Strbellysneetch’s Weblog

If we all had to experience this, we might be less inclined to judge those that decide against having a child.

As a forewarning, it’s somewhat graphic, and it’s upsetting…at least, it was upsetting to me to have read.

Yes, there is birth control, and there are ways to avoid a pregnancy. Clearly. Some of those that are pro-life, it seems, would like to imagine life as an ideal. For instance, in an ideal world no woman would become pregnant without the desire to; birth control wouldn’t fail, women wouldn’t get raped, and all women and men would have had the same fully-disclosing and comprehensive education about sex that others had in order to prevent pregnancy. Unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world. The article above is clearly demonstrative of that.

Am completely unreasonable. Completely. And I blame the new medication I’m on. I don’t think I’m handling extra hormones well at all.

Totally unrelated situations have suddenly, in my unreasonable mind, become exactly similar. This is, of course, as a result of an actual upsetting situation/issue from prior stuff…and only in my current off balance emotional mind are they happening all over again.

It seriously needs to cease.

I mean, I’m not normally totally reasonable, but it’s not usually this bad, it’s drug induced and I may need to find another option.

In 1996 two women came up with what they called, "The Rules" and wrote a book on the idea as if they were the long awaited experts that finally had all the ‘mysterious’ answers to heterosexual women’s problems with dating heterosexual men. It was their $13 answer to what we apparently haven’t been able to figure out successfully on our own through trial and error. What is actually fascinating is that scores of women clutched to that $13 answer as if it would actually solve all their ‘I’m-dating-but-desperately-want-to-be-married-before-I’m-the-last-single-woman-in-the-world’ problems. I sort of laughed when it first came out, much like I’m sure many people did (most of them, I assume, being of the male gender). Motivated by recent personal dissatisfaction with how my relationships with heterosexual men have gone I checked out their "top ten"…the teaser that they offer on their website in hopes of making every woman in America run out and buy their groundbreaking book.

Rule #1: "Be a creature unlike any other". AKA be yourself…be genuine. I wasn’t aware that this was a new idea actually..but admittedly good advice. Why would one want an interaction that they hoped to go deeper be based on a facade? However…what they do is tell one how to be individual:

It’s the way you smile (you light up the room), pause in between sentences (you don’t babble on out of nervousness), listen (attentively), look (demurely, never stare), breathe (slowly), stand (straight) and walk (briskly, with your shoulders back). When a relationship doesn’t work out, you brush away a tear so that it doesn’t smudge your makeup and you move on!

Be things that you may not naturally be in order to "hook them" in. K. Got it.

Rule #2: "Show up at parties, dances, and social events even if you don’t feel like it". AKA go out even if you had an awful day and your feet/brain/feelings hurt and put on a smile for everyone else so that they might think highly enough of you to ask you out. K.

Realize that you may not meet Mr. Right naturally and that you therefore must take social action immediately even if you don’t want to.

Again…do things you don’t want to do. Got it.

Rule #3: "It’s a fantasy relationship unless a man asks you out". K. Don’t ask a man out if you’re interested because you might seem "desperate"? Of course it’s a fantasy relationship if you’re not actually going out with someone…that’s why the word "fantasy" is included in there.

Rule #4: "In an office romance do not email him back every time he emails you unless it is business related".

On all nonbusiness e-mails, responding once for every four of his e-mails is a good rule of thumb.

AKA play games to get what you want. If only my mother had given me that advice instead of what she did give me.

Rule #5: "If you are in a long distance relationship, he must visit you at least three times before you visit him." Again…play games to get what you want. K. Got it.

Rule #6: "When considering to use personal ads or other dating services, you should place the ad and let men respond to you." I’m not even touching this one considering what I think of personal ads or dating services in general.

Rule #7: "If he does not call, he is not that interested. Period." Duh. Do we really need to be told this?

Rule #8: "Close the deal. Rules women do not date men for more than two years." Nice. According to these fine ladies I’ve already fucked up more than once.

If you’ve followed The Rules, your man probably loves you and wants to marry you. Your problem is not if he marries you, but when! If it’s been more than a year, see less of him and think about dating others.

Also according to these fine ladies…everything I do that involves a man should only be entered into with the ultimate goal of marriage. Also, I am a failure if this does not happen to me. Right. Never mind whether you love someone or not…never mind that marriage is not the evidence one needs in order to know that they are special or treasured. Never mind that marriage is simply a socially constructed ideal intended to control. Never mind all that. Never mind that if it’s something that one really truly wants it should be something one thinks about only when and if they are with that one person that it seems right with and that also wants the same. Whatever.

Rule #9: "Buyer beware-observe his behavior so you do not end up with Mr. Wrong." Admittedly good advice…advice that I also must admit I have failed to take in many situations. But the whole "Mr. Wrong" thing…still bugs me. "Buyer beware" as if it’s a game…also highly bugs me.

Rule #10: "Keep doing the rules-even when things are slow." AKA even when you realize that the stupid rules aren’t working…just keep doing them.

Got it

Where, pray tell, does this leave gay men or lesbian women? Is there a rule book for them too? I mean…if these women are experts shouldn’t they know about all that too?

So, we go over my options. I could be a ‘rules girl’ and play games to get what I want…and continue to play games even after I realize it’s not working (as if I wouldn’t know beforehand that it wouldn’t work). Or I could do what I’ve always done…wear my heart on my sleeve, give parts of myself away against my better judgment (and too soon), and generally just fly by the seat of my pants.

I’m sure there are a multitude of other options as to how to go about this. However, I can’t help but feel that something I’m doing isn’t quite right; with my heart the way it is, I get attached, I open up, and I approach without fear most of the time. But another part of me can’t help but wonder if these "rules" girls are sort of right in a way…don’t give too much away too soon, protect yourself, and try to keep the upper hand so that you don’t end up feeling as if somehow you got left behind because you’re the one that gave too much.

I actually think I prefer giving away too much too soon…at least then I’m not pretending to be something I’m not or playing silly games.

First off…new pics! Love it.

Second: One of my old supervisors is an a-hole. It’s way too long of a story to go into, I just thought I’d mention it

Third: I love my job. People actually want to talk to me and want to see me-this is good because most clients in that type of clinic avoid having to meet with counselors like the plague. Sometimes they even ask to see me before they’re really required to. I love my job.

Fourth: I abhor Snoop Dogg.

Fifth: When the going gets tough it’s always a spectacular idea to make birth control unreasonably expensive. Really.

Sixth: Response by moron message boarder on a "men are the victims" site I visit sometimes…he was responding to an article called "The nightmare of feminism":

We now have the first generation of men raised by women and now it is going onto a second generation of fatherless boys raised by women.  You can see the feminism, just spewing bad advice, being bitter and angry, wondering why their relationships with normal men don’t work out. Then passing this bitterness and anger onto others masqueraded as to what is the norm. They circle the wagons and try to belittle those who oppose their agenda or comment on their behavior.

Fortunately there are a few who recognize the differences in men and women and realize each brings something special to a relationship.  A relationship can reach its greatest potential when both in a relationship are unselfish and putting the needs of their partner first; this is one of the greatest gifts you can give. Feminism robs this because of selfish thoughtless behavior and the gotta get mine attitude.

And just becuase this was posted on the men only board, I am sure some are salivating to post a comment and probably will. Because; "damn if a man have an opinion opposite of mine."

Well paint me blue…we ruined relationships all together. All our fault. It is easy, I suppose, to dismiss people as angry & irrational in order to avoid listening to what they have to say.

Seventh: Open Mike is lame. My favorite is when he compares having a psychological addiction to marijuana to someone cheating on their taxes.

Eight: I love my home.

Which is why I’m glad I no longer take birth control pills.

Hopefully, studies of this kind won’t have the same effect that the HRT studies did, which was essentially to get media-ed up and hyped up to where it was a little out of control.

There is something to be said about caution, though, even if we’re talking about the smallest probability that birth control pills can impede a natural bodily process for fighting off cancer cells:

But the researchers found when estrogen binds with an estrogen receptor the complex promotes production of a granzyme inhibitor, proteinase inhibitor 9 (PI-9). That inhibitor binds the granzyme, preventing it from initiating the molecular cascade that kills tumor cells.

"It wasn’t known estrogen could do this in breast cancer cells," said principal investigator David Shapiro, a UI professor of biochemistry. "The amounts of estrogen required to do this are quite small.

Thing is, even at the age of 15 when I started my over 10 year period of taking them on and off, I knew instinctually that there was something not so right about putting extra hormones in my body. There is a certain amount that ebbs and flows for a natural and biological reason…my thinking all along has been, ‘who am I to determine how that will change via extra estrogen’?