squeakysoul's Xanga

"Men and Women Can't Be Friends"

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:45:26 GMT

Since I'm busy lately, an old post (with mods) gets the ol' bump up.

So I have come to the conclusion that it is difficult, if not impossible, for men and women to be friends¹. Because the sex gets in the way. Not actual having sex, of course. But at least one party is always thinking about it – and it’s not always the man.

My few male friends (all straight) are all distant friends. I can’t get close with any of them, and I am wondering if it’s because of the fact that the relationship is platonic. Does that compel them to have an arms-length friendship? It appears so. For years, my best friend was a male. But we were also in a relationship. When that ended, it seems I lost my best friend.

I've seen post after post by men complaining about being put in the "friend zone". I've also seen posts about men who seem to use friendship as a cover in order to get some sort of sexual experience or relationship out of the person. On the flip side, many of the women I know who have male friends usually have at least a low-grade physical or sexual attraction to their friends.

Recently my father was telling me that I should try being friends with men, rather than dating around (I don't do either. My social life is pretty non-existent). Which then brought to mind how hard it is to be friends with men, and how in my experience and observation it appeared that single men just don't seem that interested in having a platonic female friend as opposed to some kind of relationship or "benefits" situation.

I don’t want to be hopping into bed with my buds a la Friends. I would like to have a platonic friendship with a man. I would like to get to befriend and appreciate men without the prospect of sex hanging over our heads. I would like to be able to keep that boundary yet form a close platonic bond with men as I have with my girlfriends. But that seems just about impossible.

I now think that when a man and a woman are involved, it is truly impossible to have a true friendship with the opposite sex without it ever entering into sexual terrain. What do you think? Can men and women really be friends?

¹I mean in real life, not online.

I'll Smile When I Want To

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:30:27 GMT

Don't tell me to smile.

I have a youthful appearance and I look years younger than I am. Maybe that is why people think they are telling the little girl to smile. "Come on, smile".

Don't do that. Not even to little girls. It's condescending and annoying. And why exactly would the girl be smiling? To make you feel better. Not because she wants to.

I don't walk around with a smile on my face and I don't like to smile when I have no reason to do it. You know why that is? Because I was a shy, insecure, introverted child, and I used to walk around smiling all the time. It was not always because I was so happy inside. In fact, I often smiled when I was not. I often smiled when I was nervous or intimidated or afraid. After I grew up, I found out that in the animal kingdom, smiling is not an expression of happiness or joy but of submission. So it is with us humans.

My smile was all too often a grimace of submission, and I grew to hate the sight of it. I don't even like the way my face looks when I smile too broadly. I look like a submissive chipmunk.

Some of my most regretted moments happened when I froze up and got a big cheesy, nervous smile on my face instead of standing up for myself or telling off whomever needed telling off at the moment. After the last such moment a few years ago, I made a decision that I would work hard not to smile if I really didn't feel like smiling. Although when someone asks me to smile, I will do it to placate them. But I made another decision today.

I will save my smiles for when they are real. If someone asks me to smile and I feel like smiling, I will do it. But if I am sad, or angry, or nervous, then I will refuse. From now on I smile for myself. Not for anyone else.

Despite Article. Still on the Fence

Mon, 12 May 2008 18:59:10 GMT

Can someone out there do a post (or leave a comment ) about what's good about McCain? Now I don't mean what's horrible and evil about Obama or Clinton. And I don't want to hear "I'm voting for McCain because Obama and Clinton are so evil", etc. Let's forget those two for a minute. If you support and will vote for McCain, why? Any args in his favor? What is there about him that I don't know and may want to learn? This voter is up for grabs. I invite you to win me over.

PS. This is not a debate, I'm not interested in, nor do I have much time for, going into lengthy debates on my blog right now. Rather, I'm here to question and learn. So ok, shoot.

Looking Beyond The Same Three Issues

Mon, 12 May 2008 13:00:43 GMT

From The Seattle Times:

Young, evangelical ... for Obama?

By Haley Edwards

Seattle Times staff reporter

Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man.

He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.

"I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.

Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.

But, Howard Dean, don't count your chickens quite yet. College-age and 20-something Christians may be leaving the GOP, but only 5 percent of young evangelicals have joined the Democrats, according to the Pew survey. The other 10 percent are wandering the political wilderness, somewhere between "independent" and "unaffiliated."

Shane Claiborne, a Philadelphia Christian activist and author of "Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals," has a different name for these folks: "political misfits."

Claiborne has traveled around the country the past several years, speaking and preaching mostly to college-age Christians who are "both socially conservative and globally aware." That makes them disenchanted with both major parties, he said.

"It's not about liberal or conservative, or Democrats or Republicans," he said. "I don't think it's a new evangelical left. ... There's a new evangelical stuck-in-the-middle."

UW communications professor David Domke said some young evangelicals are breaking with the GOP for the same reasons many people broke from the party in the 2006 legislative elections — the unpopular war in Iraq; the Bush administration's abysmal approval ratings; or, now, because of the tanking economy.

Others broke from the party when John McCain, who hasn't held much appeal for evangelicals in the past, became the presumptive nominee.

The Arizona senator hasn't been a consistent foe of gay marriage, and he supports federally funded embryonic stem-cell research. James Dobson, head of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, announced in February that if McCain was the GOP nominee, he'd sit out the election.

But students at a recent bipartisan political union meeting at SPU say there's something more going on with young Christians than disenchantment with McCain.

In an informal poll of the political union, the majority supported Obama.

"I think it's a new movement starting," said Amy Archibald, 19, a sophomore at the evangelical school. "Most of us would never blindly follow the old Christian Right anymore. James Dobson has nothing to do with us. A lot of us are taking apart the issues, and thinking, 'OK, well, [none of the candidates] fits what I'm looking for exactly.' But if you're going to vote, you've got to take your pros with your cons."

Eugene Cho, a founder and lead pastor at Seattle's Quest Church, which caters to a predominantly under-35 crowd, urges young Christians to look beyond the two or three issues that have allowed Christians to be "manipulated by those that know the game or use it as their sole agenda."

"While the issue of abortion — the sanctity of life — must always be a hugely important issue, we must juxtapose that with other issues that are also very important," Cho wrote in his blog on faith and politics.

Polls have shown that young Christians aren't any less concerned about the "family values" issues that have traditionally driven Christians to the Republican camp. (In fact, a study by the Barna Group, an evangelical polling organization, shows young Christians are actually more conservative on abortion than their elders.) It's just that they're also concerned about issues such as social justice and immigration, issues traditionally associated with Democrats.

Judy Naegeli, 25, who works at a Christian philanthropy, says easy access to information about the world via social-networking sites, YouTube and blogs is the reason her generation is more concerned with social justice.

"It's changed our perspective. ... Each generation chooses their cause, and ours is AIDs in Africa, or poverty or social justice," she said.

Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see U.S. troops leave Iraq.

Anika Smith, 23, who works for a think tank in Seattle, said she's concerned with the same issues, but she plans to vote for McCain:

"I'm worried about the war and the economy and social-justice issues. But, the abortion issue is still nonnegotiable."

Nathan Johnson, the executive director of the King County Republican Party, says he is skeptical that young, socially conservative Christians will desert the GOP this fall.

He agrees young Christians appear to be looking beyond the two or three issues — abortion, gay rights, stem-cell research — that have made Christian voters loyal in the past. "But that doesn't mean they're no longer Republican.

"Once the primary is over, and we get into a head-to-head contest, Obama's voting record will come to light," said Johnson, 24. "Then there will be a lot of young conservative voters who won't be able to tolerate what he's stood for in terms of abortion and other socially conservative values."

Young evangelicals are more of a swing constituency than they've been for decades, said Andy Crouch, an editor at Christianity Today, a national evangelical magazine.

"This could turn out to be the election where both parties realize that the evangelical vote is so hopelessly split down the middle that it's not worth courting them at all because what parties need are blocs that can be appealed to en masse," Crouch said. "Paradoxically, evangelicals would become less relevant than ever before."

Braun, the seminary student, said he's not totally committed to any candidate yet.

"I just keep thinking, if Jesus were alive now, he wouldn't necessarily be voting Republican," he said.

Thanks, Mom

Sun, 11 May 2008 04:11:31 GMT

What you do for us all year, I could never hope to honor well enough in one day. I love you mom.

Note: none of these are of me or of my mom. Just stock photos!

What is something or someone you find completely overrated?

Sat, 10 May 2008 10:34:53 GMT

First allow me to note how funny it is that the current Featured Question so closely mirrored an idea for a post I did weeks ago. What can I say? I'm ahead of my time. Anyway, here are a few things I find overrated. Part Deux.

The movie Love Actually. Every time I see it referred to as a great romantic comedy, or great comedy, or good in any way, I just cringe. I thought it was terrible.

I actually saw it in theaters with my friends, who liked it. I thought it was crap then too. I saw it again on cable, to shut up the people who told me that I hadn't given it a chance (people always say that when they like something crappy and you don't. Of course I gave it a chance. I paid the overpriced movie theater ticket to see it, didn't I?). I never saw so many talented actors in one so bad a movie. The various plots were barely strung together, and every single one of them was unbelievably trite and pitifully written. It may have been the writing or the directing. It may have been the fact that so much talent in one picture (Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, etc., etc.) was so totally and utterly wasted. Either way I hope I never see such a saccharine, overhyped letdown ever again. It does go to show that talent is not always so powerful as to completely stop a trainwreck.
Hillary Clinton's experience. If I marry a politician, will that make me a good president too? Take away the "experience" she got by virtue of being married to Clinton, and she seems to have only a bit more experience than Obama does.
Jennifer Aniston's beauty. She seems like a nice person, and I enjoy her tv show and some of her films, but she's not that pretty. I don't know why people keep saying she's so beautiful. She looks quite ordinary to me.
Anti-French sentiment. "Freedom Fries"? Insulting anything remotely French? WTF? Remember the Revolutionary War? Which country was it that helped us successfully fight off the British which led to the creation of a little thing called the United States of America? Hm. Plus, I've been to France (OK, for one day). It's a really pretty country. Sure, I got sick at that one restaurant, but that doesn't mean the people weren't hospitable or that it's not a really nice place to visit. I did find the stereotype of the rude Frenchperson to be untrue. Everyone we ran into there was perfectly nice. The French don't agree with everything we do. That doesn't mean they suck.
Anti-American sentiment. By the same token, it seems in vogue around the world, and even among some Americans, to automatically bash everything America does, is, or stands for. You know something? This is not a perfect country. It does make mistakes. But it's a pretty great country and it's full of good people too. America often leads in humanitarian missions when disasters happen; America feeds a good portion of the world with its crops. Whenever I go out of the country I see some product, TV show, or some sort of emulation of something that had its start in America. I'm getting a little tired of seeing our country and our culture being sneered at.

Cool Factoid: Did You Know...

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:15:58 GMT

That although our Presidents have been all been white and predominantly WASP, as well as most of our Vice-Presidents, that the U.S. had a Vice-President with American Indian heritage under Herbert Hoover?

From Wikipedia:

Charles Curtis was the first and only person with acknowledged non-European heritage to reach one of the top two offices in the United States Government executive branch. Nearly half of Curtis' background was made up of American Indian stock.
He was the last person in the top two offices of the executive branch (president or vice president) to have facial hair.
He was a Republican.
He supported women's rights: In 1923, he was one of the first Representatives to offer the first rendition of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution.
He endorsed the five day work week, with no reduction in wages, as a work-sharing solution to unemployment soon after the Great Depression began.

Best Headline This Week Is Not What You'd Expect

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:39:10 GMT

"Great tits cope well with global warming." This article explains how.

You just can't beat a headline like that.

Kween: Define Who You Are

Thu, 08 May 2008 10:55:30 GMT

The latest Kween_of_the_Queens asks us to define who we are.

This one is a bit challenging. For all of my introspection and introversion, I find it challenging to define myself. There are probably some things about me that have never changed, but most things have changed throughout my life and there will likely be things that will probably change tomorrow.

Also, defining myself seems a little silly. What good does that do? Does that make my life any easier? Well, perhaps if I thought I were a certain kind of person, some decisions would seem a bit more straightforward. But then I would likely never grow or never experience new things. Or perhaps I would do things that actually harmed me instead of helped me. I don't like being a slave to a particular definition or category.

But OK, since you asked for a definition. I'll give you some things that are true about me at the moment that I take from self-observation, and you can take it as a definition of myself if you like.

I am a person who dislikes categorizing other people, and I'm impatient with those who are eager to categorize themselves and refuse to go outside of their own little category. I have very little respect for people who refuse to socialize or even think outside of their own race, religion or culture. I'm a first generation American, but I refuse to have my appearance or my name define my cultural identity. Cultural stereotypes frequently applied to people who share my background (even that is debatable, because not many share my exact background) mostly do not apply to me.

I used to take personality tests (the Myers Briggs calls me an INFP, and you can take that for whatever it is worth). I used to read horoscopes (for those of you who go in for it, I am apparently a Sagittarius). I don't anymore. They never seem to quite describe me very well. Oh, I'm sure some of the traits listed in those categories probably describe me, but they don't quite do justice to the whole being. Anyway, I've never liked adhering to a profile.

I have an instinctual dislike of being a part of a "group" or a crowd. I don't go in for herd mentality. I did Brownies when I was a child and disliked it. I did Sea Cadets for a couple of weeks as a middle-schooler and discovered I was allergic to it. In college, I avoided fraternities and sororities like the plague. I've never been President of anything. I did used to want to, since my dad seemed to want me to. But I have discovered over the years that sort of thing is just not me. I'm not much of a leader, and I'm not much of a follower. But, that doesn't mean I haven't hidden in groups before.

One thing that hasn't changed much since I was a child is that I am independent. I'm a bit of a loner and a bit of an outsider. That doesn't mean I'm antisocial. I'm actually really very nice. I'm a bit shy but that breaks down when I'm comfortable or when I'm angry. I'm pretty laid back about things. I don't like to put pressure on other people, and I resent it when people try and put pressure on me. But don't get me wrong. I'm pretty pragmatic too. I like to do things my way, but if your way is better, easier, or more logical, I'll do things your way. But, that doesn't mean I don't have my rigid moments.

I really hate confrontation. I generally do my best to avoid it. Confrontation stresses me out and raises my blood pressure. But if you need to be told off, and I'm not holding myself back from doing so, then I'll do it and it will feel pretty good too. But I prefer not to do it again. Sustained arguments are draining. I keep my distance from people who thrive on drama.

One thing about me that will likely not change: I'm an honest person. I dislike lying and I dislike obfuscation. I don't even like lying to myself. If I've done something wrong, I don't try and talk myself into believing I've done something right. I actually believe one can be at once truthful and tactful of other people's feelings. I'm also a strong believer in loyalty. If one is a friend, close family, or a significant other or spouse, loyalty is supreme. Infidelity, backstabbing, betrayal - you do that to me and you are cut off. If you're lucky, I don't mean that in a physical way.

I'm sure I'm not good at showing people how much I appreciate or love them. But when I do love someone, I love them pretty deeply. I'm not bullshitting or being nice when I tell someone I love them. If I love someone, be it friend or family, I really mean it. I don't just throw words or affection around. I don't like having my affection abused. Someone once backed me into telling them that I loved them, when it wasn't true. That is the one and only time in my life I said that without meaning it, and I detached myself from that person quickly and permanently. Besides being a racist, being cruel or being untrustworthy, that's one of the fastest ways to make me lose respect for someone.

I think I'm a compassionate person. I like to see people taken care of. I like to see justice be done. I believe in mercy too. I don't like my compassion to be abused though. As you can tell I work pretty hard to adhere to a moral standard of living. That includes being compassionate to others. But that doesn't mean I can't be thoughtless, and that there haven't been times when I realized I could have been a better friend or girlfriend or daughter or whatever.

I'm pretty transparent about things too. I can be taciturn when I need to be. I'm transparent, but if something is later thrown in my face, I have trouble trusting that person with information again. I'm by turns trusting and not very trusting. Besides my love, my trust is the most valuable thing I can give you. You abuse it, or throw things in my face, you will not get it back easily, if ever. If one makes it easy to trust them, I tend to trust easy. But if that trust is betrayed even in a small way, I'm on my guard. And I don't like to be on my guard. I tend to detach if someone isn't worth my time or attention.

But I work hard to never cruel. I hate needless cruelty. I dislike bullies.

I like to write. I like to walk. I'm a very internal person. I can be happy and I can be very melancholic. I think and dream a lot. I'm probably too sensitive. I actually hate that about myself. I wish I were much less sensitive. One suffers more if one is too sensitive. I like to follow my gut. I'm sensitive and a dreamer, but I've never seen a ghost. I don't go in for psychics, and I think all that stuff is probably actually B.S. I believe in morals and laws and being good, and even being spiritual, but it's hard for me to believe in certain things I can't feel. That is why it was so hard for me to believe in God for so long. Even now, it's not entirely easy.

Tree Murder

Wed, 07 May 2008 11:24:03 GMT

Something really wrong is happening a few doors down from me.

A nice, tall, I think it was an oak, tree is being cut down. For NO REASON. That tree has been there my entire life. I walked by that tree every day. And now they are KILLING IT. I put crappy pop music on to cover the horrible sounds of the chainsaws.

They've already cut off the top, and now they are taking down the rest. It's like they are committing tree murder.

I don't know why people in my neighborhood are so allergic to having nice, natural things. Every time a new house is put up, more trees are mowed down. Nice lawns are paved over for cement walkways and porches. It is so ugly. I can't stand it. When I get a place of my own, I'm going to do my best to move to a tree-lined street.

This particular tree is not in front of another boxy, homogenized atrocity. It's been standing there for years, and it is not diseased or in the way of power lines. It might have been lifting the sidewalk a bit, but can't they just move the tree somewhere? Do they have to CUT IT DOWN?

And now the summer is coming, and there are no longer any trees on my street to block the increasingly intensifying sun. I really hate this.

Sorry for the rant. I'm no tree hugger. But I'm just so mad that this tree that's been there for so many years, and has been there since my childhood, is being murdered. And there's nothing I can do about it.