I found all of this fairly captivating, however the one aspect of tonights discussion I am still thinking about, is something more troubling. He also said that when we think of someone we want to marry we should look into our psyche and attempt to determine why we want to marry them. Attempt to investigate if there is some perverted reason perhaps from childhood that leads us to desire this particular person. For example, there was a time when black men were not allowed to even make eye contact with white women, they could be convicted of rape for doing this and so the theory goes that this is why black men desire white women, because they couldn’t be with them historically. Anyways, try applying this to yourself and perhaps if you have ever thought of someone you could or would marry, if there is some reason leading you to do so, that you may not have realized.

The other thing that made me think about religion was the travesty that was the film version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. It is two hours long, I took this as a warning sign, but since the book is one of my favourites I felt compelled to watch the film anyway. If the story wasn’t interrupted so often with the dead protagonist and her new life “in the inbetween”, it could have been a decent movie. Unfortunately this was no different than many film-adaptations of novels, the story was butchered. It was turned into this Disney-esque movie with religious undertones of which I am certainly opposed to. The whole notion of this magical place composed of all the beautiful parts of the world is simply absurd. I imagine it was the directors version of heaven or some similar concept. As a believer that the dead slowly rot in the ground, the notion of this mystical “inbetween” did not sit well with me. I understand that many will dispute my hypothesis about the dead, but neither of us can prove the truth of either suspicion. Either way, it was not necessary for the film to take on this tone.

It also so happened that my roommate showed me a clip from the Tyra Banks show of a extremely Christian mother and her two daughters. The mother began by stating that God is who sends tsunamis and also was responsible for knocking down the twin towers, but quickly moved onto talking about typical super Christian shit like a hate of gays or fags as they put it. “God hates fags and fag enablers,” she says. Her daughter then said Tyra is a fag enabler because she has influence over her fans and doesn’t teach them Gods standard, she teaches them her own standard and says it’s okay to be gay. She was referring to America’s Next Top Model, and admitted to watching a marathon of it, even though it’s a fag enabling show. I feel bad for these girls, they were brought up in a family that preached these types of messages so strictly. It is all they know, but how can they not question it. How can they blindly accept such insanity? Didn’t God give them brains?

The truth is people are weak. They are not often independent. They need something, someone to follow. They seek a guide. This can come in many forms, one of which is of course religion. I don’t have a problem with people believing in something as long as they aren’t blindly following it. Every religion has its weaknesses and it is important to recognise these. These ancient traditions are often out dated and altering them to suit the current state of the world would not do harm. There are some who are so bound by religion that it consumes their lives. Everything they do is dictated by this religion. There has to be something wrong with this.

I can’t think of a safer way to satisfy the biological urge to fornicate for all the single people out there. I expect some will say well what about a fuck buddy or friend with benefits, but I have considered this. No matter what anyone says, that sort of arrangement is never completely without strings. Seeing the same person regularly gets too close to a real relationship and even at times becomes virtually undistinguishable in an uncomfortable sort of inbetween. Through my theory the two people would have no previous history and the number of interactions could be as little as one, with no consequence for leaving it that way and trying out someone new the next time.

There could even be a physical location, much like a gym with rooms provided and supplies to use. Frankly, I can’t believe this doesn’t already exist, but I suppose you could argue swingers clubs are similar. My idea however is more commercial and more accessible.

I like to think I’m not alone in that my biggest fear is not getting married and ending up a lonely old woman with a house full of cats. I wonder though, would it be worse to be middle-aged and single or to be married but unhappily? I guess divorce is always an option, and an increasingly popular one at that, but that just leads to more complications, custody battles and before you know it you’re back to square one. Middle-aged and single, but also divorced and perhaps with kids, split custody and child support payments.

Given the choice to marry someone perhaps not for love but out of a desire not to be alone or its antithesis: being alone, I cannot say what I would choose. Living alone is not something I could see myself enjoying, but then again I am a misanthrope and well that is an entirely different issue, the point being I do not like many people so in order to live with someone else I would probably have to like them. A lot. There aren’t many options for the single and middle aged, I personally haven’t heard of many people simply moving in with friends past their 30′s. I supposed if two close friends found themselves approaching middle age and unmarried, living together could be a fine option. Again, I have yet to hear of anyone doing this. I suppose I have ten years to figure this out, and until then, well it’s probably best not to worry about it, TOO much.

My point is that thinking and acting are two very separate entities, and thinking about dying is perfectly okay. I think of it in the existentialist way in that I have the freedom to choose whether I live or not, and thinking about dying is simply recognizing that potential. I want to make it clear that this is completely separate from any will to die and simply recognition of the infinite potential my freedom allows. Surely there are many things we think about doing, but don’t actually do because of the consequences. If you’re in a poorly staffed store do you never think about how easy it would be to steal? I do, though I would never actually do it. Or even when you get annoyed with someone perhaps have an urge to say something blunt, perhaps even hit or punch them? Again, I do, but I still don’t do it. So, why is recognizing my ability to kill myself any different? Well, it isn’t, but it’s a taboo subject and it makes people uncomfortable so I suppose that may be why. People don’t think they should admit that they think about it. Again, freedom of thought is completely different from acting on a will and that difference is what seperates a stable person from an unstable one. Yes, stable people think about suicide, it’s normal, get over it.

I was holding back my laughter during the entire exchange because I in fact call clipped words abbrevs. I myself don’t  say obvi because obvz is clearly much superior and depending on who I’m talking to I may be made fun of for using my abbrevz. The truth is language is always changing and one day abbrevz could be a widespread way of speaking. You can get your point across faster using less syllables, or in plainer terms abbrevz are just easier to say. This is one of the reasons language change occurs. It’s called ease of articulation, people are lazy, we want words that roll off the tongue and consequently we lose sounds that we find too difficult to enunciate. Take for example, the word Christmas, I doubt you pronounce the “t”, but you may have 100 years ago, when it was not a holiday, but a holy-day. Again, which is easier to say holiday or holy-day (its original form)?

Though some may laugh now at the idea of abbrevz, looking back at how much the English language has changed in the last 50, 30 or even 10 years may shock you. Abbrevz are the natural progression and when they become the primary method of speaking, I’ll tell you obvi.

woman 1: I don’t know if he’ll still want to go though. Tomorrow’s break-up day.

woman 2: It’ll be fine, you’ll just have to see how it goes tomorrow.

woman 1: I mean I don’t want an open relationship. That’s so disgusting, so CHEAP! I’m just not doing That.

If I hadn’t mentioned the approximate age, I bet the assumption would have been that these women were under 25. I can’t believe women of that age talk about men the same way my friends and I do, even though they have at least a good 40 years on us. I for one hope that is a conversation I will not be having when I’m that old!

On the other hand, I guess it’s nice to see they’re still putting themselves out there despite whatever trials life has thrown at them. Divorce perhaps? Widowed? Or maybe never married at all? Regardless, I commend them for still having game while also qualifying as seniors.

Case no.1: About six weeks ago I went out for lunch and day-drinking with a few friends followed by more drinking that night. In the late afternoon one of the attendees and I decided we no longer wanted to drink to take a break and get ready for the evening. She said, “Oh I’ll tell them we have homework to do, so we can go.” Confused, I replied, “No, I’ll just tell them we want to go home for a bit.” And so I did, and no one was mad. OMG right? No, not really. Why this case requires a lie, I still do not know, but for my original theory of people being cowards.

Case no.2: Sunday I was asked if I wanted to watch a movie on Monday evening, I agreed and at the end of the conversation the “movie-date” was confirmed with me. Monday evening rolled around, I declined other invitations saying I was busy watching a movie. Little did I know, I would not be watching a movie at all, nor would I be informed of this unless I dragged it out of the person who had made the plan in the first place. They had unexpectedly gotten into an evening class from 7-10pm and had no intention of coming over due to that and the weather, but had decided against providing me with this information. This may not be an outright lie, but it is withholding information which I would consider another variation of mis-truth. When “called out” for breaking plans, the defendent became extremely defensive turning the problem around on the victim saying they didn’t realise it was a big deal and there are plenty of other days to “hang out”. I should have told him to drop school and try stand-up. I would have been less annoyed if it was simply said that the plans were not going to work out instead of having to drag it out myself. The explanation again of course is that people are cowards. That is all there is too it.

I volunteer any conflicting explanations, in fact I would love to hear them because I simply cannot fathom any other explanation unless it itself is another lie and the cycle continues. Think about it: why do people cheat? They don’t have the balls to tell their partner they are no longer interested. Why when asked is so and so attractive, do people answer, “They have nice eyes/a good personality/a good heart/are really smart?” HELLO, because they don’t want to admit that no “x” is not attractive. Because what could be more important than being attractive? Aside from being thin, obviously!