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Originally posted by ataraxia

Hi friends,

I’d like to insert a suggestion here. Let me first apologize for waiting till now to do so. Truth is I didn’t get around to checking this thread out until very recently. Besides, I've just discovered a bug (in my system?) that has hidden several pages of this and other threads from me. I show only 5 pages to this thread on the "Active Topics" page, but notice that there are more pages once I got into the thread. Hmmm.

It’s wonderful that Tigress feels comfortable enough to solicit counsel from the members of this board and as wonderful that there are members who have offered suggestions and pledged to pray for her. However, as legitimate as such interaction may be in other contexts, I’d like to suggest that such solicitation isn’t appropriate here. Some will remember that a while back at Doc’s request we shut down a similar thread that was aimed at providing personal counsel for people. As appropriate as that is in other contexts, we felt that this board should not become the sort of place where people came to get counseling for any problem they had. I’m sure there’s a good deal of personal learning and change that occurs in peoples’ lives as we challenge one another here, and we may offer personal counsel of an unofficial or even accidental nature in the course of dialogue. But what we don’t want to encourage on the board is a person’s soliciting counsel for specific life-issues that require a more personally involved and professional approach. It’s a hard line to draw, and I’m not likely to get it right all the time, but I think a good deal of this thread is the sort of solicitation that’s inappropriate for a public discussion forum.

Tigress, we love and appreciate you and pray God complete his beautiful healing work in your life. I’m sorry this discussion forum isn’t the sort of place where we can solicit counsel for the sort of issues you’ve brought up.

Having said that, it’s obvious that there are other topics of discussion here that don’t relate specifically to Tigress’ request for counseling and that ought to be continued. I hope I’ve expressed myself clearly.

ataraxia

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Originally posted by Tigress

All I can say here is that I was crying a lot last night about this and even now I'm crying because basically what John's been saying is that there's no hope for girls like me to ever be truly regarded as externally beautiful by men.

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I could never ever be happy knowing that my husband didn't truly think that I'm as beautiful as supermodels;

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...that he just settled for what he could get b/c he couldn't get a supermodel.

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John, you've been saying that it's not in men's experience to truly find girls like me beautiful and sexy in the least. So, what real hope do I have of having a great sex life with my future husband? What hope do any girls like me have? Unless what I've been saying is true - that the inner beauty can make it happen the same way external beauty does.

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I mean really John - what are you gonna do when your wife starts showing her age - when she wrinkles up, her boobs sag, she gets stretch marks from pregnancies, her hair dries up and grays, her eyes aren't as bright and sparkly, she gains weight (which is inevitable no matter what a woman does to try to keep it down), she starts getting liver spots and other blemishes, her voice doesn't sound as pretty anymore, the skin on her neck and chin sags, etc. etc. etc. It will happen. What are you gonna do then? Obviously her inner beauty will have to be beautiful enough to attract you to her, b/c her external beauty sure won't anymore.

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Originally posted by TigressI don't believe God intended for men to be led around by their hormones like you and your wife claim.

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Originally posted by John Earp

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Originally posted by TigressI don't believe God intended for men to be led around by their hormones like you and your wife claim.

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Well, I was going to end my participation in this thread, but to defend the honor of my wife, I must respond to this absurd accusation. Neither I nor my wife believe that men should be "led around by their hormones." This is a gross mischaracterization of the realistic view of human sexuality I have been trying to discuss in this thread, which simply recognizes that physical attraction is a built-in factor to the whole equation of how GOD designed sexuality.

In choosing my wife, her physical beauty was only one of the things that kept my interest. Intelligence, spirituality, life values and goals, basic attitude, etc., all factored in, as quite obviously they should.

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Originally posted by Tigress

Alright, alright, alright! I must apologize to you here, John and to your wife. I was probably speaking out of anger before. (Having a conscience can sure be annoying and inconvienent can't it?)

One more thing and I'll say no more - others (men and women) have embraced the idea I've been putting forth here. Someone mentioned earlier how www.eharmony.com helped their friend find a spouse. Well, eharmony goes by what I've been saying here. When they match a person to someone it's done solely based upon each person's similar internal characteristics. Physical appearance is not factored in at all with the exception of height, (because apparently studies have shown that more marriages between women with husbands who are taller than them work). Eharmony encourages people to not base their decisions to get to know someone upon their first impression of how a person looks (i.e. whether or not they're initially attracted to them), and they've had major success in matching people who've ended up getting married to each other happily. (I know all this because I'm a member of eharmony.com.) So, what I've been saying all along is proven true - that men CAN develop sexual attraction to a woman even if it didn't happen right away (initially).

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Originally posted by John Earp

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Originally posted by Tigress

Alright, alright, alright! I must apologize to you here, John and to your wife. I was probably speaking out of anger before. (Having a conscience can sure be annoying and inconvienent can't it?)

One more thing and I'll say no more - others (men and women) have embraced the idea I've been putting forth here. Someone mentioned earlier how www.eharmony.com helped their friend find a spouse. Well, eharmony goes by what I've been saying here. When they match a person to someone it's done solely based upon each person's similar internal characteristics. Physical appearance is not factored in at all with the exception of height, (because apparently studies have shown that more marriages between women with husbands who are taller than them work). Eharmony encourages people to not base their decisions to get to know someone upon their first impression of how a person looks (i.e. whether or not they're initially attracted to them), and they've had major success in matching people who've ended up getting married to each other happily. (I know all this because I'm a member of eharmony.com.) So, what I've been saying all along is proven true - that men CAN develop sexual attraction to a woman even if it didn't happen right away (initially).

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Apology accepted, though no big offense was taken.

I have heard good things about eharmony.com. I assume you will be marrying someone from eharmony absolutely sight unseen, correct?

(Sorry, couldn't help myself with that one).

But seriously...you would not be joining eharmony.com if you didn't believe there were in fact some good matches available there for you, would you? I am happy to see that you really don't believe that there are no men out there that would be a good match for you. I knew that was just poor self-image talking.

Blessings,

John

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Originally posted by Wahoo
The average girl is very hot when she is comfortable with what she's got.

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Originally posted by might-be-don

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Originally posted by Wahoo
The average girl is very hot when she is comfortable with what she's got.

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Wahoo has nailed it here. Sexy is as sexy does.

Folks, both men and women, that are in touch with the rythmns of life speak to us on levels we can't even begin to understand.

Learn to dance!

peace, don

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Originally posted by quest for truth

Tigress,
I was thinking of you the other day when I was driving in my car listening to the radio. Go Fish has a song out, probably the bands trademark, that speaks to your precious value. "You're my little girl you're the one that I created, no one in the world could ever be like you. When you're crying in the night all you've got to do is call me 'cause you're my little girl...."

Tigress, beauty is in the eye of the beholder thus we each have different tastes. Some men may look at the outside beauty of a woman but that beauty is temporal. The men who look beyond the outside find the real gem. It would be interesting if we could find out how many divorces are from shallow relationships which were brought together on a superficial basis of the physical.

YOU ARE GOD'S LITTLE GIRL. YOU ARE GOD'S LITTLE PRINCESS. YOU ARE GOD'S BELOVED. YOU ARE THE APPLE OF HIS EYE. HE CREATED YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE AND YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL TO THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE. TRUST ME, I AM MUCH OLDER THAN YOU, BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

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Originally posted by Tigress

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Originally posted by quest for truth

Tigress,
I was thinking of you the other day when I was driving in my car listening to the radio. Go Fish has a song out, probably the bands trademark, that speaks to your precious value. "You're my little girl you're the one that I created, no one in the world could ever be like you. When you're crying in the night all you've got to do is call me 'cause you're my little girl...."

Tigress, beauty is in the eye of the beholder thus we each have different tastes. Some men may look at the outside beauty of a woman but that beauty is temporal. The men who look beyond the outside find the real gem. It would be interesting if we could find out how many divorces are from shallow relationships which were brought together on a superficial basis of the physical.

YOU ARE GOD'S LITTLE GIRL. YOU ARE GOD'S LITTLE PRINCESS. YOU ARE GOD'S BELOVED. YOU ARE THE APPLE OF HIS EYE. HE CREATED YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE AND YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL TO THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE. TRUST ME, I AM MUCH OLDER THAN YOU, BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

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Quest,
Thanks for this reminder. I have this song on CD and it really touched my heart the first time I listened to it. I haven't listened to it in a while because it always makes me cry, but it's always good to know and remember anyway.

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Originally posted by Tigress

Okay, this has been really troubling me for the last few years. I think I'm a really abnormal female because of all the non-typical traits I have. For instance, while staying at my aunt and uncle's house this weekend, my uncle was really upset with me for not helping my aunts and my mom clean up the kitchen after meals. Part of my reasoning for just sitting there instead of helping out was because the three of them would jump right to it immediately so they got everything done quickly and there was barely any room to move around their small kitchen, anyway. So, I just didn't bother to do anything.

At one point he said to me, "Why don't you help out?" And I just jokingly said that it looked like they had it all under control. I looked at my mom when I said that, and she looked a bit embarassed by me. My uncle was visibly upset the next day, too. But, his daughter had come over then and was helping out before I could do anything so I figured they had all the help they needed.

I've always been this way. While visiting with a couple of my Christian friends a few years ago, the wife was doing whatever in the kitchen, while I preferred to stay in the living room and talk with her husband and our other male friend. I knew that I should have gone in to help her, but I was more interested in discussing things with the guys.

I guess aside from the fact that I hate manual labor of any kind and I'm pretty lazy, I just resent the fact that because I'm a female I have to clean up after a meal while all the men get to sit around in the living room after eating. I mean, my uncle didn't get after his 18-year-old grandson to help clean up, but he got after me, his 30-year-old God-daughter who he sees way less frequently than his grandson. My uncle didn't help out either. Plus, I think it's rude to expect your guests to do anything, anyway. In my home I do all the work and don't want anyone to help me clean up. It's just easier that way.

Other female traits that I don't have are as follows:

1. I'm not good at serving people like most women do. I hate serving in the capacity of helping out around the house, especially. They always say that women do everything for everyone else, and don't know how to take time out for themselves. I'm totally the opposite of that. In fact I'm not very self-sacrificing at all when it comes to doing things I hate doing, like cleaning and running errands, etc.

2. I don't desire intimacy with friends the way most women do. I just prefer to have a buddy or two to call up and hang out with sometime and do fun stuff even if we haven't spoken for a long time. I know guys like to do that, but if women don't speak to each other for a while they get all like, "Why would I want to spend time with you when you haven't even called me in X amount of months? What kind of friend are you?" But guys do that all the time, and they're great with each other, and I'd be the same way, too if I could find other women who were that laid back.

3. I can't stand being around kids, and I don't want to have any. I've never desired to have any. If in a situation where all the women are fawning over a baby or child, I'm usually standing in a corner bored out of my skull.

4. I took some personality tests that my brother gave me (I don't remember what they were anymore) and I scored much higher in the areas that are more male-like and lower in the female-like areas. These areas were in regard to attitudes, feelings, beliefs and interests, etc.

5. I hate chick-flicks, shopping for clothes and talking on the phone.

6. I'm healthily aroused by men, but also by women's breasts for some reason - particularly and mainly big ones.

7. There are other things that I can't really think of now.

Anyway, I'm just really troubled by how abnormal I seem to be. I've never found a gal that I truly feel comfortable and happy to be friends with, and I feel like I get along better with guys but most Christians tend to think that it's better to have same-sex close friends and not opposite-sex close friends. In fact, in my last WHC small group there was a huge conflict about it that they had with me where they had me do a group counseling session with two WHC pastors and a few of those from the group, because they said I was crossing boundaries by trying to be such close friends with a guy in the group. Granted, I did go overboard with him because I had a crush on him and when he rejected me I threatened suicide, (and that was only talk - I wouldn't have actually done it), but even so, they ALL said that women and men simply should not have even intimate friendships with each other, either - meaning that I couldn't say the same personal things to a guy that I could say to a woman.

I'm sorry this is so long, but I feel like I can't have good relationship with anyone, because I'm not satisfied with female friendships, but most Christians won't allow for a woman to have close male friends. Plus, the fact that I sort of have a double-standard attitude about it anyway because I would be majorly jealous if my boyfriend or husband was close to another woman as friends. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! What can I do?

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Originally posted by Tastic

Hey I ve just read some of these posts.....sounds like Jobs friends......I think she's helpful, honest and gorgeous, I wish I could meet her.She reminds me of myself, individual, creative, and looking for truth. At least she relates religion to herself, she's into practicality rather than theory maybe. I want to reinforce, I've been enjoying her variety of posts. Wow, Tigress, you're the greatest!

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Originally posted by moon_river_j

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Originally posted by Tastic
Wow, Tigress, you're the greatest!

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I'm sure she'll enjoy this post!

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