Just one step at a time

Saw Sex and the City tonight. Really enjoyed it, actually. And there were some really deep bits during it, as well as the sex, the shopping, the shoes and the laughs!

Read more »

According to Available Light, you can’t.

If you read his post, apparently he told a group of unmarried women who were living with partners that they should have no expectations of faithfulness over their partners because they were unmarried. In his own words:

“Years ago, in a graduate class discussion about adultery, I offended several young women by pointing out that it was impossible for their live-in boyfriends to cheat on them. Only married people can commit adultery, I said. It seemed to me that if they wanted to live together without being married, they should not expect their men to keep to a standard of marital fidelity.”

Oh come on! That’s so overly-simplistic. And completely arrogant Christian. As well as outrageous!

So is he saying, and I asked this in a comment, that the unmarried, but not living together, person, who hopes (as most of us do) that the relationships might move towards marriage, should not be hurt if their partner sleeps with/kisses/gets intimate in someway, with someone else? What happened to trust?

By implication (and maybe in my outrage I’ve mis-extrapolated this) he is saying that until we are married (and perhaps only until we’re married in church) we should have no expectations of fidelity from the other party, no demands of exclusivity of intimacy.

Bollock! Total and utter crap! Not quite the context (but Jesus never had this conversation), but I think it applies well here:

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Matthew 25:21 NIV

If we can’t be faithful in the smaller things - and even though I’ve never been married, I can see that a relationship prior to marriage is in someways smaller than a married one - then how can we expect to be faithful in the larger things (touché, I know, but one of the points I tried to make last year, if you’ve been following me that long), i.e. marriage, which has more pressures.

And if we’re strictly ‘Bible is the actual word of God’ Christians, then those women who were living with and having a sexual relationship with their partners, in God’s eyes are married. Though it’s always funny how some Christians can beat you with one stick and ignore the other: i.e., if the Bible is ‘law’, then everyone must be married, whilst ignoring that the Bible equates a committed sexual relationship with marriage.

But then that might make things far to tricky and radical!

What do I want in a man? I’ve been thinking about this over the last few days. Do I really know?

Thinking about Church Boy (CB). What is it about him that I like? Now I’ve got past the obsession, what about him attracts me. Or is it just because we’re comfortable friends and can pretty much talk about anything?

But I (slightly squiffily) told him a few weeks ago that he’d spoiled all other guys for me. So I need to try to narrow it down. Just to get it a bit clearer in my head. What is it?

He’s strong in his faith So many of my friends have compromised, are with guys who either don’t believer or nominally believe, and I’ve seen how it changes their beliefs, changes their priorities, keeps them away from church, from fellowship, from community.

He’s musical Shallow, I know, but he plays a mean guitar, drums like a dream and has a voice I could melt away to! But… I love music, so that’s a good thing. Though he works in music, which means irregular working.

He’s intelligent I don’t mean he’s an intellectual boffin, but he likes to learn and likes to talk about it.

He’s honest Tells it like it is. Doesn’t play games.

He’s a good listener He likes to talk, but he’ll also listen.

He’s encouraging If I can ever pin him down for that long-promised guitar lesson!

It’s not all about him He knows life is bigger than just him, and when he’s committed to something/someone, gives his all. He’s given a lot to the church over the last year, and it’s cost him. Big time.

He’s funny I don’t always get his humour, and I sometimes think he can be childish (what man can’t?), but he’s funny. And can see the black humour in things, which sometimes is needed.

I can’t think of anything else concrete. I think a lot of it is because we know each other so well, we’ve been through a lot (church-wise) together and have seen the best - and worst - of one another.

It’s just a real shame he doesn’t like me in that way. Ah well. There must be something better to come. Whatever shape or form - or not - that comes in.

Open book

I’m an open book,
with a technicolour cover
that tells it all.
No mystery,
no intrigue,
nothing to catch a reader’s eye,
nothing to make them want
to find out more
about the story inside.
[Sleeping Daisy]

I think I share too much. More than I should. It’s not just about me - when I talk about how I feel, I’m talking about someone else too. There’s another involved. And it’s all very well sharing with the anonymity of blogging. But offline…

“If one partner doesn’t know whether they can trust the other, they will not share certain things. And these may be the kinds of things that if there were trust, would bring them together.

Is this between you and me,

or you, me, and your friends?

Because that is going to change how much I tell you,

how much I let you in,

how much I trust you with,

how much I give to you.

How naked I get with you.

Is this argument between you and me,

or between you and me and whoever you are going to tell about it?

Is this quirky habit of mine something I let you see because I know you love me no matter what, or is this something you will entertain our friends with at a party?

How safe are you?”

Sex God, Rob Bell

I’m not sure I’m very safe.

I need to work on that, as it won’t do me any favours in the long run. And has the potential to cost me dearly.

But as a processor, how do I work through my problems without sharing?

I’m a commitment phobe.

Cartoon courtesy of cartoonstock.

I’m struck again, today, about the whole comfort of not having to be vulnerable with someone. Marine Boy (MB) is back with us again. He’s a friend of one of my housemates, and lived with us for a couple of months last year, and turns up whenever they chuck him out of barracks. And I can be myself around him. And that comfort of the fact that we get on despite the fact I’m a total nut job makes him more attractive.

Where as with the guy from work (CC), it’s still, to an extent, painfully awkward for me.

But also with CC, there’s that wondering about, wanting there to be something more, whereas with MB, we’re friends and just hang out in front of the DVD player, steal each others food and I still his T-shirts! (OK, so I walked into his room to watch his training video he’s sending his Mum, took one look at his Marines T-shirt and went “I want your T-shirt”, so he took it off there and then and gave it to me! Well, the ladies do love a man in uniform!)

Darn it, why’s it all so complicated?

I had a large bottle of Magners cider last night. That’s pretty much all it takes (after only a bowl of soup) to get me to the stage where I can ask Church Boy if there would ever have been a chance if I’d not messed things up so early on. Oh, and by the way, I still love him to bits, would not say no if he asked, but know he’s not going to ask, so am trying to move on. And really value his friendship.

Now I wasn’t drunk, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to tell him that when sober. He took it well. He is actually a really good friend. I think he may have spoiled other guys for me for a while, but he may not have. I need to hang on to the friendship and affection: I have stopped trying to make it something it isn’t. Now need to deal with the remnants of hoping.

I hate the way as soon as I get a sniff of a guy who might be of interest I turn into a complete nut job.

I hate the vulnerability of it. You’re putting  yourself out there, letting someone judge you and deem you acceptable. Or not.

I know it’s more about them and not about me. I know their rejection is not a rejection of me as a person, does not mean I am a bad person. But it hurts.

And I’m not even at that stage yet.

Yet…

I hate the not knowing. It’s so painful.

I hate the trying to figure it out, trying to read signals. Trying to decipher ‘man speak’. Did he mean what he said, or did he mean something else.

Trying to put out signals. Like playing semaphore with the blind.

I h ate the feeling of total nakedness, when you’re ‘just saying hi’, yet you’re saying so much more. And the heat of a blush keeps you off kilter for hours after. You feel naked. Exposed. Almost humiliated inside. You want to say so much more, but you don’t even know if they like you.

And then you bump into them in the street on the way home from the pub after work. And you wonder if that means something too.

“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man must go there to find it.”

I read this quote today. And it makes me think, it’s hard enough to find a man, let alone find one who’s going to go to that much trouble.

But today I’m cold, tired and cynical, so I’ll just ignore my thinking until I’ve had some sleep.

Well, not quite. I had a text from the Turkish barman, who I pulled back in November, who then stopped contacting me because he was going to go back to Turkey and didn’t want to get involved and then have to leave, who then texted New Year’s Eve (whilst I was in bed with concussion) to say he wished I was with him  (make your mind up!)… Anyway, he’s going back to Turkey on Sunday and wanted to say Bye!

So he did. And I did. And a little part of me pined - well, he was VERY pretty! A bit too pretty, to be honest. Ah well. Another one bites the dust.