Posted by Alli from ? (160.129.153.180) on Monday, February 25, 2002 at 9:14PM :
so here we go - Alli bitching again... where to begin...
should i begin with those repressed fools who lived & continue to live up to the ridiculuous standards of 1950's America (those pathetic individuals who seek affairs on the sly, as if the indiscretion wouldn't affect any other, more noticeable, part of their character, & keep some sort of "loving" facade for the partner they openly admit to having), or should i begin with those stupid free loving sexual "capitalists" of the dippy-hippie era (as if bringing one's affairs out into broad daylight really helped matters)? both "ideals" have since been reduced to caricature, yet there are so MANY people who seem to believe that these ways of being are noble.
i'm sick & tired of jerks. i'm sick & tired of people who go around making promises they can't keep to lovers, their own kids, etc.
all my life, i looked to my parents as the ideal in, not only parenting, but also in love. my God, they are the most "in love" couple i have ever seen! my mom still giggles about my dad, my dad still blushes when he thinks about how wonderful my mom is (beyond words) - even though they aren't the pretty young things they were when they 1st met. why can't any other couple figure it out like they did & still do? why are so many marriages failing (were they even working to begin with?)??? why are so many people being so non-committal & then openly mocking the notion of "love" when it doesn't work out (they way they want it to, or the way they THINK they want it to)? it's OK, i suppose, by my standards when 2 people are in a non-committal "love" relationship UNLESS they have kids. it just seems to me that too many people are jumping into marriages or living together, whatever, & then having kids & THEN deciding that they can't stand each other... weren't compatible even from the beginning (tough luck to the kids, poor things - not everyone's lucky enough to get parents, even a single one, these days).
why must people take such a simple, pure thing & contort the hades out of it, making life miserable for not just themselves, but innocent creatures & by-standers?
men now-a-days are taught the arts of free-loving, as if kids are just a side-effect to a relationship - stop seeing the woman, & the kids go away! "love" is something that can change, can come & go, with time & can be "practiced." this is semi-understandable, given the still blatant objectification of women that goes on in this society. how, in the name of anything under the sun, can a man respect someone who's basically presented as a sex object the majority of the time, is only SOMETIMES presented as a being with a brain that's capable of self-sufficiency?
women are taught exactly what the man of their "dreams" is supposed to be like, not to "settle," & to think that there really is such a thing as the type of "love" that's already been defined for them by their culture... they just haven't "found" Mr. Perfect or that "love" yet. until then, enjoy all the sex you can with the "jerks." & don't have any regrets when they treat you like the sex-objects you've become...
it's nauseating. it's almost impossible to escape because it's taught to you as soon as you're able to understand enough English to "enjoy" watching TV. it's on those disgusting ads on TV, it's on the radio, it's in every sit-com imaginable, it's in magazines, it's every where - if you don't accept it out-right, you're taught to accept it & broken into these notions until you become exactly what everyone tells you to be - you can't help it - it's even in your subconscious (as are many other things that probably are not "innate").
what did my parents do or have that's so different? i mean, they must be the products of their own cultures, too... but then again, they each came from drastically different, non-American cultures. sure, they grew up in the 1950's, dated during the hippie era, & were into the whole hippie clothes fashion thing, but what they didn't do was let anyone tell them what to expect from each other or how to be in love. they defined everything as they went, occassionally looking into literature when it came to parenting, but even then, they CHOSE what they wanted to choose from the options they had in front of them & came up with a few new ways to deal with things when they didn't like what it was that they were being fed.
the problem with this American society is this whole normalization process - people of so many different cultures conforming to the "new" norms, because they are afraid to stick out (still), & because American life is the epitome of the "free" life. that's why there are fads. & for so many Americans, love is subject to trendiness. so is parenting. is this bad? i don't think so, unless it is not what you want. & if it isn't what you want, then try setting your own trend. i'm sick of the expectations, the expectations that can't be matched by anything on earth, the bitching, & subsequent mockery of something so innocent, so pure as "love."
-- Alli
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