb: So, Patrick, whadaya think about the Lions' chances?

Goodness, that does not sound much better. What we really want from relations is reticence, or at least questions about things from our public lives, like "Anything interesting in your work this year, darling?" If your aunts and uncles dearly want to know if you have a fella yet--and do uncles really want to know?--surely they can ask your mother when you're out of earshot.

Every American Thanksgiving I sponsor a little competition for Single readers. In short, every participant gets a point for every reference made to her Singleness by her relations during Thanksgiving Dinner. Basically the time-frame is from the arrival of the first guest to bed-time. This is particularly fun when all the Single sisters in one family play together. (They all get a point if the remark is addressed to all of them together.) If it were me, I would carry around a little notebook and pencil and secretly mark each dinnertime comment under cover of the table.

After dinner, when you are safe in what I hope is the sanctuary of your room, see if you can recall the pertinent remarks or questions made, and give examples with your score here in the Thursday combox. I am five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, but I will enjoy reading them all on Friday morning. Meanwhile, when I get home from Polish class (that's about 4 PM EST), I will be monitoring the combox so as to provide a listening ear to anyone who flees the kitchen long enough to pour their annoyance into the blog.  Obviously I can't live-blog readers' Thanksgivings, but I will be on hand until about 7 PM EST.

Remember that you are not alone, and all over the USA, Single women will be put in the spotlight by their nearest and dearest.

Chinese Singles' Day?

November 11 means different things in different countries. In the British Commonwealth and the United States, it marks the end of the First World War, and Canadians now call it Remembrance Day. In Poland it marks the beginning of 20th century Polish independence, and so for them it is Independence Day. But in China, it is Singles' Day, and Chinese Singles celebrate it in fine communist style--by buying themselves stuff. 

Personally I am all for Singles buying themselves little treats to reward themselves for emotionally heavy obligations, like going to weddings, or smiling through Thanksgiving Day dinners as the only unmarried niece, or remaining conscious in the USA during Valentine's Day. In the case of Valentine's Day, I have always thought that it is just as good for a Single to give to another as to receive from another. I would say it was better, were it not for the memory of the surprise chocolate my dad left on my desk one year. I don't know why, but that was one of the best surprise gifts of my life.

There's something hollow about giving yourself a present for a day celebrating your non-status as a Single person. If I go to the beautician on my birthday, I'm celebrating the fact that I'm alive and taking the pressure off my husband to give me a happy birthday. (Many men just do not get why celebrating birthdays is important.) On Valentine's Day I meet with female friends and any Single readers who happen to be in town that day. For B.A's and my wedding anniversary, I call up a favourite restaurant and reserve a table for lunch.

As a Single, I did once send myself a valentine. I thought it would be cool to get something in the post, even if it was just from myself. It wasn't. Reading the message I had written only a few days before felt pretty pathetic. It would have been a much better use of the price of the card and the stamp if I had sent them to a fellow Single--or to my mother or grandmother.

I suppose after the deprivations of Communism, the Chinese think the answer to life is consumer goods--one thinks of the girlfriends of Russian gangsters rolling around in Chanel lipsticks and Prada bags--but I really think the best way to cope with the privations of Singledom is to reach out and do something for others. I honestly have never heard of a holiday in which the point is to buy yourself something, and it seems just as sad as the valentine I sent myself.

The ExPat on the Missionary

There's an Irish chap who wants money to make a film about his cousin, the last Irish missionary nun to leave Japan. There's an article about his project and her life here.

While reading this interview, I noticed that there was not a single mention of the religious reason why Sister Paschal became a missionary sister or the real focus of her life which was, I think I may assume, Our Lord Jesus Christ.  The 33 year old director talks instead of  Church propaganda, lack of options for women in Irish society of the 1930s, Ireland wanting to distinguish itself against England, Catholicism being "somewhat oppressive", and young men and women being "lured" into missionary work.

What really impresses him is that Sister Paschal spent her life among people of great influence and importance in Japan:

I knew she had taught in high circles in Japan for decades, that amongst her past pupils and her private students were members of the Mitsubishi and Suzuki families…very much high-fliers in Japan. I was impressed by this and by stories of one of my uncle’s visits to Japan, where he was wined and dined by her “inner circle.” It seemed like something out of a fairytale, this relative who in another era had left home forever only to be integrated into a completely different society at a very high level, becoming both a part of that society—and in Japan that is not very common—while also maintaining her role as an outsider and a missionary with a message to spread.

And that message was...? The sad thing about the interview is that the youngish Irish chap seems to be embarrassed by his elderly cousin's Catholicism and downplays it as much as possible while talking to a Catholic interviewer for an orthodox Catholic website. He says to actual believing Catholics all the PC things about how awful Catholic Ireland was in the hope we will give him money for his project.

If I thought the project were about the secret of Sister Paschal's happiness, including the mind-blowing idea that her happiness somehow came about in part from the "rules" her young cousin rejects, then I think the project would be worthy of funding by faithful Catholics. But this project sounds like an G-rated Irish version of  Eat, Pray, Love : Irish girl flees narrow Ireland, tempted by promise of adventure, eats sushi, practises "spirituality", is adored by "inner circle" of  Japanese "hi-fliers." Was that what Sister Paschal's life was really about?

Her young cousin thinks her happiness came from her attention to people, "her investment in human relationships". He speaks vaguely of her "inner world", but it seems like it would kill him to say, "She really loved +Jesus Christ." He assures the Catholic World Report, of all media,  he assures Dom Alcuin Reid, of all people, that the Biblical quotes his cousin put on the blackboard for the instruction of her Japanese pupils were "never dogmatic, always based on love and charity."

Of course, from a historical point of view it does sound like a great film. I would suggest that instead of trying to get Catholics to stump up the money, the director try the Irish government, or Irish feminists, or anyone who would be eager to promote a story about a massive Irish contribution to the world directed by a man who harps on how awful the Church in Ireland was and does his best not to utter the the Holy Name of Jesus.

A take-home point: When writing, fundraising or giving an interview, always remember your audience. 

Single Issues of the Day

Quarr Abbey. Just for boys!

Here it is Seraphic Singles Saturday, but I can't think of a Singles topic I haven't written on before. Eeek! Remember how I said married women swiftly forget what being Single is like? Six and half years in, this is happening to me. Mostly I remember what a struggle it could be to see men as themselves and not as Potential Spouse/Not Potential Spouse. But I also recall a frequent sense of unease. What is my vocation? What is my vocation? What is my vocation? What is my vocation?

Catholic education could combat these things--although maybe it did combat the first thing, and I was too wrapped up in my little world to notice. If I had been told in elementary school religion class to imagine how God saw my classmates, would understanding have illuminated my little brain?

I don't know. I don't think it would have been a good assignment to have me write a letter as if I were God to a certain A.P., whoever because instead of radiating divine love, I would have written something like "Dear A, If you don't stop pulling Seraphic's braids, which hurts her a lot, by the way, you will end up in HELL if you die, and you won't like that AT ALL."

(I can imagine how the Grown-ups saw A., of course. "Oh, he is just a ch-eye-ulllllld!")

Anyway, I think it is a good exercise to try to see people around as God might see them; naturally to do this, one needs to fathom God's personality, which is best done by reading the Gospels and what the saints say about the Gospels. I am quite sure Our Lord did not want A to pull my braids, but on the other hand, Our Lord would have known about A's messed-up home life, if he had one.

The solution to hating little boys (if you are a little girl) and being silly about random men (if you are a woman) is to take an objective view, which begins with a meditation on what God, who knows everything, knows about Man X, and how He feels about him. What does God probably like? What does God probably dislike?  What would it be like to be Man X?

Probably there is a lot along these lines in the writings of John Paul II; I should really get around to reading more of them. I wish he had written a Dignitatem Virorem, don't you?

As for the vocation worry, I plunk this right down at Catholic Education's door. "What is my Vocation" turned up in Grade 13, which was almost too late to begin thinking about religious vocations anyway.

Education about marriage (real marriage, not the wedding), religious life and priesthood should begin in childhood--which is when children begin thinking about such things anyway. When I was in kindergarten, playing "House" was very popular, with the alpha female playing Mother. Interestingly, girls never wanted to play "Wedding." Nope, their interest was in being in charge of the kitchen and bossing children around.

As for the priesthood, one of the most heartwarming things I can think of is boys getting really interested in what the priest and altar servers are doing up at the altar. When my nephew Pirate was 7, he and his mother spent Christmas with us, and instead of being bored at Mass--which was in Latin, naturally--Pirate seemed fascinated by the priest, to the extent that he tried to repeat what the priest was saying. If a boy shows that much of an interest in the Mass, then his faithful Catholic family can and should reinforce his good impressions of priesthood. Hopefully the priest is a good man--and it kills me to have to write that. Sigh. At any rate, if you don't admire your priest, your children may see that, and so it is a good idea to go to Mass at a church with an admirable--or at least priestly--priest.*

As for religious vocations for women, I cannot imagine how anyone would think girls would seriously consider this life without actually knowing any nuns or religious sisters. It's as if you were told at 18 that your choices in life were to be Married, Single or a Unicorn. It might sound very romantic to be a unicorn but, er, where are these unicorns? You never see any on the street. There aren't any in your family. Your father's great-aunt was one, but his one memory of her was that he was afraid of her horn, etc.

Don't wallop 18 year olds already nervous about graduating from high school with "vocation" worries. Start talking about marriage, priesthood and religious life when they are old enough to ask questions about them,  e.g. age 4, and when they are worried adolescents, keep telling them that the answer will come to them like a fact they have studied. "What if I fail my history test?" "Have you studied for this history test?" "Yes, for years!" "Well, then if you relax while taking the test , the answers will come to you."

Meanwhile, everyone is called to the Christian Life--poverty, chastity and obedience according to our state in life--which is vocation enough to be worried about, that's for sure.

If I had children, I think I would pass along pearls of wisdom every day, especially when I was cross about something, like, "The most important thing in marriage is respect!" and "Marriage is all about washing the dishes and keeping the house tidy enough so your spouse wants to come back to it!" and "Men are like plants--they need lots of sunshine and nourishment!" and "Isn't your father marvelous! And he has never called me a rude name in all the years I've known him."  (B.A. could say wise things abut women, e.g. "Anything for a quiet life, son.")

Naturally I would take my children to visit our friends in the convent at Ryde, so they would see monastic life for themselves. "Oh these lucky nuns!," I would say. "They pray and sing all day, giving glory to God and fighting their sins with as few worldly distractions as possible. How beautiful and happy they look! Why can't we see their rooms? Well, to go into the cloister, you have to be one of them.  What was that, B.A., Jr? Oh, there are convents for boys, too. We will visit one tomorrow. Man-nuns are called monks, and these ones bind books."

As a matter of fact, one of my father's PhD supervisors was an Augustinian monk, and my family went to visit his abbey, which was just outside of Toronto. I only ever went the once, but I have always remembered it. We had unpasteurized milk (eeee!), and we visited the cows. It certainly made an impression.

*My principal UGH moment regarding a parish priest in the past ten years was hearing one leaning over a boy with a fatuous grin while saying, with an exaggerated local accent, "HEY! D'YA like HOCKEY?"  Shudder.

Incidentally, I dragged a French-Canadian to Mass near his native city one Sunday, and he was utterly horrified because the priest spoke "joual", a working-class Quebecois dialect, instead of proper French, language of the university-educated person he obviously had to be. M. Super-Educated thought the priest's use of "joual" totally inappropriate for Holy Mass, which was rather reverent for an atheist. Atheist head, Catholic heart. Naturally he didn't darken the door again. Moral of Story: priests, be what you are.

Re: Man-nuns. Fact: my youngest brother was known in the family for awhile as "Man-Auntie." This suggests a certain domination in the family of the aunts, n'est-ce pas?

Request: Blessed Natalia Tułasiewicz

Good morning, poppets! A girl named Natalie emailed me this week to ask if there was an English-language Life of Blessed Natalia Tułasiewicz, and to the best of my knowledge there is not. Perhaps we need one, and this is something I could get working on in a few years.

In the meantime, I promised to post the "Blessed Natalia" part of my Kraków lecture "Catholic Heroines of the 20th Century." After all, when a Natalie asks for information on a potential patron saint, how can I say no?

So here is the excerpt, which works very well with Seraphic Singles Saturday, as you will see. It was written with a simultaneous translator in mind, so it may seem a bit choppy!



 NATALIA TUŁASIEWICZ

My second heroine, Blessed Natalia Tułasiewicz, was born in 1906 in Rzeszów and died in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in 1945. She was the second child of a tax inspector, and first moved here to Kraków in 1914. She moved to Pozńan in 1921, where she attended Saint Urszula’s Secondary School (w Gimnazjum Urszulanek Unii Rzymskiej). She studied Polish philology at the University of Pozńan and music at the Conservatory. She was a very devout Catholic, and wrote that she wished to strengthen her faith by good deeds and studying. Reflecting on the fact that men and women are made in the image of God, she wrote: “It is precisely our reason that makes us creatures similar to God (Przecież właśnie rozum nasz czyni nas stworzeniami na obraz i podobieństwo Boga)”. 

She wrote her master’s thesis about [EH: famous Polish-Lithuanian poet Adam] Mickiewicz and music, combining her love of Polish literature with her love of music. Unfortunately, her musical training was interrupted because she contracted tuberculosis, and she had an operation on her throat. She finished university in 1931 and had meanwhile begun her teaching career. She was active in the Association of Teachers of the Polish Language and also in a Marian sodality.

Despite her great love of God, Blessed Natalia did not feel at all called to become a religious sister. It was very important to her that she remain and work for God in the world as a laywoman. And at first she thought she would do this as a married woman. In 1927, when she was 21, she became engaged and remained engaged for seven years. Unfortunately, her fiancé was an atheist and a communist, and so Blessed Natalia ended their relationship in 1934. 

But rather than being brokenhearted, she felt that love had tied her even more to earthly life in the world. The love of God, she wrote, had made her heart so powerful that nothing could break it. “It seems to me that I am on the path to a new era in my life, a path that is difficult but worthwhile. Now I love life more than ever before. I have always loved it in God, today I desire in the fullest sense to live in God!” (Wydaje mi się, że zdążam ku takiemu właśnie okresowi życia—ku własniej, trudej, ale wartej trudu drodze. Dziś kocham życie jeszcze więcej, niż kochalam dotychczas. Kochałam je zawsze w Bogu, dziś je pragnę w pewnym sensie zwyciężyć w Bogu!)

Blessed Natalia thus gave herself totally to God but in such a way that she could find and achieve holiness in the everyday, modern world. She wrote, “I have the courage to become a saint. Only holiness is the fullest form of love, and so I don’t just want but must become a saint, a modern saint, a theocentric humanist.” (Mam odwagę chcieć być swiętą. Tylko świętość jest najpelniejszą miłością, więc nie tylko chcę, ale muszę być świętą, nowoczesą święta, teocentryzną humanistką!) She qualified as a state teacher and wrote as well as taught: poetry, novels and newspaper articles. She received much attention for her travels with the famous ship “Batory” in 1937. In 1938, she went to Rome for the canonization of Sw. Andrziej Bobola and travelled all over Italy.

Then in 1939—disaster. On November 10, 1939, German soldiers came to Blessed Natalia’s family home in Pozńan in the middle of the night and threw the whole family—and all their neighbours—into the street. Blessed Natalia had just enough time to leave a note imploring whatever Germans were given their home not to destroy their books and manuscripts and to water the plants. Then the family was forced to live in a transit camp, where conditions were very bad, before being packed on a freight train, like animals, and transported to Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski.

Here they lived with an old woman, the nine of them packed into one room. Blessed Natalia decided to go to Kraków and find a job. She got one public one, working in a private library, and one secret one, teaching in a clandestine school. Also in violation of the rules of the German Occupation, she led weekly literary meetings and monthly sodality meetings. She was befriended by Polish aristocrats who gave her work and intervened to keep her in Poland when she was ordered to become a labourer in Germany.

However, in 1943 she changed her mind about going to Germany. That was the year she visited her friend Brother Tadeusz near Warsaw, just as the Warsaw Ghetto was burning down. Her feelings of compassion for these people she could not help, except in prayer, led her to a covert mission to Germany. She joined a conspiracy called “Zachód” [ EH: i.e. "West"] , run for the Government-in-Exile by two priests, ks. Ferdynand Machay and ks. Kazimierz Świetliński. [EH: Ks.=ksiądz, priest. In Poland a secular priest is addressed as "Priest <Surname>. A priest in a religious order, however, is called "Father".]

Zachód trained her to help Poles doing forced labour in German emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. On August 18, 1943 she went voluntarily to Hamburg to share the forced labour. She worked in a factory and secretly taught religion, Polish orthography [i.e. spelling] and German to her fellow workers. She organized prayers and singing. As she wrote to her sister: “Only here do I fully realize how valuable is my life of solitude and my secular apostolate. And I realize how important it is to go outside and fill in the gap between a saint in a monastery and a layperson outside. I would simply say: let us leave with the holiness in our souls to streets! " (Tu dopiero w pełni przekonuję się, jak cenna dla drugich jest moja życiowa samotność i moje powołanie świeckiego apostolstwa. I przekonuję się, jak palącą kwestią jest, aby wyjść z ukrycia własnej kapliczki właśnie ku światu, aby wypełnić tę przepaść, która dzieli świętego w klasztorze od człowieka świeckiego. Powiedziałabym po prostu: wyjdźmy ze świętością w duszy na ulice!” ).

Sadly, the Germans discovered her activities. They arrested Blessed Natalia in April 1944. She was sent to jail in Hanover and then Cologne. She was tortured and beaten so badly, she bled from the scars of her old surgery. But despite her pain, she prayed and adored God every night. She never betrayed her fellow conspirators, and she wrote that she did not feel humiliated by the Germans: she felt supported by God, and wrote that her bad treatment did not make her give up; instead it taught her to be modest and happy.

In September 1944, she was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp for women. There she continued her mission by caring for her fellow prisoners, teaching them and having weekly literary meetings. Already suffering again from her lungs, Blessed Natalia was sure she would die, but she did not despair, for she believed that her death would be God’s will and therefore bring about good.

Of course there were no priests in this women’s camp. Blessed Natalia herself led a religious service (nabozeństwu) on Palm Sunday, 1945. But during the week she became so weak and sick that on Good Friday the Germans took her out of line during the morning inspection. She was sent to die in a gas chamber on Holy Saturday, and then her body was burned. Just a few days later, the Germans fled the camp before the Russian advance.

Blessed Natalia was beatified by Saint Jan Pawel in 1999, one of the only two laywomen among the 108 Holy Martyrs. As yet, she is not famous in the English-speaking world. There are not many English-language materials about her. But I present her because I think it is important for Polish women to know about modern Polish female saints, particularly one who never married or became a nun, one who was determined to find holiness in the world. And because she never gave up, despite disappointment, illness and war, I think she exemplifies perseverance. 

****

from  Dorothy Cummings McLean, "Catholic Women of the 20th Century" (paper presented at the Dzielne Niewiasty ["Brave Women"]  Majówka dla Kobiet [May Retreat for Women] Krakow, Poland 2-4 May, 2014).

What the Heck, It Could Be Fun

I wish adolescent women weren't soooo in love with the drama of it all. What is it about teenage brains that makes so many of us speak in tabloid headlines? "Annie and Avi BROKE UP!" "Sue got a C in BIOLOGY!" "Sally's parents drove her to the convent AND SHE CRIED ALL THE WAY!"

There must be a way to channel all this adolescent drama into something worthwhile--like compositions, or paintings, or anything, anything but gossip and meltdowns.

Adolescence seems to last a very long time nowadays, and I cringe whenever go to Yahoo to access my email because the Yahoo News headlines address me as if I were thirteen. "Instant Karma to Boy who Hit Blind Kid" is one of the current ones. At least with print news, the headlines last only one day. I am not thirteen, but I am easily excited, which is a fault, and I don't like it pandered to.

When I was a teenager, young women in Canada did not have the option of growing, exciting, new (or old and stubborn) tradition-loving religious orders. The religious orders really seemed down for the count in the 1980s. Joining one seemed almost unthinkable. If you enjoyed spending all your time with elderly women--unusual in an 18 year old--or you weren't embarrassed by all the New Age stuff they seemed to enjoy--unusual in a well-catechized Catholic--then one of us might have thought it was for her. However, the only girl my age I know who attempted the life did so in a self-flagellating way, rumoured to be because she had despaired of ever getting married. Hence, "Sally's parents drove her to the convent AND SHE CRIED ALL THE WAY!"

Well, no wonder. Last one to die, please turn out the lights.

However, since 1990 there has been a  a religious life miracle, and all kinds of young women are running away to convents, not out of a sense of despair but out of a sense of having found something really good.

These do not include the girls I know who talked it up as undergrads, presumably as a way of creating drama and interest around themselves. I knew two girls who yakked and yakked about how they were going to become nuns, and I was not at all surprised when they didn't. The women I know best who did become nuns went with a minimum of fuss and fanfare.

What I would love to encourage is more young women visiting religious communities "just to see", bringing perhaps a sympathetic friend, who might also like "just to see."  Cloistered convents don't, of course, let you in and out like a jack-in-the-box, but they have guest houses and they are happy to meet with women who might appreciate their life. I've noticed from my visits to the Benedictines at Ryde that the nuns are happy to meet with each other's married friends, too. Really, there's quite a holiday atmosphere at such times, and Benedictines do have a tradition of hospitality.

But the only way to do this respectfully and fruitfully is without drama. There is so much nonsense built around women's religious life--as if it were "throwing your life away" or making a huge, nasty, painful sacrifice. Currently I am reading a depressing novel called One Day, and its heroine spends years working in a bad Mexican restaurant in London, hating every moment. Okay, that's what I call throwing one's life away. The nuns I know live happy fruitful lives, singing, praying, studying, doing housework, harvesting apples and keeping bees.

Naturally there is a sacrifice involved for women who join religious orders. There's sacrifice involved when you get married too--although you may not notice this as much until after you've been married for awhile. Any commitment involves sacrifice. Meanwhile, I have seen two nuns take vows and they did not look scared or solemn or self-sacrificing or teary. They looked blissfully happy. So so much for DRAMA.

Wise teenagers go to check out colleges and universities before they apply to them. They at least look them up on the internet and read reviews. And nobody makes a big deal out of this. ("OMG! Sally's going to WESTERN this weekend!!!!") It would be fantastic if Sally could go visit the Benedictines--a splendid career option, if you ask me---with as little fuss. ("What you doing this weekend, Sally?" "Ah, Sue and I thought we'd go stay with the sisters down at Appley Rise for the weekend, see what it's all about, you know?" "Oh, that's cool. Beats hanging around the house all day." "That's what we thought.")

I know the world tells us we are absolutely nothing without a man in our bed, but the world is a big liar, as we know from the Gospel of Saint John. So it would be a great, good, counter-cultural act to look up growing religious orders on the internet (i.e. those with twenty-somethings in them), grab a sympathetic pal, and write asking for permission to visit for a few days or a weekend. Just to see.

No drama allowed. If you think your nearest and dearest will make a huge fuss, just tell them you're going on retreat to think about your future. Which you are.

***
Welcome once again, Phatmass! Welcome also to the Dominicans!

P.S. I'm too old, cranky and cradle Catholic to be romantic about religious life. I just think the Benedictines of Saint Cecila's Abbey are lovely women and their Rule very beautiful. Oh, and I don't think religious life is necessarily the happiest life (if such things can be measured). I believe, because the Church teaches this, that it is the best way of life.

Oh, and Sister Mary Catherine OP and any other religious are perfectly welcome to excerpt and link to this post on their websites!  :-D

P.S. 2 Back again after having a think about the "happiest life."  Living a "happy life" depends a lot on circumstances beyond one's immediate control, but also on oneself and the people one chooses to live among. Just because you're happy with one man, doesn't mean you'd be happy with another, and if one religious order makes you unhappy, this doesn't mean they all would.

Having read an awful lot of Bernard Lonergan, SJ, I take feeling very happy and grateful to God as an indication that you are on the right path: vocation entails a "falling in love." When I first arrived at the Historical House, I was very happy, and when I visited Saint Cecilia's Abbey with my husband (and later by myself), I was happy there, too.

Significant Birthdays

I received an email this week from a reader who was a few days away from her 30th birthday.She wondered if  the fact she wasn't married yet was God's way of telling her He wanted her to go into religious life, so naturally I roughed her up a bit.

When God tells you He wants you to go into religious life, He doesn't take something away or withhold some treat. Instead He gets someone like me to say, "Hey, if you're curious, why not read about Benedictine life in the Middle Ages? I know a gal who read all about Benedictine life in the Middle Ages, and now she's a fully professed cloistered Benedictine nun!" Then when you read about Benedictine life in the Middle Ages, the scales fall from your eyes, and you shout, "This is the most awesome awesomeness ever! I wonder if someone like me could ever .... Nah... But, I wish... Oh, I wonder...." And off you go to the internet to look up Benedictine foundations near you. That's much more likely to be God's way of telling you He wants you to go into religious life. In fact, YOU want to go, and you ask Him, and He says, "Sure!"

Meanwhile, what intrigued me most about my reader's email was that she is turning thirty, which is a significant birthday, and I love birthdays. 

When I was 29 and underemployed and divorced and generally feeling like a big, fat--well, not big, fat as I was as thin as a pin--like a small, thin failure, I planned a marvelous 30th birthday party for myself. This was not as expensive as it sounds, for the Ontario convention is that if you all go out to celebrate a friend's birthday, everyone pays for him/herself and probably also for the friend.  I lived out of Toronto then, but I invited a pile of old friends from Toronto and some new friends from my then city. We ate dinner at the best Chinese restaurant in town, and then we went back to my small, thin, failure flat for cake and champagne. I got some very cool presents, including a small sponge I was supposed to put in a glass of water, for it would apparently turn into a boyfriend-sized sponge if I did. (I never did.) Photos were taken, and I had them developed, so I also have a lot of lovely photos of friends, all roughly 30 themselves. 

That was a marvellous party, and the thought of it made me smile all through my thirties. Then when I was almost 40, Benedict Ambrose and I arranged a smaller--for more expensive--party, and invited four friends to have lunch with us in our favourite French restaurant. We gave them lunch, and they gave me some splendid presents--including champagne flutes, baking tins and a red sequined bag that wouldn't look out of place on Old 42nd Street--and now I look back on my 40th with great enjoyment, too.

The other 40th birthday I remember in vivid detail is my father's, for my mother--very eccentrically--invited just his male colleagues and cooked the supper and didn't eat with them. Dinner was served by my brother and me. This was in 1980, so I am amazed we weren't denounced to my father's union as counter-revolutionaries or something. 

Anyway, my favourite advice about Significant Birthdays is to celebrate them with as much vim and vigour (and cash) as you can command, inviting your friends and carefully selected family members to celebrate with you and, indeed, to celebrate you. This they will be happy to do, and there is no need to invite anyone likely to say, "Not married/no children yet?"

Not Feeling Settled

I was reminded by a reader the other day that sometimes there are no words of comfort for a woman who wants to get married and have children and who is afraid, increasingly afraid, that this will never happen.

It's a humbling moment. I'm a tough-minded woman with not a lot of patience for little dreamy-dreams about what men should be like--mostly because I spent precious years spinning little dreamy-dreams about what men should be like--but at real authentic grief I bow my head.

I feel terrible. I wish I could wave a wand and bring back the era when twenty-something Catholic men packed the churches, clever young curates organized dances in the parish halls, and the vast majority of Catholic girls who went to them were courted with thrilling confidence and brought to the altar within a year or two of their parish dance appearance.

Of course, in Edinburgh this would mean bringing back some unpleasant stuff too, like anti-Catholic preachers on the Mound inciting gangs of Protestants to beat up Catholic boys on their way to or from school or Mass.

And it would also mean women who weren't snapped up by 25  (25!) feeling, and possibly being, "on the shelf."  There are Single ladies in my parish who were young in the heady days of parish dances, and yet they never married. Why not? Did they not want to? Were they never courted? Do I dare to ask? No, I most definitely do not.

The one comfort I can hold out to Single women dreading (or over) 40 is that men's reluctance to marry means that a lot of Single men are over 40, too. And they do not necessarily want children anyway. They get that women want children, but often they themselves are not that fussed about it. There are lonely men who, at the end of the day, just want a pretty companion to take care of who will also take care of them.

However, the existence of elderly, never-married Single ladies in my parish points to the possibility that some of my readers may never, ever get married. You could be 19, you could be 35, you could be 52. Maybe you will get married, and maybe you will not. And if not, maybe you will conclude that this was for the best, or at least get so wrapped up in your Single life that it doesn't matter. But, to be honest, I don't know how it feels to feel like that all the time. Two years after my revelation that it didn't matter, followed by bouts of feeling that it did, I met Benedict Ambrose and got married.

So I feel settled, which is to say, I think know the way from here. I know what my surname is going to be, and I know where I'm going to live, and I know who my relations are, and I know what is rational to hope for, and I know what is rational to fear. I know the boundaries proscribed by society for married-lady behaviour, and when I chat with young men, the young men think "nice old bird" not "cougar." (At least, I hope that's what they think.) I have one heck of a lot of married lady privilege. I can't deny that. It's real.

I wish I could somehow bottle married lady privilege and sell it to you instead of books. First, I'd make millions of pounds, and second, you'd all feel confident and fulfilled and get on with your days. You wouldn't feel like you "needed a man"; when you have one (married lady privilege) you don't feel like you need one, if you see what I mean.  (By the way, it is perfectly normal to feel like you need a man when you don't have one. It isn't funny or shameful or backward or, for that matter, praiseworthy. It's just normal.)

However, I cannot bottle it, so instead I will suggest that there are other things besides marriage to build your life on. First and foremost, there is your relationship with God. Yes, I know this is a Catholic cliché, and now you want to kill me. However, God is the Alpha and Omega, and paradoxically though men will keep telling you He isn't real, He is the Real. Not to get all Plato on you, but compared to God, all this is cobwebs. God is not a hobby or an extension of you. God is not your ethnic identity or Someone you pray to because you're that kind of girl. God is God, and all being is derived from He who is Being.  Seek Him out--not with flowery words, but as you would seek out a favourite author or patron. Read His works; write fan mail.

Dear Sir, I hope you don't mind me writing in my state of déshabille, but I must express my thanks for Your work on my behalf. I can barely express the depth of my gratitude for the parents You have given me and my brothers and sisters, and more recently my husband, sister-in-law and my nephews and niece. Although I probably have only $260 in my bank account, I must be one of the richest women I know. Meanwhile, because of your great generosity to me, I feel confident that You will not be offended if I beg a favour on behalf of my readers who most anxiously hope to marry....  

Secondly, there is your career/trade. I put this before family because some of you don't have families, and families can be shaky things to build your lives around, if only because your parents and brothers and sisters eventually grow old and die. Your skills, however, your way of making your living or of making, will die only with you. My parish includes a widower who still teaches music at the age of 90. Does he "have to"? No. But he still teaches all the same, taking a youthful enjoyment in his students' progress. If time after work hangs heavily on your hands, may I recommend you take a course that will enrich the skills you already have?  I know one Single woman, a French teacher, who is constantly working on her language skills in a variety of interesting and social ways.

Third, there is art. I suggested this once to a grieving Single, and she snorted, which made me realize she wasn't perhaps as big a fan of that particular art form as I thought.  If you fall in love with, say, jazz, you will always have jazz to explore and enjoy. There will always be new recordings to buy, or old recordings to discover, and live jazz in the nearest big city, and even jazz dancers to watch or to join. You will meet other people in love with jazz, and you will enjoy these people solely because they are willing to talk about jazz and nod enthusiastically when you talk about jazz. If you have developed the habit of thinking of men only as potential husbands, this may shake you out of it. Someone who cares as much as you do about something truly good, like music or oil paintings or ballet, is a potential friend and ally.

Fourth, there are friends and allies. This is a tricky one, for some people are just not very good at making friends. There are a variety of reasons for this, including timidity, boorishness and presumption. Judging with how much familiarity to treat a person can be pretty exhausting, I admit. On the one hand, you don't want to seem standoffish. On the other hand, you don't want them to think you are needy. The trick is not to be needy, which is why I put career and art first.

Fifth, there might be a cause.  I am the proud foreign godmother of Dzielne Niewasty, an association of Polish women founded by Father Paweł Drobot and Alicja Jewuła. Alicja is a Single woman who was called by Father Drobot to the cause of Polish Single women. He handed Alicja a copy of Anielskie Single, and she says it changed her life. (It certainly changed mine!) She founded DN, and now dozens of Polish women, married and Single, meet for Christian fellowship--something that cannot now be taken for granted, even in culturally Catholic Poland. Needless to say, I derive an enormous amount of satisfaction from writing to Catholic Singles (and other Singles of Good Will) and exhorting you all to keep the faith and find joy and satisfaction in your Single lives.

This is why I will never write for a Catholic dating site, incidentally. "Alone this Christmas?" You  aren't: that's the whole point of the Incarnation! (AAAAAAH! She tears her hair.)

Sixth, adoption.  I loathe it when people ask "Why don't you adopt?" It's a painful, painful question to answer. However, I hold out the possibility. Wealthy Singles have adopted wards throughout history. Ideally all children would have a mum and dad. However, some Single women find themselves called to adopt a child.  I would not build my life around a child, however: unlike jazz and a lot like parents, sometimes they die, too. When I think of the children I love, it is with mingled joy and terror that something bad... Anyway, there it is. Take it or leave it.

Most people get married. Some marry very miserably because they are not suited to marriage or to the person they settled for/hoped was the fantasy in their head. There are worse things than never being married. There are many married women who would love to change places with you right now. If, however, you are over thirty and not yet married, I sincerely hope you have made provision for this eventuality. If not, may I fraternally recommend you take my above advice. None of it will stand in your way of being married, should you finally be called to that vocation.

Update: I think I should stress the over thirty part. If you are under thirty, calm down. Take a chill pill. The average age for first marriages in Canada is about 30.1.

Affirming Your Boundaries with a Smile

It's Seraphic Singles Saturday, and I hope I can rise to the challenges of guru-dom as I have been felled by a horrible head-cold. I am not feeling terrifically brainy right now, so it is a good thing I got the Dear Auntie Seraphic letter some undisclosed time ago.

To protect the identity of your fellow reader, I shall just tell the story. In short, she was chatting away after Mass, greeting strangers in her hospitable way, when a new young man asked her out for coffee. Remembering my dictum of "It's just coffee!", she said she'd be happy to meet for coffee, and they exchanged phone numbers, emails, etc.

But then the young man contacted her about having LUNCH. Your fellow reader froze. She had said yes to coffee, but now Mr New Guy was saying lunch.

Now, your fellow reader is a very busy woman and the only time she has to have lunch with people is on Sundays after Mass, a cherished time slot she dedicates to her friends every week. However, she felt honour-bound to have lunch with this chap, so suggested the following (not "this") Sunday.

Mr New Guy, after sending long and friendly emails to our heroine all week, turned up early to Mass on "this" Sunday, hovered at her elbow and made it clear that he expected her to sit with him. In the nicest way, she hinted that she would not be sitting with him but as usual with her friends. Nevertheless, he stressed his hope she would sit with him at Mass, joking about how to make himself more visible.  Our heroine felt awkward about the whole situation and very sorry she had agreed to lunch. She wrote to me to ask what she should do.

I read her email, thought about it, went to sleep, woke up, read it again and ruled that she had grounds for saying she had double-booked for Sunday and had a prior obligation to her friends. Usually I would never suggest a woman break a date--except for reasons of safety or a family emergency--but in this case, it seemed to me that the longstanding permanent lunch date with friends was necessary to the mental health and flourishing of my hardworking reader. Besides, it was clear she didn't want to have lunch with this man, and only agreed to because she thought she "had" to.

I suggested that she apologize for the double-booking and say what would have been easier at the time, which is that she is too busy right now for new lunch engagements, but was open to having that coffee. And this, I felt, would be generous of her after the awkwardness of his Sunday importunity. The young man's behaviour suggested that he is lonely and desperate, and it is not nice when our fellow Catholics, new to our communities, are lonely and desperate. Naturally we do not want them to take a mile when we offer them an inch--a habit all too common to the socially awkward--but "I was a stranger and you welcomed Me" is something we all want to hear on Judgement Day.

The truth is, a longstanding member of a community--with a group of friends in it, with a weekly lunch date--has a confidence and social clout a newcomer does not have. Under this circumstances, it should be easy to say "Howdy, stranger" to someone new. However, it should also be easy to say, "Whoa. Steady on there. I'm happy to do X, but Y is inconvenient."

There are lots of kinds of Single people, but this story is about two kinds: the Single who grabs onto anyone friendly like he or she is drowning, and the Single who thinks he or she "HAS" to give up cherished time with friends or other beloved activities to "get out there" and "go on a date" if he or she is serious about wanting to be married. And here am I to say "Stop that" to both.

I've wailed dozens of times about all the time I wasted on dates when meanwhile the man I was meant to marry was across the ocean in Scotland.* However, I suppose all those dates helped make me the woman Benedict Ambrose fell in love with, not to mention a good source of dating advice. And one thing I have learned from Single-and-dating-ness is that you shouldn't go to boring parties just "to get out there." Meeting a fellow Catholic for a coffee because he is new and "I was a stranger..." is a good thing to do. But giving up much-loved girl-time to meet a stranger just in case he is the One--nope.

A coffee is just a coffee. Lunch with a stranger is a date. Whereas I think Searching Singles should have lots of coffees--even married Auntie Seraphic goes for coffee with Single pals, male and female--I don't think anyone HAS to go on a date with a stranger. Naturally, you don't HAVE to have that coffee either, although I think you should (unless the guy is a proven animal). First coffee, and if he's a nice Catholic boy you like okay as a friend, two dates before you decide you're just never going to click. (Rarely can you tell on the first date; few people are at their best on the first date.)

Let your coffee be coffee, and your lunch be lunch. If someone asks if you'd like to have coffee, and you say "All right!" and then he tries to change it to lunch/dinner/movie/trip and you feel nonplussed, simply say "No, thank you--too busy. But I wouldn't mind having that coffee." If he argues, he's a drip, and I give you full permission (not that you need it) to say, "I change my mind on that coffee. Clearly you're not the kind of man who respects boundaries."

*To be fair, the older I got, the more fun these dates tended to be, and I certainly ate a lot of very good meals and had a lot of interesting conversations. Credit where credit is due, and in hindsight I was a terrible, disloyal girlfriend before I was 24. In a book, I would have come to a bad end, dying of consumption like Ruby Gillis, but as you can see, I have not.

Assumption Open Post

Well, poppets, I have a fair amount of running around today, so I'll just leave the combox open so you can fuss and complain and discuss any Single issue you like. SINGLE GIRLS ONLY--and today that doesn't include girls with fiancés. The combox is open only to those who lack the stability and confidence inherent in having a nice, committed man in the background.  Thus I invite only Single women to admonish, counsel and comfort the brethren--sisteren?

That said, don't talk harshly about mothers (ANY mothers) because the mothers will be reading anyway. I am not sure why married ladies with children would be reading this blog on Seraphic Singles Saturday, mind you. Surely there are nicer things for them to do, or more pertinent things to read. Naturally it is highly flattering to me that they do, but that's a topic for another time.

A happy Feast of the Assumption to all, and the Separated Sisteren who don't know what that is can read all about it here. Also, a cheery hello to all Poles celebrating Polish Army Day. Congratulations once again on defeating the Soviets during the Miracle of the Vistula in 1920. Finally, a happy birthday to my nephew Pirate. He is now eleven.

Dating is Totally Optional Anyway

I was reading this article, which did not really have great parallels, actually. The author compares what dating was like for her grandmother, who grew up in a loving, intact, middle-class home, to the life of a poor college girl she meets on the plane, whose shattered family is pretty wacky, and whose little brothers languish in foster homes.

The grandmother's dating life (in the 1940s) did not really include "dating" as my mother's generation and mine would have understood it anyway. "Dating" for the grandmother meant being escorted by one boy or another to some social event of friends.  According to Gran, there wasn't physical stuff going on, which you can believe if you like, and very possibly there wasn't, since middle-class American boys had high standards regarding female chastity back then. By definition, most people are conventional, and chastity among young middle-class unmarried girls was conventional in the 1940s. Now it isn't. All you chaste young things are as conventional now as the Bloomsbury Set was in 1910. I won't tell you what Ann Barnhardt calls the modern-day USA, for I am a Canadian, and it would be rude.

Anyway, the unconventional chastity of Catholics and other Christians determined to live to the high standards of the Gospel leads to, or should lead to, a "dating" life similar to that of Theresa Martin's Grandma Alice: lots of social stuff with friends, while turning down wistful half-serious marriage proposals from male friends, and then agreeing to go out (and be taken home) by just one chap, while all your friends gossip about it, and he carries on not proposing for months on end.

The great gatekeeper of chastity is  almost always believed to be the girl, and it is a sad fact few Catholic girls will admit to, but it is often the Nice Catholic Girl who makes the first move in the direction of physicality. The Nice Catholic Boys, if they really are Nice and they really are Catholic, are too nervous and respectful of their dear friend and sweetheart to do such a thing, for she is a NICE CATHOLIC girl, darn it. So no doubt it is a surprise when the NCG, who doesn't understand why he hasn't tried to kiss her, kisses him, etc.  (Of course, this is greatly determined by how unconventionally Catholic he actually is. Don't forget, the conventional Catholic doesn't even go to Mass anymore.)

It's a terribly embarrassing situation, and as awful as it is having to give The Talk, it is even worse to find yourself being given The Talk by some blushing Nice Catholic Boy as if you were a scarlet-taloned nymphomanic or something. It is, in fact, excruciating, not that I know anything about that personally, of course. (Ahem.) There are better ways than lunging at the man to determine whether or not your Nice Catholic Boyfriend is a closeted homosexual.

(Incidentally, dear Nice Catholic Boys, I am sure you are depressed and horrified by the idea than Nice Catholic Girls will worry that you are a closeted homosexual if you do not attempt some gallantry upon the person of a girl you haven't yet decided is the Future Mrs You. I am sorry, but you would be amazed by the number of guys who will lead a girl down the garden path just to "fit in" at their Catholic college, even in 2015. Therefore, if you haven't made a move on the beautiful angel who has dropped into your life by the fourth date, you should say something like "You're almost as beautiful as my confessor is strict." Give the impression that you would be all over your sweetheart like Dracula in a blood bank if your confessor weren't the New Torquemada, and all will be well.)

Anyway, I am all for Single Catholics getting together all the time for fellowship and fun, although I suggest mixing it up by inviting your Single Catholic pals out to your swing-dance night or to see your Little Theatre group perform. It wouldn't hurt for you all to meet other people, or to do something new. I also recommend meeting other Single Catholics in other dioceses, and even abroad, either at events especially for Singles or during events honouring your favourite saints or ways of worship. (Both World Youth Day and the Chartres Pilgrimage feature many like-minded people, although do think twice about wearing skimpy clothing at WYD or your photo will turn up on a sedevacantist website. At the Chartres Pilgrimage, angels appear and drop muumuus over the scantily clad--FACT.)

One big difference between Grandma Alice's generation of American boys and yours is that the American economy was red-hot, thanks to that most profitable war. (The UK was skint.) Also, entertainment wasn't the be-all and end-all of life, so people didn't think their lives were supposed to resemble those of movie stars, singers and sports heros, but vice versa. The average (and therefore conventional) American boy wanted to get a good job, and get married to a pretty girl, and have children.

If he wanted to, he could get a job on the factory floor at 16, and work his way up to foreman. Or he could enlist and work his way up the ranks. Or he could go to college, get a job in an office, and work his way up to the corner office. Marrying a supportive gal was seen, not as a hindrance, but as a big help on the way up somewhere. This whole "Don't get tied down young, boys" nonsense is from the 1950s, not the 1940s.  (Playboy was founded in 1953; a lot of what we blame the 1960s for actually germinated in the 1950s).

However, Catholic boys, if properly catechized, are not going to assume marriage is a big nasty rock around a guy's neck. If you are hanging out with Catholic boys all the time, and they are never asking anyone to marry them, then I suggest that the reason for this is the economy. If, however, they are asking girls all over the place to marry them, and you literally are the ONLY (ONLY) Single girl left in your rapidly dissolving social set, then maybe we can have a specialized chat.

Meanwhile I've been married twice (alas), and neither time did I marry a "boyfriend" with whom I went on "dates". The first guy was my "friend" and, as I wasn't going to "date" a non-Catholic, all those dinners he paid for (poor man), were "just as friends." The second guy was "Aelianus's friend" and "my host", and we didn't go on any "dates" either. He put me up and thought up some good outings for the Canadian guest, and we got engaged before I left.  How fortuitous for us two crazy-in-love people that neither party turned out to be an ax-murderer. Needless to say, since I didn't meet the Perfect Man for Me until I was 37, I wish instead of going on "dates" I had spent my youth solely hanging out with friends. And taking advantage of the New Eastern European Economy, but that is another story.

Dating is not necessary to bring marriage about. That said, I  STRONGLY recommend you really get to know the guy who asks you to marry him before you agree to do so, for you might not be as lucky as me and B.A. The solution is, of course, friendship. Make as many guy friends (acquaintances really, I'm not suggesting you talk to guys as if they were girls) as you can, always behaving in such a way that they will feel chivalrously towards you, instead of dismissive or resentful. The more Single guys who know you, the greater the chance some of them will suspect you are the Perfect Future Mrs Him, and the greater the chance you will meet the Perfect Future Mr You.

When Your Married Relations Squabble

I will never forget the first time I felt on a level of equality with my mother and grandmother. I was 25 or 26, married, and visiting from the city where I lived with my then-husband. He didn't like coming with me because he didn't like my family. Let's not go there. Anyway, I was in the kitchen and my mother and her mother were sniping at each other. It was probably very mild sniping, as my mother was the apple of her mother's eye, but eventually I got sick of it and said, "If you two don't cut it out, I'm going home."

They cut it out.

Holy guacamole. Two of the three primary authority figures in my life had just caved before me. For a very long time I assumed it was part of the magic status that comes along with being a Married Woman. However, I now realize that it really stemmed from being acknowledged by both as an adult. There are other ways to be acknowledged as an adult--setting up your home away from home is one, having a proper 9-5 job is another, handing your mother  rent money because you are over 21 but still living in her house is another.  Adult is as adult does.

That said, your mum and dad and grandmas and grandpas are always your mum, dad, grandmas and grandpas, so they are always going to have one heckuva psychological influence on you, sometimes even after they are dead. Benedict Ambrose's heroic maternal grandmother was so influential in the life of B.A. that although she is on the road to heaven, she is also haunting my kitchen, telling me I am washing dishes the wrong way.

One thing it never occurred to me to do--not in a million zillion years--was intervene between my mother and grandmother. And to give them credit, it never occurred to either of them to ask me to take their side on any dispute. I seem to have grown up under very good, if rather strict, parenting, for I cannot remember a single serious instance of my mother moaning to me about my father, or my father about my mother, or my mother about my grandmother, or my grandmother about either of them. In fact, my grandmother praised my mother to me more, I believe, than she praised my mother in person.

They were the adults; we were the kids. They managed their own relationships without us, and the survivors still do. Surely my parents must quarrel occasionally; B.A. and I fell out last night over the not-so-simple simple syrup I was trying to make. However, I can remember only 2 of their quarrels in all my 40+ years; the last was 24 years ago.

And I am very thankful because I understand from a thousand sad divorce stories that parents pit their children--underage and adult--against each other all the time, and I think this is just horrid behaviour. Presumably parents feel that they would take a bullet for their children--why on earth do they do something so psychologically cruel to them in reality? My only explanation is the whole divorce-process itself. Divorcing people are crazy people.

I went through a divorce myself, and I was pretty crazy. The damage lasted for years. Anyone who runs away from her husband should run to a convent and have the nuns lock the doors. At the time I thought it was just me, but a woman the ex and both I knew was a minister's daughter, and her mother said all divorcing people were crazy: don't get emotionally involved with them.

Fortunately, I didn't drag any innocent children though that awful time, there being no innocent children around to drag. Oh, except my younger brother and sister. I do feel badly about that.  I remember one phone conversation with my 18 year old brother, when I was off my head, and suddenly stopping myself and saying, "Wait. Maybe you're too young to hear all this." "Yeah, " said my 18 year old brother, and I shut up.

As children, you're pretty helpless before your older brothers' and sisters' and parents' and grandparents' relationship disputes, but when you are an adult, you know enough (or should know enough) to refuse to take sides between people with an equal right to your loyalty*, to refuse to be the family counselor, to refuse to put up with craziness. As an adult you have the right (and the responsibility to your sanity to say), "If you don't cut it out, I'm going home."

One of the first things we learned in "Introduction to Ministry" class was that when we encountered a problem we couldn't handle, we refer the person to whom we are "ministering" to an expert. It was a mantra banged into our heads: refer, refer, REFER. It was also mentioned, by the by, that it is usually not ideal to "minister" to our own family members. Well, my goodness, if an actual priest isn't supposed to minister to his own family members--hearing their confessions (except in dire emergency), counselling them, etc.--imagine how unqualified you and I are to do so!

When I was a teenager, teenagers with alcoholic parents were refered to an AA offshoot called, if I recall correctly, "Alateen". (I read about it in Seventeen magazine.) This was probably to stop them from becoming victims of co-dependence, the overwhelming impulse to help the out-of-control parent who refuses to help him- or herself. There should be one for children whose parents are divorcing and so out-of-control as to enlist them in a war against their own mother or own father. This, to me, is psychological child abuse, and it remains so even when the children are grown up.

Married people squabble. Of course they do. And there are happy married couples who squabble and there are unhappy married couples who squabble. But here's a freaky thing: the unhappy married couples are no less married because they are unhappy. You know that line in movies when two agonized lovers say to each other, "This thing [our relationship] is bigger than both of us" ? It's true. I have seen two absolutely dysfunctional people (who, come to think of it, weren't even married) who were completely stuck to each other (and the bottle), and their relationship was an erotic war in which "secondary partners" were pawns and fodder. Their romance looked like a life-sentence, and when I last saw the female half, I barely recognized her--she looked so old and crazy.

Blah. Shudder. So what I am saying is that as sad it is when your parents or grandparents or married brothers and sisters are having marital disputes, not only should you keep out of them--save to give shelter to whoever needs shelter and to REFER your parent, grandparent or sibling to Catholic Family Services--you should refuse to be sucked in.  REFUSE. Say, "I can do this, but I can't hear that. It is too much for me. Here's the phone number for Catholic Family Services/a counsellor I know."

On airplanes you will notice that the travelling parent is always supposed to put on his/her own  oxygen mask on (should it drop from above) before putting one on his/her child. This is because an adult cannot help the child if she/he has passed out, and the child certainly can't help her/him. Well, although as an adult you can give your parents money, shelter, etc., etc., you are still their child. You can NOT solve their emotional problems, and if they crazily try to make you try, you must draw the line. "Cut it out, or I'm going home." Otherwise, you will be trying to put an oxygen mask on your parent(s) while you are passing out yourself.


*Naturally it's different in the case of siblings, for your loyalty is usually going to be with your blood sibling. However, the last thing you want to do is somehow exacerbate tension between your sibling and his/her spouse, or create a war between you and the spouse. So if you do listen to squabble stuff, remind yourself that's only half the story, and forget everything you have heard--unless it is a clear case of abuse, in which case, offer shelter and REFER.

New Depths in the Dating World

ITEM: "This Woman Had The Best Answer When A Tinder Date Said She Was Too Fat To Love"

Yikes. First of all, he didn't say she was too fat to love. He said she was too fat to turn him on.

Okay, so this post is most definitely not safe for little brothers, if they know how to read.  Don't click if you don't want to know how the average non-religious sexually-active Single Guy in the UK might think. Remember my mantra: we can find out what guys think, but we won't always like it.

If I had received that email from a date I would have been mortified, although not because the chap just wasn't into me, but because he assumed I assumed we would be sleeping together. I would also be horrified by his frank biological description of why that wouldn't work. Can I imagine a man saying things like that to a woman out loud? To be honest, no.

Prudence is the first casualty of instant-messaging.

As horrified as I am by the man's confession, I am equally horrified by the spectacle of the woman responding to it--and as publicly as she can. Her reply is toe-curlingly ghastly, as is the "You Go Girl" encouragement of The Independent. I cannot overlook the fact that she told him that her friends offered to do him physical harm, or that commentators hoped someone would sexually mutilate him.

Boiled down, what the chap said was, "I'm into skinny girls. You'd make a great pal, but that's not what Tinder is about, is it? It's about sex, and sex just isn't going to happen because I'm all about the skinny. I want to be a Sensitive Man of the 21st Century, but not as much as I want to bag a skinny babe. Sorry."

Boiled down, what the woman said was, "How DARE you call me FAT?! I've been working on it you know, and you have hurt me so much, I have cried before my next date and my weight-loss group, and for your information I have lost 15 pounds and have only 20 to go. I shared your private message with my friends, some of whom now want to assault you. And I'm making this message public because I know you have a daughter, whom as as fellow woman I am sure I care about more than you do, you pig. Clearly you have a problem with strong confident women like me.  P.S. You're short."

The part about confidence is the saddest, for a strong, confident woman would actually have written;

"Thank you for your message. I agree that we are not compatible. Sincerely, Michelle."

My dear little Singles, I hope and pray you never get a such a stupid, soul-searching message from a man to justify his never asking you out again. But if you do, I hope and pray you write nothing in return but "Thank you for your message. I agree that we are not compatible. Sincerely, [You]."  It's called dignity.

[Dear little Boy Singles, if you feel called upon to write a rejection letter, "Dear [Her], You're an admirable woman, but I don't feel a spark. Sincerely, [You], is all  you really need or should say unless she hit you or something. In that case, you could write, "Dear [Her], Because of your behaviour last night, I will not be contacting you again. Please do not contact me. Sincerely, [You]."

And, yes, for the record, I have written incredibly stupid and undignified emails myself.* I regret them all, and when the hard-drives of the world are erased, I will dance for joy amid the rubble of civilization, for I will know that those emails are gone. Do as Auntie says, but not as Auntie does, as Our Lord said to do re: the Pharisees.

Also, I recommend staying off Tinder, and if you must attempt internet dating, confine yourselves to meeting those LOCAL men who use your-niche (e.g. Catholic) dating sites.


*Although never as stupid and undignified as the letter I got from a feminist author whose book I panned. I shall leave instructions for it to be read at my wake, so my survivors can  have some comic relief.

Auntie Seraphic & the Anxious Eater

[Dear Auntie Seraphic]:

I have been reading your post on single life and why a person might still be single, when everyone around her is marrying. I struggle with my weight very badly and I know that this is why I don't want to put myself in the running and also why men seem to look through me if you know what I mean. They are friendly to me but no attraction which I understand, I am not fat or chubby I am very overweight. 

Can you do a post on this but not post my email please and also explain why, is it just fertile signals, that it is so disgusting to men, for example would your husband have married you do you think, if you were fat but still everything else you? Maybe understanding another's point of view how they see it that will help me understand what I am doing to myself and kickstart me into stopping overeating. 

Do you know why some people eat their anxiety and other don't, why some obsess about it and eat badly even if they know what they should eat? I had a good childhood so I don't know why I do this but I want to stop so I can be happy and then maybe if God wills it meet a nice man, my email is more about a happy single life than a happy love life. I would have no respect for a man who wanted me looking like this by the way, if I can see how wrong it is, how can he not? I am not looking for a chubby chaser I just want to be free and I am hoping for some tough love on this as I know that it is stopping me from a lot, I feel in chains.
 
Romans 7 15

Dear [Romans 7:15]

Oh dear. I am so sorry. That sounds like such a cross: not just the weight, but the anxiety that leads you to overeat.  

My instinct is that most men are attracted to women who look young and healthy. Women who have suffered for some time with eating disorders do not look young and healthy, from anorexics to the morbidly obese. I remember a woman in my university's athletic center. She seemed to be addicted to the Stairmaster, and she was so bone-thin, and with such thin hair and staring eyes, that she looked like Gollum. 

Now, clearly that woman needed psychiatric help,  I am a big, big fan of professional psychiatric help. I was in therapy for almost five years myself, and now I manage a mood disorder with anti-depressants. Eating disorders and any other mental or emotional disorder seems to me on the same moral level as cancer or any other physical illness. Very rarely is anyone blamed for being ill. However, it is the responsibility of the sick person to get medical help.

My advice is that you make an appointment at once with a medical doctor. Explain to the doctor your beliefs as to why you overeat. Ask for his/her recommendation for a counsellor who can help you to deal with anxiety without overeating. (Being reprogrammed to scrub the bathtub instead would be quite a blessing!)

The big issue here is not whether or not men find you attractive. The big issue here is freeing yourself from the chains and, indeed, saving yourself from long-term damage to your physical health and, indeed, an early death. Once you have sought medical help, for body and mind, then you can think about other people and romantic relationships. But for now I strongly recommend that you seek medical help.

If that is too big a step for any reason, look online or in the phone book for Catholic or other Christian counsellors and contact one. Back home, I would recommend "Catholic Family Services". 

Grace and peace,

Seraphic

***

I am not absolutely sure from this letter how overweight my reader is. However, as she mentioned "chubby chasers"--men who are sexually attracted to obese women--I assumed she is dangerously overweight. Maintaining a healthy weight is very important for long-term health; whether men find you attractive or not is quite besides the point. 

As for tough love, I don't think anyone with a physical or mental illness or disability needs "tough love." They need loving, professional care. 

Meanwhile, the women in Britain are the fattest in Europe. Eating habits here are simply terrible, and overweight women are so much a part of life that they can be television stars, romantic leads, you name it. Edinburgh is full of overweight women and their correspondingly overweight or contrastingly skinny boyfriends. Being overweight does not immediately excommunicate you from male society. Being terribly unhappy, on the other hand.....

One of the big shocks for women who lose a significant amount of weight is that this does not solve all their problems. When I was 115 pounds and incredibly fit--ah, those were the days--I walked, scowling, one day through a blue collar neighbourhood and heard, "Great body. Too bad about the face." I was sooooo mad, I still remember it 16 years later. It only occurs to me now that I wearing my "If anyone talks to me, I will knock them flat" expression.  I was thin (and strong as wire), but was I happy and confident? No. 

Men are sexually attracted to all kinds of women, and this is not necessarily connected with their emotions. However, men get crushes on happy women. Men fall in love with happy women. They will stick with their women when those women are sad (unless those men are jerks or the women are abusive), but I am confident that what men most admire in women is happiness.

Update: I see that I didn't answer the hard question. Well, I do think B.A. would have fallen in love with me if I were overweight. I don't think he would have fallen in love with me if I were miserable. And I don't think he would have fallen in love with me if I were obese because obesity--a serious health problem--is much more likely to elicit pity and horror than admiration. I would have fallen in love with B.A. if he had been overweight, and I married B.A. even though he was underweight, but I don't think I would have fallen in love with B.A. if he had been obese. Portly is one thing, but obese is another. 

Rare Jewels

It's Seraphic Singles Saturday, and I am reflecting on an email I got from a reader who went on a first date with a convert, which seemed to go very well, and then his perhaps over-the-top enthusiasm suddenly melted into a puddle of silence.

My Nice Catholic Girl reader wondered what she did wrong, for this was (my version) a Nice Catholic Boy in his thirties, and they are rare in her neck of the woods, etc, etc.

My first thought was that this supposed Nice Catholic Boy was a jerk for coming on so strong and then losing all interest, behaving more like a kid of my generation who was crazy for Space Invaders until PacMan came along than like a polite adult man whose life presumably revolves around God.

My next thought was that, though NCB are indeed probably rare in her neck of the woods, so are NCGs. If NCBs are so precious and desirable to NCGs, then surely NCGs must be precious and desirable to NCBs, too.

Now I shall ponder Benedict Ambrose, which I often do, being married to him, and the fact that he was still Single at 36, which was surely a miracle. There was dear old B.A., cheerful, intelligent, well-educated, witty, attractive to women and also, one must add, attracted TO women, and yet he was still not married when I came along, and WHY?

I'll tell you why. It was because there were no Nice Catholic Women in their thirties around. The only Scottish one he knew became a nun. When I came buzzing by Edinburgh on holiday, I had a sad sense that B.A. would make some nice super-trad, Latin Mass going girl a great husband. Little did I know it would be some years before such a girl stumbled upon B.A.'s Latin Mass community.

Meanwhile B.A., meeting a woman who actually thought his interest in Catholicism was an amazing feature instead of a bug, acted decisively, so here I am in a Scottish attic instead of having brunch in Toronto where I belong, help, help! I had been to a Trad Latin Mass only once in my life before I met B.A., and I had found it extremely confusing and dull. However, I was open to looking at it again, and I thought B.A. was super-cool, and I have red hair like all his principal crush objects, so here I am.

In Toronto, where there is a large and vibrant Catholic community, there are a lot of NCGs and NCBs. A lot. In Edinburgh, where there isn't, not so many. And therefore, I recommend to NCGs from big Catholic communities to go out of their way to meet NCBs from smaller communities because they might not be feeling so spoiled for choice.

When I think of the vast cultural divide between devoutly Catholic men and non-Catholic women in general, I really have to wonder why, after an eye-opening foray into The World Out There, devoutly Catholic men do not throw themselves at the feet of the nearest, good-natured, reasonably good-looking (to them), devoutly Catholic woman and propose marriage. And when I say, devoutly, I mean, obedient to the precepts of Humanae Vitae. I mean, if so many not-so-devout Catholic couples use artificial birth control, just imagine the likelihood of a non-Catholic woman throwing her Pills away, let alone accepting the Speech with good grace.

This reminds me of an anecdote from my undergrad days. A guy I knew from my Catholic college walked a girl from another college home after a college club meeting, and she was initially delighted because she fancied him. She invited him in, but with some reluctance he said he couldn't, and off he went to his own bed in his own dorm, five doors down from Father Whatsit. The girl consulted me as a mutual friend. Was he gay? she wondered.

"No. It was probably because he's Catholic," I said.

"Huh?!" said the girl and, you know, it's too depressing to continue. That was around 1992.  Now somewhere someone is probably writing a homily about how cruel it is for Catholic men not to go to bed with lustful non-Catholic women, and how we must accept such lustfulness as a Sign of the Times and the mutual mingling of flesh as a form of interreligious dialogue, etc.

So as rare and precious as Nice Catholic Boys might seem---and, incidentally there's more to "Nice" than not just demanding premarital sex as a "normal part of an adult relationship"--I posit that Nice Catholic Girls of the same area are just as rare and precious. You shouldn't put up with nonsense from any man, and you shouldn't feel sorrowful and self-doubting when a supposed Nice Catholic Boy stops texting. His loss, my little sugarplum!

A NOTE: If you are interested in someone in your community, it is best not to tell people in that community, in case you later have second thoughts. If you tell Mary Kate's or John Paul's pals that you really fancy Mary Kate or John Paul, then you can bet your last penny that Mary Kate's/John Paul's pals will tell him/her. They will also tell other people, and this will create an environment of pleased expectation which may be very embarrassing to Mary Kate/John Paul, particularly if she/he indicates that she/he welcomes your regard and you drop him/her flat. What kind of self-absorbed, insensitive, unstable weirdo are you, your community might think. Shame, shame, shame.