Extra-intra-personal

I've been reading bits and pieces of a book called "Self Made Man" that I borrowed from my awesome roommate. It's about a female who cross-dresses as a male and so lives as a part of the "male" world for awhile, in order to get an idea of what things are like inside the male psyche. Of course, dressing and talking like a man didn't automatically convert her to a male with male thoughts, attitudes, etc. but it turns out that passing for a man meant that she got treated as males do, and so she gained a number of insights into at least the societal (and social) expectations placed on guys, as well as how guys act around their "buddies", how they act at work with "one of their own", etc.

She makes a couple of comments in her chapters about sex and romance that really stuck with me. Her sex chapter is mostly about her experience at strip clubs - dingy places with jaded men and burned out women. She talks a lot about the emotional void that both sexes involved there tend to carry about. In a lot of ways, it was actually comforting to read - I've always felt extremely threatened by the sex industry. I have no way to compete with those leggy, chesty, airbrush-makeup "beauties" but I don't feel like I want to anymore. To compete with them is to emulate it, and ... I don't want to be that, regardless of how it feels to be watching a movie with a boyfriend and notice him oogling the tits on screen.

She talks about men having some sort of inner "bestial urge" that drives them to those places, but I'm also confident that some men actually succeed in owning that urge and channeling it into a more substantial sort of relationship. (I would know. I've dated at least one guy who succeeded at that, and know a handful of others who tend to live that way...)

The other interesting point she makes is about the expectations that the different genders place on each other. She went on a number of dates with other girls (as a guy) and notes that she felt like she had to "prove" herself to them, even the ones who weren't exactly catches themselves. Apparently it's pretty common for girls to expect a guy to be their "emotional crutch" and to be different than that "uncaring jerk of an ex" (probably one in a long line of uncaring, unfriendly jerks....) My guess is that relationships like that fall apart so much from the tensions created when those overblown expectations fail, and by the resentment they cause on both sides when each person is trying to deal with their needs and their ability to give to the other person, respectively.

I'm not putting all the blame on women. Certainly one can generalize similarly about men and the physical demands they can place on girls, as well as the way that some men truly ARE insenstive and can play a pretty big "life wreker" role all by themselves.

So, I think that both extremes can be moderated a bit, and one ends up at the crossroads of most "typical" relationships, with the discrepancies in needs (or at least communication) described as the "seed of discontent" sown between man and women. Which is interesting, because the homily at Mass last Sunday was about this "seed of discontent" (SOD henceforth) and the best ways to handle it.

The Church traces this SOD back to the creation story, when Adam and Eve fell into disgrace with God because of Eve tempting Adam (and the devil tempting Eve, etc...) So, from the very beginning there has been this tension between men and women, and it originally came from men and women giving into their own selfish desires - note that I said selfish desires, and not "true and actual needs." So, (and even if one wants to treat the Bible as allegory) relationships are automatically packaged with the SOD ready and waiting to take root and blossom - but - there is salvation! (Both in the religious and in the relationship sense.)

In the Biblical sense, salvation comes through Christ, and is characterized by his giving. Through his gift, mankind finds freedom from sin and despair within the ultimate sacrafice. Relationships, at least in the Catholic perspective, are intended to mirror this sort of giving. Within giving, one finds freemdom from all those funny societal expectations and the glorified drama that one generally finds in relationships, and instead focuses on creating a true partnership with another. It's like groupwork in class - you both have a vested interest in the outcome, and you want to only work with people who are going to complement your skills (opposites attract!), and the project is going to fail if one person expects the other to focus both on the project and on things external to that ("Hey, write my MATLAB for me so I can paint my nails" Or "Hey, write my section of the final paper so I can watch the game.")

I guess what I'm saying is that healthy relationships seem to have at least two major prerequisites. The first is a confident, healthy attitude toward one's self, so that one doesn't end up imposing conditions or unfair expectations on the relationship. (This is kind of like...Christ didn't say "I'll die for you but only if you promise to love me forever." Instead, it was something like "I know that I am God and Man, and so I will die for you becuase I love you, and my death can save you. I will always be here for when you choose to love me.") The other prerequisite (which has the former as its own prereq, I think...) is, of course, giving. Giving is what follows from being as complete a person as one can be, and it is only through giving and believing that a relationship changes from an emotional association of two people into a truly productive union.

Um. Right.

*Steps off soapbox, dusts it off, picks it up, and walks away*