What I Am Giving Up For Lent

Wednesday, March 1, next week marks the beginning of Lent. It is the 40 day period before the Feast of Easter, symbolizing both Jesus’ 40 day prayer journey in the desert before the start of his earthly ministry and our own faith journeys. It is a time for us to reflect on our lives, both the past year and our lives as a whole, think of the ways we have followed the example of Jesus, and think of areas where we need improvement. Requirements of fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstaining from meat on these days and the other Fridays of Lent (Church Laws, not Divine Laws, and as such changeable) are ways in which we show communion with our fellow Christian pilgrims. I will try to do better this year, though it is hard at Happy Hour on Fridays, with tasty chicken wings tempting me!

Along with this, we are called to show our devotion in other ways. In the past, many people usually did this by giving something up for Lent, whether it be ice cream, junk food, television, as a way of showing solidarity, and a willingness to put more focus on Christ during Lent. A more recent practice has been, instead of giving something up, to do something a little extra for Lent.

I thought about trying to become a daily Mass goer during Lent, but with work, I do not have the time. And, daily Mass is something I could have easily done in grad school, when there were about eight masses available each day for me to attend, but I was too damn lazy. I could make my Lenten goal to pass my Comprehensive Exams, however, (1) that is more than a Lenten Goal, and (2) I take my Comps March 16 and 17, so there is still plenty of Lent left after that. I could give up drinking for Lent…no freaking way! When I finish my comps on St. Paddy’s Day morning, I am getting so blitzed. Plus, with March Madness and all, there are too many party dates.

Instead of giving something up or doing something extra, this Lent I am going to have a change in attitude. My life is going good right now. I have a good social circle (even if many of my friends are spread out over the East coast and beyond), a great family, a job that I love. I am moving out into my own place in less than a month. My life really is great. The only thing holding me down is that I let myself fret over the fact that I am single. Well, for Lent, I am not going to worry about women. It’s kind of like baseball. When I always worried about how well I was doing, I did bad, made an error, struck out, popped up, etc. When I didn’t give a shit, and just relaxed, treated it as a game, I did fine. Keep on reading to find out why I am making this change in my attitude for Lent…

I always tried to figure out “why don’t I have a girlfriend? Why don’t women like me?” I have halfway figured it out. Yeah, this is the old clichéd “defining moment” or “moment of realization” that you always see in literature. Like, Buddha all of a sudden reaching Nirvana, St. Augustine having his conversion in the garden. Whether in real life these things are gradual and just become “quick defining moments” for literary effect, I don’t know.

My first realization is figuring out why people date each other. For the majority of people, it is a combination of looks and personality. There are some people who only care about looks (these people are shallow) and some people who only care about personality (these people are dating saints or something). Most of us, when we date someone, it is because we like the person’s personality, and also like the person’s looks.

A few quick realizations to start: When person A dates person B, A likes B’s personality and looks. If person A does not want to date person B, it is because either (1) A is not physically attracted to B, (2) A is not really into B’s personality, or (3) A does not like B’s personality nor looks.

Step 1 to finding out which of the two is my problem: examine my personality. I am smart, funny, fun to be around, women really like hanging out with me and spending time with me. No, I am not the “playa” type, but I also am not the boring “nice” guy who kisses up to women, worships the ground they walk on, and are dull and wussy. I am a good flirt and tease, and am a good time. Yeah, I can be a little annoying at times, but I am never boring. I am always interesting. Okay, enough bragging about myself.

(quick sidenote: I have no sympathy for “nice” guys who whine about how women go for jerks. Unless these “nice” guys are willing to date the nice woman over the pretty woman, they have no argument.)

So, there is no way any woman would ever reject me based on personality. This leaves 2 options:

Option 1: Since women like my personality, I may be single because of my looks. I have no pretensions about myself. I neither assume that women are or expect women to be physically attracted to me. I do not think of myself as good looking, or ugly, or average. I do not think of myself at all. I am straight, and attracted to women. Whether or not I am attractive is something for women to judge (and gay guys, I suppose. They can judge my looks if they want, as long as they don’t hit on me). So, what I’m getting at is, I would not date a woman that I am not physically attractive to, so I would neither expect nor want a woman who is not physically attracted to me to date me.

Option 2: I know that women like my personality. It may be possible that women do like my looks and my initial hypothesis (people date based on looks and personality) is wrong. Obviously, there are some people out there who date based on money, fame, power, or some combination of these. And, I am not rich, I am not famous, I do not have GW Bush power or anything like that. Again, like the handful of people who care about just looks, or just personality, there are a handful who care about only things like wealth, fame, status. I would not want to date these type of women anyways.

So, it is possible that women look for a third thing on top of looks and personality when it comes to dating. They may like a man’s looks and personality and still not want to date him. If so, they are pickier than me when it comes to dating. All I ask for is looks and personality.

Besides, I have almost figured things out:
(1) women date men (and vice versa) because they like the other person’s personality and looks
(2) women like my personality
(3) I am single
Therefore:
(4) Two possibilities remain: (a) women do not like my looks or (b) women like my looks, but are pickier than me and care about more than just personality and looks.