When you don't want to dance
I've wanted to write about singleness on this blog for a while. But I keep holding back because... it's kind of too big and unwieldy - experienced in different ways by different people. But it's a state that is actually MORE common than marriage, and has at least as much to teach us about the gospel as marriage. So I think it's time it got more attention.
Today my lovely (American - she has Great Gatsby references and everything) friend Hannah is going to take the plunge for me. She writes really eloquently about the discomfort you can experience when you're single in a culture that shouts at every turn that singleness is a debility that needs to be cured. You can feel shoved into a sexualised mode that you don't want because.... that's kind of the way things are.
In her words:
"It’s only just midnight, and the cover band dives into a spirited rendition of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”. I’m in the front row. My friends, two tall blonds on either side, raise their glasses and hoot with enthusiasm. I sway from side to side for a moment or two, struggling to keep my smile up, overthinking it – then I turn my back and leave.
I can’t dance to that song. I can’t celebrate domesticating women who “want it” even if they don’t say so. I can’t stand by when I can hear the men behind us commenting on my friend’s hair, her back, her butt, as though she were an animal, a piece of meat dissociated from her living soul.
So why am I there at all? I can’t decide, slouching against a wall outside and scrolling up and down old text screens to fake a conversation. I can’t decide whether to leave in ten minutes or in an hour. I promised him more discussions, but as I left for the patio he seemed otherwise engaged.
Call him Oscar, the Justin Timberlake look-alike I’d argued with while we sat around deliberating whether to Uber it or walk. (We ended up Ubering. That car was never meant to hold so many people.) Before we left, we started talking religion. How we were all brought up, where we went on Sundays, whether sins could be forgiven by formulistic confession or by grace.
It got really deep really fast, in a Fitzgeraldian kind of way.
“It doesn’t mean I’m forgiven,” Oscar said, shouting in spite of himself, “if I kneel and say I’m sorry I ever had sex and I promise never to do it again.”
“I don’t like this conversation. Can we have another kind of conversation?” That was Harold (let’s pretend) who had just polished off another bottle of wine.
“How many eye-patches do we need for tomorrow’s cruise?” asked a third young gentleman, who was in charge of a pirate-themed expedition to take place, presumably, the next afternoon.
In the next quarter of an hour, the one I’ve named Harold was occupied in amorous embraces with his girlfriend, while a yard away Oscar and I continued our debate. “I have faith, you know?” He went on, scratching the house’s dog absent-mindedly. We’re still not sure whose dog it is. “I believe in God. I definitely believe in God. But I don’t think he forgives us just because we go to confession.”
“I don’t either,” I answer, and I stop there. How to summarize? How to speak within this context? Or maybe there isn’t any more to be said – we’re agreeing about the various ineffective means of salvation, rather than suggesting valid means of salvation. He can read the Bible on his own – he didn’t ask for a sermon – maybe my evident respect for his independent intellect will go farther than a spontaneous homily.
“I just resent,” he goes on, “how I was brought up believing these things. I was conditioned to believe them. I never had the chance to question these things, to think for myself.”
I answer him directly, perhaps a little influenced by the shot I just had. “You’re old enough to think for yourself now, aren’t you?”… I do mention grace, eventually, briefly. I don’t get around to the gospel itself, not in total.
But I can’t tell what he needs. The encouragement to think for himself worked like a charm, but only for a few minutes. Maybe he just wants to feel that he’s being heard. Or maybe he’s never actually heard the gospel before, and I was brought here to tell it to him. I start making excuses for myself. I just came here to catch up with my friend over a few drinks. I don’t owe anyone anything.
And I have to watch out for myself, too. Oscar wants to know what I think, and he also doesn’t seem to have any problem with looking deeply into my eyes. “I like this conversation. I’m having fun talking to you. Can we have more discussions?”
He asks this again when we’re Ubering into town. “Can we have more discussions?” Everyone in the car hears it – can’t help but hear it – and I know they’re all thinking of his girlfriend we’re supposedly going to meet. I answer “Yes” anyway, not thinking about that, and not caring about it much either. I’m not interested in Oscar, I just want to help.
I also really want to go home at midnight. I don’t belong here. I’m not having fun here. I can’t have any more discussions here, because the music is so loud it’s ringing my eardrums into oblivion. My drink is just making me tired. My friends are exaggerating their excitement, falsifying drunkenness to validate their willful abandon. The only conversations we’re having are screamed into the side of the neck, noses resting on jaws in a futile, fleeting balance.
That’s why I went outside. I don’t know whether it helps to scream the gospel with a whiskey-laced breath. I don’t think it speaks well of the faith to gyrate to “Blurred Lines”. I don’t think it values the gift of life to consider separately and piratically a woman’s butt, hair – or her beliefs.
And that’s why I left."
(Do let me know if you think Hannah should come back to the blog - that's what I'm rooting for, personally....)
Today my lovely (American - she has Great Gatsby references and everything) friend Hannah is going to take the plunge for me. She writes really eloquently about the discomfort you can experience when you're single in a culture that shouts at every turn that singleness is a debility that needs to be cured. You can feel shoved into a sexualised mode that you don't want because.... that's kind of the way things are.
In her words:
"It’s only just midnight, and the cover band dives into a spirited rendition of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”. I’m in the front row. My friends, two tall blonds on either side, raise their glasses and hoot with enthusiasm. I sway from side to side for a moment or two, struggling to keep my smile up, overthinking it – then I turn my back and leave.
I can’t dance to that song. I can’t celebrate domesticating women who “want it” even if they don’t say so. I can’t stand by when I can hear the men behind us commenting on my friend’s hair, her back, her butt, as though she were an animal, a piece of meat dissociated from her living soul.
So why am I there at all? I can’t decide, slouching against a wall outside and scrolling up and down old text screens to fake a conversation. I can’t decide whether to leave in ten minutes or in an hour. I promised him more discussions, but as I left for the patio he seemed otherwise engaged.
Call him Oscar, the Justin Timberlake look-alike I’d argued with while we sat around deliberating whether to Uber it or walk. (We ended up Ubering. That car was never meant to hold so many people.) Before we left, we started talking religion. How we were all brought up, where we went on Sundays, whether sins could be forgiven by formulistic confession or by grace.
It got really deep really fast, in a Fitzgeraldian kind of way.
“It doesn’t mean I’m forgiven,” Oscar said, shouting in spite of himself, “if I kneel and say I’m sorry I ever had sex and I promise never to do it again.”
“I don’t like this conversation. Can we have another kind of conversation?” That was Harold (let’s pretend) who had just polished off another bottle of wine.
“How many eye-patches do we need for tomorrow’s cruise?” asked a third young gentleman, who was in charge of a pirate-themed expedition to take place, presumably, the next afternoon.
In the next quarter of an hour, the one I’ve named Harold was occupied in amorous embraces with his girlfriend, while a yard away Oscar and I continued our debate. “I have faith, you know?” He went on, scratching the house’s dog absent-mindedly. We’re still not sure whose dog it is. “I believe in God. I definitely believe in God. But I don’t think he forgives us just because we go to confession.”
“I don’t either,” I answer, and I stop there. How to summarize? How to speak within this context? Or maybe there isn’t any more to be said – we’re agreeing about the various ineffective means of salvation, rather than suggesting valid means of salvation. He can read the Bible on his own – he didn’t ask for a sermon – maybe my evident respect for his independent intellect will go farther than a spontaneous homily.
“I just resent,” he goes on, “how I was brought up believing these things. I was conditioned to believe them. I never had the chance to question these things, to think for myself.”
I answer him directly, perhaps a little influenced by the shot I just had. “You’re old enough to think for yourself now, aren’t you?”… I do mention grace, eventually, briefly. I don’t get around to the gospel itself, not in total.
But I can’t tell what he needs. The encouragement to think for himself worked like a charm, but only for a few minutes. Maybe he just wants to feel that he’s being heard. Or maybe he’s never actually heard the gospel before, and I was brought here to tell it to him. I start making excuses for myself. I just came here to catch up with my friend over a few drinks. I don’t owe anyone anything.
And I have to watch out for myself, too. Oscar wants to know what I think, and he also doesn’t seem to have any problem with looking deeply into my eyes. “I like this conversation. I’m having fun talking to you. Can we have more discussions?”
He asks this again when we’re Ubering into town. “Can we have more discussions?” Everyone in the car hears it – can’t help but hear it – and I know they’re all thinking of his girlfriend we’re supposedly going to meet. I answer “Yes” anyway, not thinking about that, and not caring about it much either. I’m not interested in Oscar, I just want to help.
I also really want to go home at midnight. I don’t belong here. I’m not having fun here. I can’t have any more discussions here, because the music is so loud it’s ringing my eardrums into oblivion. My drink is just making me tired. My friends are exaggerating their excitement, falsifying drunkenness to validate their willful abandon. The only conversations we’re having are screamed into the side of the neck, noses resting on jaws in a futile, fleeting balance.
That’s why I went outside. I don’t know whether it helps to scream the gospel with a whiskey-laced breath. I don’t think it speaks well of the faith to gyrate to “Blurred Lines”. I don’t think it values the gift of life to consider separately and piratically a woman’s butt, hair – or her beliefs.
And that’s why I left."
(Do let me know if you think Hannah should come back to the blog - that's what I'm rooting for, personally....)
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