The Christian Girl's Guide to Guys

Greetings fellow traveller. I'm sure you, like me, are pining away teaching Sunday school and wondering when that cute Christian guy will finally notice that you bothered to wear your cute, kiss-me-but-only-after-we're-married heels to church.

Fear not. I have put together a handy guide that covers all possible church foyer scenarios, from that first divinely inspired meeting of your windows-of-the-soul to the moment when God finally decides to write the "Going Steady" chapter of your love story.

Bu first, let's cover proper foyer posture and bearing for the young Christian woman. Remember, be receptive and open. [Receptive. reception. Wedding reception. You follow?] It's best to stand off by yourself. Friends will only scare him away. You should be doing nothing in particular, or how will he know you're available? You are the lady-in-waiting. Smile. No one likes a scowling woman. Act as if the words of the young man who has not yet approached you are already falling upon you like raindrops after a decade of drought. Laugh heartily at the jokes he hasn't yet told you. This will let him know that you are truly open and receptive.

Now that we've covered proper posture, let's move into the specifics:

He says: "Hi."
Translation: "The magnetism of your intense love for God, fair trade coffee, and orphans drew me over here to speak with you."
Suggestion: In the ensuing conversation, let him do most of the talking. If the question of what you do comes up, make sure to say, "But what I really want to do is be a stay-at-home-mom." He will be like putty to your hands.

He says: "Wanna grab lunch?"
Translation: "God told me we're meant to be together, but first I want to take you out to Chick-fil-A."
Suggestion: Make sure to talk about Purity and how much it means to you. Let him pay so that he knows you respect him as a provider.

He says: "Let's sit together in church."
Translation: "I consider us practically engaged. I hope you've picked out a pattern for the wedding dress you will sew by hand."
Suggestion: Under no circumstances allow your arm or leg to brush against his. This is an opportune time to test his true intentions. Is he marriage-minded or just trying to get an extra-marital cuddle on the side?

He says: "Where's the bathroom?"
Translation: "I see you, woman of God. I see you. Also, I really need to use the bathroom."
Suggestion: Smile and point him in the right direction. Do not lead him there yourself. This lets him know that you will make a great help-meet someday.

He says: "How was your week?"
Translation: "Tell me your heart. Pour it forth into my listening ears. I will treasure it forever, my beloved."
Suggestion: This is your moment. Prepare yourself for a DTR.

He says: "Seen any good movies lately?"
Translation: "I want to ask you out, but I'm not sure how."
Suggestion: Talk about guarding your heart. Look at him meaningfully when you say this. Your favorite movie is "A Walk to Remember."

He says: "I like your shoes."
Translation: "I am enthralled with your beauty. I want desperately to hold your hand in mine. I beg of you, be the Ruth to my Boaz."
Suggestion: Bake him cookies and write a note praising him as a man of godly character. Leave these on his doorstep.

Now that we've covered many common scenarios, you should be well-equipped to catch a Christian man of your own. Good luck and God bless. And remember, b-e-e-e-e-e receptive!

Beautiful Ghosts

"I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar pain. And I think, My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese."
-Amy Tan

I have never read The Joy Luck Club. For that matter, I have never read Maxine Kingston's The Warrior Woman. I am a traitor to my race. 

I went to a literary conference last weekend, and a high school student gave a presentation on the latter. In the discussion that followed, I realized the duality of my name.

My name in Chinese (first name), is composed of two characters:

The first is the character for "beautiful." The second is the character for "ghost" or "spirit."

Together, they might be translated "beautiful ghost" or "beautiful spirit."

So I realized something--America, in Chinese, is called "beautiful country" (same character for beautiful).

So, if you wanted to, you could say that my name contains both identities--my American identity, represented in "mei" (for America), and my Chinese identity (alter-ego), represented in "ling," which means "ghost" (ghost of the past?).

Of course, I'm grasping here. But I was struck by something someone (quoting Derrida about Marxism, apparently) said.

He said, "If you excise the ghost, you erase your identity."

And I thought, huh. Maybe there's more to being Chinese (half-Chinese) than looking like Mulan.

Maybe, in other words, I shouldn't excise the ghost or ignore its haunting. Sometimes I feel like its stalking me. And no matter how much I try to ignore it--it's still there--in a tightness in my throat, a tingling of the skin, an ache I can't place--a pain I can barely name, let alone feel.

When I cry, my eyes swell up and become smaller.

I am becoming Chinese. 

[Written April 10, 2008]

The Heresy of a Woman with Ambition

[Excerpted and expanded from an email to a friend]

Let me preface this by saying that I will probably have kids someday. But I worry. I worry that having a family will conflict with following my dreams.

A friend once told me that part of his dream for his life was to get married and have a family. So, in other words, to him, having a family and living his dreams wasn't a conflict. I think this is how it should be, ideally speaking.

Of course, for men, having a career and having a family isn't usually seen as a potential conflict. This rests on the assumption that the wife will do most of the child rearing. I don't think that's terribly fair. But then there are plenty of women who want most of all to be wives and mothers, which I find completely valid. I'm just not one of them.

But why, when I bring up my desire to have a career and a family, does a guy my own age feel comfortable telling me, "Well, you probably won't feel that way after you have kids," as if motherhood miraculously transforms all women into selfless beings with no ambitions of their own.

I can remember bringing up in a women's Bible study once that I didn't want to JUST have a family. I was quickly reassured that I didn't have to have a family, I could always not get married or have kids--you know, focus on my career.

But I didn't mean it as an either/or proposition.

So to return to my original point, two things: One, I think that having kids should be part of life, but not life itself. While I agree that parents should love their children self-sacrificially, I also believe that there's more to life than raising kids.

Two, in my ideal world, the husband would be just as involved in raising and nurturing children as the wife. This might not mean that he ends up doing the actual physical work of raising kids--it's more about having the mindset that it is just as much his responsibility as his wife's.

I originally asked: If men have the responsibility to support their families financially by themselves, does this mean that they should pursue careers that will enable them to do so? Or to put it another way, should this goal trump following their dreams/passions/interests etc.?

I think that this either/or mindset--either I follow my dreams or I work to support a family--can cause guys to put off getting married and starting a family--mainly because they do not wish to sacrifice their dreams. (I don't know, but it seems like in Hollywood at least, following your dreams usually means being pretty broke.)

I can relate to that sentiment, but why can't following your dreams coincide with getting married and having kids? The burden on men to be the sole providers seems to contribute to both this unnecessary dichotomy and the unnecessary extension of adolescence (Again, extended adolescence seems more prevalent in LA where the cost of living often necessitates living a college-student-esque existence long after graduating.)

Honestly, what I've seen the most here in LA (and my sample size is pretty limited) is wives making financial sacrifices for their husband's dreams. So, the wife works as a nurse/teacher/accountant/other-paying-profession and the husband writes or works part-time, generally making less money. I wish I could think of examples where the genders were reversed.

I wish this didn't bother me so much. I think the core of it is that whether the wife is working to support her husband financially or taking care of the kids, she always seems to be in service to his dream, his purpose, his aspirations. I get the same feeling when I read that a woman with amazing talent and a successful career "would throw it all out the window tomorrow" if the right guy came along.

Of course, this is reductive, and in many cases simply not true. There are many people who aspire to be teachers, nurses, and accountants, and it has nothing to do with supporting the dreams of another person.

I think our culture tends to both over-romanticize (for lack of a better word) motherhood and the self-sacrificial role that mothers play, while simultaneously denigrating all things seen as "women's work." We undervalue the work of mothers even as we heap on the sentimentality.

But to say that as a woman you value having a career just as much as you value getting married and having a family. Heresy. Flat out.

Don't believe me? Watch how almost every single romantic comedy ever made punishes women for caring about their careers. And the number one punishment? Being single, alone, and unhappy.

Why I frighten Men

Apparently, I'm an intimidating person. Don't take my word for it, ask my friends. I'll complain about dating or talk about some guy, or--I don't know--something, and they'll say, "Well, maybe he's intimidated."

Definition of "intimidate" from Merriam-Webster: "to make timid or fearful : frighten; especially : to compel or deter by or as if by threats."

I never know to respond to this. I usually feel a measure of incredulity. Me? Intimidating? How exactly am I intimidating?

This is not an isolated phenomenon. I've talked to a couple friends recently who've gotten the same label.

Maybe this "intimidating" bit is just something your friends say to you to make you feel better about yourself, along the lines of, "Don't worry, you'll find the right guy" or "You deserve better, girlfriend!" 

I wish this was like some kind of super power that I could use on creepy guys: "You don't know this, but there are guys who find me INTIMIDATING" (their heads explode). 

But seriously.

I'm not loud. I don't have a big personality. I don't carry a large cudgel on my person at all times. I hate confrontation and conflict.

Also, how can someone be considered both quiet, shy, and intimidating? It boggles the mind. 

I do, however, have a few ideas about this: 

1. I'm smart

"A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can."
-Jane Austen

There's no way to talk about how smart you are (or how smart other people think you are) without coming off like a complete douchebag. So, I'll just point out that this is other people's perception of me. I've been told that I'm intimidating (to guys) because I'm smart, or more specifically smarter than they are. 

Again, I have no real response to this. I'm sorry? I'll try it tone down a little bit so you don't feel so threatened.

Apparently, I'd forgotten that this is the 1950s when men want a woman who's smart, but not so smart that she's smarter than they are.

2. I'm opinionated.

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute."

-Rebecca West

I have opinions. I voice them. So far, so good. I suppose this could be intimidating, or just annoying, depending on the circumstances. And yes, people do call me a feminist, especially when I draw attention to the fact that men and women are sometimes treated differently. I don't see this as a polemical act per se, but I'm sure there are many people who would feel differently. 

3. I'm independent.

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

-Virginia Woolf

I suspect I might care a little bit less than the average person about pleasing others and/or fitting in. This is not always a good thing.

4. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve.

"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence."

-George Eliot

I'm not sure how to put this one. It's not that I don't have emotions, it's that I can be emotionally illiterate. I have an emotional learning disability? Women are traditionally the emotional leaders of the family or relationship. I don't fit that. 

It's more than that though--I'm hard on other people and I'm hard on myself. It's more than easy for me to criticize, critique, satirize, or just generally take the piss in any given situation.

5. Wild card. 

"For there is a spot the size of a shilling at the back of the head which one can never see for one's self."

-Virginia Woolf

Kate Holbrook: I'm sorry, I'm a little overly thorough. Some people would say that I am bossy and controlling.

Rob: No, that's just prejudice. They call you bossy and controlling because you're a woman. But if you were a man doing the same stuff...you'd just be a dick. 

-from Baby Momma

I don't really know how I come off to other people. I can only guess based on the feedback I receive. I'm flawed. I have blind spots. Maybe I'll never know what "intimidating" really means. Maybe I'm just an a-hole.

But somehow I suspect that the things that make me intimidating are also some of my best qualities. And if being considered threatening is the byproduct--let it be.

Places to submit stuff to

1. McSweeney's

2. Relevant Magazine

3. Hyphen Magazine

4. Prodigal Magazine

5. Modern Love (NY Times)

6. Brevity

7. Guernica 

8. Cracked

SH*T Christian Guys (Who Go to Hipster Churches) Don't Say

Will you go out with me?

I hate plaid.

I would grow a beard, but, I really want to be attractive to women.

No, I don't play the guitar.

My favorite movie? Braveheart.

Skinny jeans are gay.

Go Lakers!

I just want to date a good Christian girl.

This cardigan has too many holes in it. Good Will!

I've been working on the same screenplay for two years, but you know what? I'm tired of eating ramen. I'm going into sales.

Drinking alcohol is wrong.

Fedoras are passé.

Three of my best friends are black.

I'm ready to settle down and get a real job.

...