Stupid Behavior

I've been thinking today about stupid behavior. Intentionally stupid behavior... or, I should say, people who engage consciously in behavior that, by some external evaluation, some would call stupid.

This floated into my mind because of a "Bigger Is Better When It Comes to Cigarette Warning Labels" headline on the online newspaper. Do the manufacturers or anti-cigarette types really believe such labels, however large, would dissuade would-be or existing smokers? Big labels? Do labels about condoms not being 100% effective at preventing disease stop people from having casual sex? Does it stop people when they don't have condoms from having casual sex, when they "know better?" What about P's friend T, who's leaving her marriage to a self-contained but generally kind and good man because of consuming unhappiness with "how he is," problems which she believes she has tried to solve through her marriage -- but with the carrot of the man "whom she truly loves" hanging before her, how sure can anyone be of the sincerity of her effort, especially T herself?

And since all roads lead to my marriage, what about my ex-husband's stupid behavior? He smoked, though he tried to hide it from me, and that's after watching his mother die in three months from lung cancer. He drank like crazy, and that's after seeing his brothers and sisters disintegrate from addictions. He left me, which he claimed was necessary because he didn't love me anymore, but which a big part of my mind knows has more to do with his own weaknesses and depressions of his own self, not anything external, including me.

What motivates people to make what any sensible person can see are selfish and supremely unwise decisions?

I guess I already answered it. Selfishness. Fear. Mostly fear. People who smoke, drink, engage in risky sex, or choose ever-elusive happiness over health, wellness, self-protection, and wise choices which themselves generate happiness are dumb. So I'm judgemental... I'm still right. Their fear inspires them to smoke in the face of health risks, drink in the face of legal consequences, leave their spouses in the face of recrimination, and sleep with people against any prudent delayed gratification. They want -- need -- to believe they are stronger than their behaviors. They derive some kind of twisted satisfaction at the idea that they will prevail in spite of the road they're taking, thereby legitimizing their choices.

It makes sense. My ex can smoke, drink, and believe he's mastered the gods that brought down his family -- until it happens, and it will. Nobody can live an unhealthy lifestyle and remain healthy into middle age. My ex and T can leave their marriages believing they will find the fulfillment that eluded them -- until they realize that not marriage itself, nor one's spouse, is the hurdle or the route to fulfillment, which comes from knowing you've made strong choices out of integrity and faith, and then deriving fulfillment from the action. People like the HL can sleep with anything warm and willing, because the sex is easy, especially for men who rely on such proximity to prove their masculinity and acceptability, especially for a man who in some way sees actual true intimacy with a woman as something that compromises him, not enhances him.

People are stupid.

But like I've said before, doing everything right doesn't mean a person gets everything he or she wants. I do more right than wrong, I think. I take care of myself, I love my friends and family, and I try to get stronger. But at the very least, I know I'm living right for me, and from that comes some ever-elusive fulfillment.

Evolution and Creation

I'm sitting here beside my upside down cat, thinking about my eharmony experience so far, and something occurred to me. I feel no pressure! Back in the day, when I was younger or dumber or more innocent, I'd rush to a computer if there was a man there who interested me. I was ecstatic to hear from him and eager to move from point A to points B and beyond. Now, I don't do that... at all. That is, I do check my eharmony mail often, but it's more like a source of entertainment than anything with real urgency.

Could I be growing up?

I realize that these guys are people. They have weirdnesses, weaknesses, and funny parts... they are not perfect, and there's no illusion about that. While there are some I'm more or less interested in getting to know better, the difference now is that I feel perfectly comfortable taking my time, watching, hedging my bets somewhat, and being true to me, not to some hope involving somebody else.

Could it be I'm growing up?

Skinny Women, Online Dating, and Figuring Out Who You Are

I'm watching All My Children, and I've decided that the lovely actress who plays Kendall is entirely too skinny. She looks skinny although she's on-camera, which is supposed to make people look like they weigh ten more pounds. If that's true, that woman is a piece of paper in real life. I mean, she's positively emaciated. She's all cheekbones and curly hair... she has almost no curves, and her body's concave. It's kind of gross.

I think skinny women are unhappy. My friend P claims that her friend T is just one of the metabolically blessed types, and that's why she's so thin, but for all that, it sure doesn't sound like T's had a very happy life overall. Either way, she's tall and stick-thin. I look like a dumpling next to her, and while I do have my definite share of body fat, I am not overweight. Anyway, I'd much rather be slender with plenty of curves both in the front and in the back, so at least people know I'm a girl.

Anyway, I signed up a few days ago with eHarmony. I was very scared to do that. I seemed to be asking for the very thing that will rock my world, to factor a man into an equation I can control so long as I'm on my own. A few things made me put my fear in its place and do this anyway. While I'd regained some contentment, I had begun fantasizing just a little about how great it would be to find a guy whom I dig who digs me fully in return. I'd just begun to fantasize, but that was a pretty big step, considering how futile I still feel it really is. Also, when I used a small voice and suggested the possibility, even in jest, to my friends, they returned with unanimous enthusiastic endorsement of the idea. I was startled by both the unanimity and the enthusiasm. Then, well, I felt it was almost imperative to go through with it, not in a bad way, but in a supported way. And maybe a small part of me heard my aunt's religious perspective echoing in my ears... "Man was not created to be alone." Maybe there's a richness in experience to join together with someone else... and I'll miss that joy altogether if I don't even make an effort to find it. I'm still scared, and I'm definitely not sure entirely that I'm ready... but I'll give it a shot.

On this show, "Zarf," the transgender character, is speculating that finally "being Zoe" will be hard, because he doesn't know who she is any more than he knows who he is as a man. I have never really understood the whole "figuring out who you are" thing. You ARE who you are, you know?

Like, I knew that I had to get over my divorce and "get to know" myself on the new terms in my life. But the terms were new, I was not. I wasn't precisely the same person I was before my divorce, in other words... but I was STILL ME. Me with more compassion, maybe... me with more humility. Me through a baptism of pain and betrayal which strengthened me to the core and left me a whole lot smarter and a whole lot less innocent, but STILL ME. I knew I had to grow my life to fill the places my ex-husband filled; life abhors a vacuum. When I moved on from the HL and TCMT, the same thing had to happen. Getting through the at-first-lonely weekends and getting through the holidays were hard, but I had to do it to know I could do it, to know there was nothing to fear from it. I knew I had to grow past the pain and hard feelings before I could even admit there was anything worth finding with someone new.

But it's by doing what we love, with whom we love, that we ARE who we are. That whole concept of who am I, that doesn't make sense to me. It's a question that I just don't understand.