Weddings, dags, HP lists, relationshisp & psych students

[Tabouli]

Amy Z:
> It depends on the religious tradition.  I officiate at loads of 
weddings; do you want me to send you the whole packet I give to couples?<

Oooo, do we have a wedding celebrant in our midst? Tell all!  Do you officiate only at weddings of a particular religious persuasion, or do you do the whole gamut from eccentric personalised rituals involving feather boas to sweeping Hindu ceremonies with all traditional trimmings?

Joanne (on Mags from A-ha):
> I have to blushingly admit that that's what I liked about him. I was 
such a dag, I always liked the people who came off as cool, and irritating to some people. 

Dag, did I hear you say?  A-ha!  (ha ha)  Do I detect a fellow Australian, or has the word "dag" spread to other shores?


Ebony:
> I am feeling really very blue this Saturday evening, and no one seems 
to be around, so I think I'll post something I've been meaning to for days!

> I'd never experienced the depth of acceptance, of genuine 
concern, and of concern that I've found here from anything that had 
its origins online.  For the most part, HP4GU and satellites are safe 
places... and I've learned so much about everyday life in the rest of 
the world from being here.  And about everyday people.  :-D<

Eb, Eb, Eb, gloom not on Saturday evenings, the HP community treasures you as much as you do them.  Let me second your comments: what fine people HP does attract!  Now that I'm single and not off to work every day, I probably communicate more on the HP lists that I do with any specific corporeal person in my life (who are all working full-time and require ringing up and organising get-togethers and so on).  Sure, I now have enough time and energy and friends on my hands to meet up with RL friends every night if I wanted, but I grew up with one foot in the fictional world with those penfriends of mine (both feet, some of the time), and part of me seems to crave and enjoy it.  Quite apart from meeting many worthy people, it also fits in beautifully with my current erratic lifestyle - I can write to the lists whenever I feel like it, and all these analytical waffles of mine are great in helping me explore ideas and concepts for both my writing *and* my cross-cultural training.  I even get intelligent feedback on them!  Writing posts is also great way to warm up my writing muscles...

Some would be aghast, and tell me to get a life (i.e. one that includes more going to pubs and getting drunk, which seems to be what the phrase means in Australia), but my current life suits me very well.  While I was still working I was among people all day, had much more money, socialised more and usually rang a friend or two every night, but I often felt lonely, tired and unfulfilled because my life Wasn't What I Wanted, and I knew it.  Now my hapless friends have started ringing me regularly, especially when they're depressed, because I'm so cheerful and have so much time for people these days!  A fine thing.  I feel like a living advertisement for 'don't dream it, do it', after wallowing in woe for most of 2000.


David:
> Thinking about it, it might be fair to describe me as intellectually confident and socially insecure 
(what does it mean to be personally insecure?).<

Not an uncommon combination!  As for personally insecure (my term, not an official one!), it's related to, but not quite the same as socially insecure.  Insecure about what sort of person you are.  You can worry about how you come across to others while still deep down believing that you're a fundamentally good person (just having difficulty in conveying this).  Being personally secure is a very good thing, and something I'd like to cultivate.

More David:
>> My secret was very simple - they were intellectual men, who greatly 
appreciated a woman who was young and perky, seemingly confident, and 
an enthusiastic participant in intellectual discussions<<
> Go Tabouli!  I'm sure you can do it again.

Ah, the kind and complimentary David!  Such faith!  Though my problem isn't really that I don't attract appreciative men.  At risk of sounding obscenely conceited, I still do.  It's more that I don't attract the sort of man I would like to attract.  Of course, I often wonder if the sort of man I would like to attract actually exists (or at least, exists in the single, straight, interested in me and within a reasonable age bracket department), but I suppose there only has to be one.  Too fussy, I hear you say?  This is the mantra which has hounded me from the beginning of my relationship career.  I used to heed it.  I told myself, don't be so unrealistic, he's perfectly pleasant, just give it a try, maybe it'll grow into something more.

The result?  A string of unfulfilling, lacklustre relationships where I've been totally lukewarm and from which I've had to extricate myself, hurting the men concerned and causing me deep guilt (see personally insecure).  I'm deeply romantic at heart, and playing the girlfriend to men I really didn't feel strongly about felt shallow and deceitful.  The only two I had compelling feelings for were my fictional boy (the English penfriend, later to be known as Awful Man One) and my last venture, the disreputable Scottish musician, who was *so* dubious in every MMI and practical category mentionable that the genuine connection had to be my motivation!  (what's with these British men, eh David?)  Ended disastrously in March, of course.  After this last venture, where I got some taste of a relationship where there's some genuine connection there, my mind is made up.  No connection, no relationship.  If necessary, I die single.  I'd be insulted if someone was pursuing a relationship with *me* in such a lukewarm, "it's not that I want *you*, it's that I want a relationship/I'm scared of being left On The Shelf and Dying Alone' fashion (dying alone indeed.  A marriage of convenience is hardly insurance against this.  What people mean is spending middle age alone, pitied and childless).  Why do it to someone else?

I have of course espied the odd man along the way who I'd reckon to be much more my style, but are they ever (a) single, (b) straight, and (c) interested in me?  Ha!  I once wrote a tongue-in-cheek country/western song about this stuff called "Too Perfect to be Single", which included the lines "There's always something wrong or you don't want him anyway/ And even if he's perfect, he'll be taken, dead or gay", which I once performed in a rather lame attempt at a Southern drawl.... (Vivien Leigh, eat yo' heart out!)

David:
> >One of the men actually told me that the reason why men felt 
comfortable discussing anything with me (including their musings on 
women) was because they didn't really see me as a woman (?) because I 
had such a "masculine" personality.<
>
>Now if ever I heard a comment from a man needing to be treated to 
exactly the same analysis of manipulativeness and indirection, that 
is it.  Come on, matey, what's your real agenda?<

Dunno.  Didn't even think about this at the time, though I was fascinated and cross-examined him extensively.  What would you guess his agenda was?  Yes, he meant it as a compliment (!), yes, he was one of my unprecedentedly numerous admirers at the time, but not an overly persistent or devoted one.  If I thought of a motive at all,  I would just have said he was just being a psychology student trying to come up with a theory to explain the rather extreme social dynamics going on in the class (the other women were slashing my photo on the wall - it was frightening).  It *was* an Honours Psychology class!  I recall analysing this comment afterwards with one of my very few female friends from the class, and the people we were with snorted gleefully and shook their heads.  What?  we asked.  *Only* psychology students could have a half hour conversation about something like that! they laughed.

(for those unfamiliar with the system, Australian undergraduate Arts degrees take three years, and for those who want to specialise in a particular subject, you compete for limited places in an extra "Honours" year, which is hideously gruelling and competitive because Psychology is very popular and you need at least a IIA (B+) to be eligible for good postgraduate courses, and a first (A) plus good undergrad results to have a chance at getting a PhD scholarship).

Tabouli.


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