A few musings on relationships

I just had a revelation today. Something has puzzled me for some time now. Many people tell me that I am very serious or even scary. This made little sense to me since there are so many occasions in which I have been silly, sometimes even out right ridiculous in my behavior. Even my little brother imitates the strangeness occasionally (and he’s funnier and weirder than I am). How these two things both happen to me I could not figure out. Often times I would think “How weird do I have to be for people to not think I am serious all the time?” Well, now I believe I have the answer.

For some time now, and it seems to be getting more so as I get older, I have been very closed to others in the way I feel and/or think. Although I can display silly behavior sometimes, my heart is not necessarily in it. I do not express myself through my silliness like a lot of people do. It is interesting to me, but in some ways it worries me as well. Although I can talk to people, I do not really express myself that often. This kind of closing myself probably makes people uncomfortable, even when I joke and play around. It is kind of sad.

But, this leads me to another thought on emotions and guys. Several people have done unscientific studies trying to figure out the emotional patterns, strengths, weaknesses, and so forth of boys with the premise that boys actually are more emotional about things than girls are. From what the studies witnessed (but remember that they are unscientific) it seemed that although girls express themselves more, boys actually do have stronger emotions.

One study I saw done in my sociology class was with a particular family whose father was gone (I forget if he was military or if it was something else). The girls and the mom cried (or expressed themselves in some way) about it initially, but they soon got over it. The boy in the family did not react at all to the event except that he would not talk to anyone about it. The people doing the study had to figure out a way to get the boy to talk. They soon found that the boy felt the most comfortable playing with Legos, so they gave him some Legos to play with and set him by the back door so that he did not feel exposed. Then, they talked to him about his dad leaving. What they found out was that he felt extraordinarily sad about it, far beyond any of his sisters. Soon, through this kind of chit chat, they were able to develop a way for the boy to express his feelings to his mom while playing with a basketball.

To me, this is amazing. Although I do not know of any studies done scientifically on the subject, I honestly believe their premise to be true a lot of the time. Guys are meant to be strong protectors according to God’s design for them and perhaps that is one of the reasons they do not express their feelings often, but they are also very emotionally attached to things and unfulfilled when alone (remember God creating Eve). With sin’s curse however, it seems that this has caused a lot of problems in that feelings are stuffed or never find an appropriate outlet and guys either become very closed and angry or they use the wrong things to express themselves. This plays over into the relationships between men and women, but unfortunately with the curse, men often choose the wrong way to express themselves with a woman.

For me, I do not know what I will do. Honestly, there is very little safe outlet. In many ways, it seems in the foreseeable future that any opportunity for me to marry someone I love and hold dear is closed, which means that I cannot find release of my emotions in that realm. As for people I respect and trust who I can partly share my emotions with, outside of my own immediate family, I could probably count them on one hand or maybe using a couple fingers on the other if I am lucky. Fortunately, I have Christ and he can and has released many people from the chains sin has over them and even as a guy, I can have comfort in that he knows my deepest feelings, thoughts, and so forth and that I can always express myself to him. Guys, even a woman cannot set you free or fulfill you until you know Christ as savior. It is that simple. We would forever express ourselves in the wrong manner if it were not for the example and saving grace of Jesus Christ. Praise God for his love!

If you read all of the way through the post, please do not leave until you have commented. I would be extremely interested to know what your thoughts are on this subject, especially on the studies about guys and their emotions. Thanks for stopping by and reading.

Bad habits

I think I have a bad habit of making people mad. It’s pretty easy in the second most liberal state in the union (if we are not the most liberal state yet). Oh well, best to press forward.

Makes me think of my sociology class last quarter. At the beginning, we were shown a report that claimed Tacoma was the most depressing city in the nation and then the teacher wanted to say that the report was not accurate because the people who live here think it is great. Over the course of the quarter (get it? course. never mind, it was a bad pun) we were given statistic after statistic that showed Washington state with the most suicides, high murders, most abortions, most divorces, etc. Afterward I had to wonder, “why is Tacoma not the most depressing city again?” Oh yeah, it is because we have rainy weather. Gotcha.

Love, Marriage, Courtship part 1

For many young people, love, romantic relationships, marriage, and forms of courtship are constantly on their minds. For some, they use these things to honor God and their families. For others, they use these things to fall into sin and/or cause a lot of emotional trouble for themselves. In our post-modern society, it is much easier to fall into the latter category. When I mention “sin and/or cause a lot of emotional trouble,” I don’t just mean sexual deviancy through pornography, premarital sex, etc. I also mean the reverse side of this where so many people have avoided romantic relationships so much in their attempt to keep their purity that they create an emotional void in themselves that is hard to repair. Not to mention, I believe this is unbiblical since God created mankind for such relationships for various reasons as we will later see the more we study this topic.

First off, let me clarify that I am whole heartedly for keeping one’s purity for marriage. However, I also think that the lengths some people go to in order to keep their purity are sometimes unnecessary and often times unhealthy. Let me tell you of a video I watched in my sociology class to help illustrate what I am talking about and some of the dynamics that we are dealing with.

The video was specifically studying the modern, and very homeschooler way of courtship. It followed a couple during their courtship and the process by which they courted. Both people were young. He was 19 and she was 20. Before the courtship started, he went to her father and asked him if he could court his daughter. After the girls father asked the boy all the questions he desired to ask, he gave his permission. Only after these things took place did the girl even find out about the whole deal. She was given the option of veto power, but she liked the boy and agreed to the courtship. The parameters for the courtship were as follows:

1. They could not touch, even each other’s hand. The closest they could get to each other was to hold either end of the Bible during church and family devotions.
2. They could only visit on weekends and were allowed only one phone call per week.
3. When they went places, they had to be supervised by their parents and could never be left alone together.
4. Every week, they would write letters to each other and then read their letters to the other person.

So you get the point. It was a very restrictive courtship, but for them it seemed to work very well. At their wedding, they touched for the first time and never let go of each other through the entire reception. After one year of marriage, they had a three month old baby.

After the film, the class had the opportunity to discuss it. A couple of the questions we were supposed to ask ourselves were “could I do a courtship like this?” and “is this couple likely to stay together or get divorced?” For a lot of the place, the sentiment was “well, it was okay for them, but I would do it differently.” Others (mostly the Christians) said “I hope that I could do what they did, even if I wouldn’t be as extreme as they were.” And the last group of people were very upset that the couple even courted the way they did, claiming that the couple could never be happy under such circumstances. All that being said, everyone, even the last group, had to admit that it was very unlikely that the couple would ever get a divorce.

One more thing that I want to point out is that this couple did take courtship to an extreme and it worked for them. They are a rare few because there are many more that would like to hold to that standard, but as a result, they don’t get married. Instead, many well meaning people hurt themselves emotionally. For some people, certain things will work and for others, something else needs to be done. Love is not universal in that one size fits all. The couple in the video accomplished their goal and kept their purity for marriage. My question to you is does the Bible show us possible ways to keep our purity for marriage during a courtship process other than how this couple did it? If so, what sorts of ways?

Thoughts from Sociology Class

Sociology is an interesting class. A lot of people have little respect for sociology majors (this is not my major) . My teacher gets this question a lot: “You majored in what?!” Even his family introduces (probably on purpose) him as a Psychologist instead of a Sociologist after I don’t know how many years he’s been out of college. He has to keep correcting them .

Anyway, some interesting terminology was introduced that I have some thoughts on. First some ground work: a “Status” is a position that someone holds in society; a “role” is the obligation that comes with holding that position. People have many different statuses that they hold like being a mother, a student, a teacher, etc. A “master status” is the status one holds that defines their life. When my teacher mentioned this, the first thing that came to mind was, “Oh, one’s religion.” Instead, my teacher and the entire class said that it was someone’s job. In today’s society, I believe they are right. One’s job is seen as the definition of who someone is. This is interesting to me because of how one’s job has usurped the position that ought to be religion’s.

Another term used was “role conflict” where two or more roles are incompatible. For Christians, it is easy to obtain roles that conflict with their obligations to God. If our master status is our job, right there we have created role conflict, putting things of the world in the place of the things of God.

Lastly, we talked briefly about Charles Cooley and his “looking glass self.” His theory is in three parts: 1) We imagine our appearance; 2) We imagine others’ judgment of our appearance; 3) and lastly, we develop feelings that respond to the judgment we imagined that other people have about our appearance. This is kind of funny, but certainly true in many respects. Another thing I heard about Cooley’s ideas, not from my class but from my brother, is that there is always a you before there in an I. My brother had some pretty good insight when he immediately associated that with Christianity. He made the observation that one must know God before he can truly know himself. To know who God is allows us to understand our position under God and our true nature in relationship to him and the rest of the world. We understand that we are sinful and we understand what is meant by being created in the image of God.

There are certainly a lot of valuable things to be learned from the subject of sociology if one has the ability to see beyond the surface of things. I say that we should never underestimate the value of these sorts of things in our daily lives.

Are logical fallacies used in science?

I have a proposition to make. I am currently taking a sociology class and I find that their whole science is based on what could easily be construed as a logical fallacy. The science of sociology (a lot of the time) could be classified as a non sequitur.

For instance, a boy named Johnny grows up a truant, joining gangs, stealing, doing vandalism, and so on. He ends up in juvenile prison. What is the cause? Many sociologists would attribute it to things like his dad leaving his family when he was young or his mom working all the time to make ends meet with no time left over for him or some other such cause.

None of these would “logically” cause criminal activity. However, it doesn’t make them untrue. Anyone who has experience with human nature knows that they are very likely to be true.

I will show several quotes I found interesting in a moment. I must say first that they come from folks with a different worldview than my own.

“Firstly, logical reasoning is not an absolute law which governs the universe.”

“Secondly, logic is not a set of rules which govern human behavior.” -Source

I find these quotes interesting not because I agree with them (because I don’t), but because I usually find those statements to be true with “logical fallacies” not logic. I would even be so bold as to say that the “fallacy” of a non sequitur is made everyday by people in order to survive. Not to assume that logical fallacies are unimportant because they are important and useful, but to make it clear that because something fits the criteria for a fallacy, it does not necessarily make it invalid. (Wow, there were a lot of negatives in that last sentence. I hope you all can follow it okay ). I know that this is bold because it goes against what a lot of logic and other kinds of teachers would tell you, but I find the view very practical in many academic spheres.

I am finding this sociology class very interesting and I will probably post on it more at another time.