I ONLY LIKE YOU WHEN WE'RE ALONE

Dear Professor Theophilus:

My friends and I have all been having a similar problem. We're all fairly introverted, "intellectual" men who don't show our emotions except to those we are close with. All the girls are fairly independent, ambitious, have a difficult time understanding our occasional feelings of jealousy when they casually meet and talk with other guys not making an effort to "be associated" with us, and are reluctant to show any dependency on us in public settings (they don't really want to be seen "with" us, don't want to be seen "as a couple").

Now some of this is why we like them. We don't like women to be clingy. The problem isn't that they're not clingy — it's that they don't seem to want to be close. They resist the natural progression that takes place in emotions, so that the man and woman come to depend on each other. They also don't like us to depend on them (which is curious because in general I think women want to be wanted). Sometimes they let down their guards, but only when not in public. My own girlfriend says she doesn't like the fact that some of her friends know me only as her boyfriend. She's unhappy that I don't have an independent identity in their eyes.

We don't know whether our girlfriends are going through some sort of phase, or have some deeper problem that will show up in the future and prevent marital intimacy. Somehow it seems to spill over into a lack of excitement about motherhood, which worries me too. I don't want these things to develop into a life-long struggle. My older, wiser friends don't have any insight into girls like our girlfriends; their wives and girlfriends are different. Any thoughts?

Reply

Just like young men, young women may have lots of reasons for resisting the normal development of a relationship in the direction of commitment — especially fear of growing up, previous bad experience with the opposite sex, difficult or broken families, or confused ideas about manhood and womanhood in general.

Things like that may have something to do with what's going on here, but I don't think they're the main problem. Fear of commitment or confusion about sex roles may explain the behavior of girlfriends who act cool and distant all the time, but they don't explain the behavior of girlfriends who let down their guards in private, but act cool and distant toward you in the presence of others.

The evidence suggests that these young women are using you and your friends as good-enough-for-now boyfriends, to be dropped when someone better comes along. If a young woman is on the lookout for Someone Better, she isn't going to want to seem committed when Possible Someone Betters are in the vicinity. Nor will she want to be tagged as "attached" when her own female friends are around. So, she has to treat you distantly when other people are around, and she doesn't want anyone to think of you as her boyfriend.

If I'm right, then, you and your friends are (a) dating the wrong women, and (b) misunderstanding their character.

You probably think I'm wrong. If you do believe me, you may feel crushed. Don't. There is no need. Intellectual young men like you tend to be late bloomers, but you do usually bloom. One reason is that, as you grow older and more mature, you grow better at social relationships, and therefore you grow more attractive to women. Another is that, as young women themselves grow older and more mature, they learn to appreciate the qualities of smart men who don't fit the mold of "cool."

Unfortunately, the sort of young women who are willing to exploit young men as good-enough-for-now boyfriends are not the sort who learn to appreciate them later.

Be patient, watch, and trust God. By being patient, I don't mean sticking with these girls; they are the wrong ones. What I mean is that the right ones will come along.

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

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THIS TIME, WHAT'S RIGHT ABOUT THE PICTURE?

Dear Professor Theophilus:

Would you please explain a point that has come up a number of times in your Boundless columns and your book Ask Me Anything? When you discuss how sex should work in marriage, I don't get how it takes each spouse "out of the Self."

Reply

OK, let's review. God invented sex. It was His idea. After He created, He called His creation "good." Three things are good about sex, and each one needs marriage to come into its own.

The first is procreation, making families: God told our first parents to "be fruitful and multiply." The second is union, becoming one: When our first father saw our first mother for the first time, he cried "This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." The third is grace, supernatural gift: When the husband and wife are united to Christ, they become a living emblem of His sacrificial love for the Church and the Church's adoring response. These three goods are the point of sex, what sex is for.

You're asking about the second one, union. For the husband and wife to be truly united to each other, the most important thing to happen is that they give themselves totally to each other. That means in soul and in body. To give yourself is to get outside of your Self — to get out of the narrow little prison house of Self-regard. Do you remember Gollum in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? He can't stop thinking about "My Precious." In our fallen condition, we're like that too. We can't stop thinking about our Precious Selves. Sexual love between husband and wife love pulls in the opposite direction. It pulls you toward the Other. Instead of thinking about your Self, you are thinking about the Beloved.

The sexual impulse can go wrong. It can be directed toward your Self; that's auto-eroticism, which locks the prison door even more tightly. It can be directed toward a mirror of your Self; that's homosexual intercourse, which is like auto-eroticism with another body. Or it can be directed toward another Self in a way that won't let go; that's casual sex, which is like signing a contract in disappearing ink. It's a kind of fraud, enacted in the language of bodies instead of words: "I give my Self, but I don't give my Self."

The Bible uses conjugal union as a symbol of the even more profound marriage that God plans between Himself and His people. The everyday humilities and mutual sacrifices of earthly husbands and wives are a training for heavenly union; the awe of their wedding night and the ecstasy of their embraces are a glimpse of it.

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS