Mirror
2026-03-24
I've been having a few different threads of thought over the last 24 hours or so; lots of theses swirling around in my head. I want to try and combine all of them into a single cohesive piece, as is my writerly instinct. I also decided to bump up the sprint time dedicated to these entries from 30 to 45 minutes, so expect longer pieces to come out in the near future. Overall, I'm satisfied with the output of my entries, but I was getting a bit peeved at how short they were. It seems that my groove is a solid six paragraphs, a few tags, and that's it. While better than nothing, I think I've proven to myself that I've got what it takes to go the distance, so why not go there?
I've been keeping up with didntask's blog, and today's piece was interesting. He talked about a guy who made this long social media post about how his previously promiscuous wife has now become "more pure" after meeting him and marrying him. Ask went on to aptly describe how that was not only theologically incorrect but also generally emasculating and, quite frankly, extremely embarrassing. He also pointed out how a message like that would tell people that promiscuity is permissible, which it really shouldn't be. People are sexual creatures, and we should be okay with expressing ourselves as such, but also understand that blatant promiscuity devalues sex and romance as a whole. In Christianity, marriage is a sacrament, and the process of two people becoming one flesh is a Holy Mystery and is an aspect of the human experience that helps us further deepen our understanding of God.
So while promiscuity shouldn't be promoted, I don't think it's something that needs to be harshly punished. That guy talking about his wife, while being semantically incorrect on the theology of things, was generally just trying to say that his wife learned from her mistakes and that her relationship with him has helped make her a better person. Really, that's a good thing and should be celebrated. Lots of people make mistakes that have lasting consequences throughout their lives, but we shouldn't be defined by those mistakes. From what I've seen, promiscuous women pay for their promiscuity in their own way. It can make them lonely and lose people they care about. Their reputation becomes harmed, but like anyone who makes a mistake, they have the chance to learn from it and move on.
Personally, I don't want to shame a woman for being promiscuous, particularly if she's a young woman who doesn't quite understand her place in the world yet. A lot of women convince themselves that objectification can be a route to certain freedoms, and this doesn't help when everyone judges them primarily based on their appearance. A woman can be fully grown but still treated like a teenager well into her adulthood. The ones who are smart enough to see through that grow from it, but there are many who never do and become developmentally stagnated. They can become entitled and expect the world to bend at their feet just because she worked out and got her hair done. For everyone, though, looks will fade, and the only thing that truly remains are the personality and relationships. If those aren't fully there, the whole house of cards topples.
I don't want to claim that I understand women here, because I don't and I can't. I have no idea what it's like to be a woman, and all I can do is speculate. However, I spend a lot of time interacting with women, and so I try my best to see them as who they are. Despite that, I still struggle with it. I've never really had a long romantic relationship with a woman. I don't know what it's like to live with them in that context. When I have dated women, I've found that there's something they want from me that I don't think I have. When I try to get closer with a woman I'm dating, there's something about how I present myself that pushes them away. Sometimes, I'll be too vulnerable. Other times, I'll be too cagey and not really take command how I should. Well, at least that's what I think happened, anyway. Love is a complicated thing, and I've been hurt a lot.
Getting married and having kids sounds like a promising thing, but as I've gotten older, I've lost the expectation that it's going to happen. That isn't to say I've lost hope in it, but I also understand that love isn't an achievable goal. For most pursuits in life, one can set goals, make a plan, and take action to achieve them. Love doesn't work that way; it's a measure of compatibility and requires the more tender parts of our spirit. There's a worry I have that there's something in me that's fundamentally incompatible with most women. I can't say that for sure, because there might be someone who comes into my life that disproves that. Until then, I'll just have to sit with that tension and maybe focus on other things for a while.
That's a perfectly fine thing for me to do, anyway. What I've learned from the past pains of a broken heart is that I don't have to settle for the first girl who tells me she loves me. I can have standards. I don't have to seek her validation, and can instead try to be alongside her in the best capacity I know how. If that's fundamentally incompatible, then so be it. I have enough self-respect to be who I am without needing to accommodate for others. There's nothing I owe to anyone. Love doesn't keep score or curry favor, and I don't want to love someone under false conditions. My life is mine and mine alone; no one else lives it but me. I do hope that if the time comes for me to love someone again, that I'll work past my fear and take that first step.
Men, especially younger men, love to bemoan how disaffected men are these days. They'll tout on about how they're economically doomed and their place in the world has been taken from them. We're the middle children of history, as Tyler Durden put it. However, I don't feel dejected in any way. That economic pain affects all of us, and it's not that our place in the world has been taken, but that we all have the capability to become whoever we wish to be. I think that capability scares most men shitless. It scares me shitless.
When I can be anyone, how can I know who that guy is staring at me in the mirror?
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