So, I've been thinking. I know, always a scary proposition, but I think I have something this time, so just bear with me...
Opposites attract.
Its a ridiculous fact of life that makes no sense to me. There are many ridiculous facts of life that make no sense to me (like how everything in life is designed to get you into the working world, and once you are there, you want out), but this one really gets me. Why are we so intrigued by what is completely different from us?
The biggest example of this fact is how men and women are attracted to one another (for the most part. I know there is homosexuality around somewhere, but in this case, we will take the majority). Men and women, for the most part, are nothing alike. Men drink beer, women drink wine coolers. Men watch sports, women watch ice skating (NOT A SPORT!!!). Men go to the game, women go shopping. Men are blunt and forward, women drop hints and expect mind readers. HOW IN THE HELL DID WE FIGURE OUT WE WANTED TO BE TOGETHER?
Yes, I know, the biological aspect of all this dictates attraction. We are supposed to be together to propagate our species. Everywhere in nature, females and males are getting together for this purpose. But propagating our species does not necessarily require living and spending ones life with one another. That is mostly a human invention.
Everywhere I look, men complain about their wives, girls complain about their boyfriends. It seems so silly to me. Why would a species evolve where the females and males are so different from one another, and yet choose to spend their lives with one another completely?
I'm guilty of this too. I would love to one day settle down and start a family. I would like to have someone to love and spend my life with. But I have no idea why. I think I'm just crazy!
And guys and girls never choose someone from the opposite sex who are anything like them, either. Sports crazed guys never marry the tomboy they know. She's just "one of the guys." They marry the girl who abhors sports and think sundays are great days to go to the mall. Girls never want the sensitive, feminine men who would rather spend a day working in the garden than playing football. They go for the guy who paints his chest every sunday in crimson and gold for the home team!
It makes no sense to me. Maybe someone can explain this to me. Is the whole human race absolutely nuts? OR is there some reason for us to want someone exactly the opposite of us? I mean, is it just curiosity? Is it boredom? Like, we already know what its like to be us and hang out with us, so we want someone different to make life interesting? Maybe this is why the divorce rate is so high today. People marry others who are completely different from them. I know anyone I marry will have to understand a few things: I love football, and sundays will be devoted to it for a few months a year. I like to spend time with my friends from time to time. I am a sports fan in general. Compromises can be made, but if someone hates sports, and cant stand when I watch them, and are going to pace around and scold every September through January...then yeah, why would I want that? And yet, I see it all the time and it baffles me.
You can't change people. You will always be who you've grown up to be. This all seems very simple, and yet people get married every day who have forgotten it. They get together with someone completely opposite from them. And, most of the time, it doesn't work...at all.
----------------------------------
This piece sucks...I know. It doesn't have an ending, and I keep going around in circles. But that's how confused I am over this. I have yet to reach a conclusion on why this is. Maybe you can help.
I hadn't written a true rant in a while and felt like going off on something that really baffles me. Its fun, and its liberating. You should try it sometime.
3 comments:
my only beef with this would possibly be that you stereotype a bit in trying to make your point.... Although I do agree that opposites tend to attract one another (what is interesting about living with a replica of yourself forever,???) I think that males and females are intrinsically less dissimilar than you might like to argue.
Sarah
I agree with Sarah that you did stereotype and generalize a bit much. You know very well that I love to watch football or go to a baseball game, I just don't want to do it all the time, and I also love other things like Ice Skating (it is too a sport, try it). I think you find someone with whom you have some common ground, and come to an agreement about the rest of it. Just don't think that you are going to change someone. Oprah says, (yes, I am actually quoting Oprah, but it fits) "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."
I thought this was a good rant.
Love,
Mom
it surprised me so much to read your fairly absolute pessimism towards marraige when your own parents have been married quite a long time, and I know that's something that you admire greatly in them. I agree with your mom about the common ground and working on the rest... and for everyone complaining about their loved ones, maybe it'd help you and them to direct them to their loved ones to have the conversation with them. I hope you feel some hope in relationships and people coming together, especially as someone coming to our wedding next summer :). But I also understand, when you gotta rant, you gotta rant!! Have a great break after summer school, and keep us posted on your final year!! miss you much :)
-Kendall
Post a Comment