I was once famous among women on Catholic campuses (like Notre Dame, Indiana) as “Auntie Seraphic”. The source of my notoriety was my blog “Seraphic Singles” where I wrote whatever I believed about men and dating in an unbridled fashion. (N.B. My book on Catholic single life was published in three countries.) One fan could recognise another by remarking “Men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life.” And quite a few readers followed my advice, got married, had children, and wrote to thank me.
This was both happy and sad, for sometimes my readers’ husbands got sick and sometimes their children brought severe challenges. Falling in love is a slice of heaven, but marriage itself is a part of life, and life is hard. But as Benedick says in Much Ado About Nothing, “The world must be peopled!”
Also, marriage brings meaning, stability, companionship and blessed limitations into adult life. Having a life of unlimited choice (quit my job, not quit my job, go on this trip, go on that trip, spend time with this person, spend it with that one) becomes as uncomfortable as sitting naked on a rock in the middle of the North Sea. Thus, I am a big fan of vow-taking, even if it lands you in a parish council meeting, a flooded convent kitchen, or the local A&E with your stricken husband or wounded child.
But let’s go back to falling in love as a slice of heaven, for love animates meaning, stability, companionship and those blessed limitations. And because this is a Traditional Catholic Dancing blog, I’ll be writing about the love of men and women for each other.
Men add zip
One might think that this is extremely difficult in the Internet Age, where waves of misandry and misogyny crash through screens and slop all over us. However, it is laughably easy for me, for I have done over 10,000 hours of thinking and writing about this, and those things I wrote in 2006 and 2016 still need to be said in 2026.
The first one is “Men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life.” However independent and fulfilled you are, men add an undeniable zip to existence. How boring life would be, for those of us not called to be nuns, if there were no handsome men in it.
If you are a woman who wants to get married and have children, you are going to have to start this project (and a project it is) by developing a sincere liking for men. The younger you do this, the younger you will be when you enter into a happy marriage. (I stress happy.) And this may be extremely difficult for you if hundreds of people have told you, either in person or through media, that men are evil. And, indeed, some men are evil. However, you must not think they are all evil, or you will go through life running from men like a frightened rabbit.
Although I was blessed with good men in my family, I was unfortunate in the company I was forced to keep in elementary school. My experiences there led me to fearing and/or despising men, even as I daydreamed over crush objects. (I stress objects.)This blighted my life in many ways, and one day, from complete frustration, I wrote down all the bad things I believed about men in one column and more optimistic probabilities in another column. “All men are potential rapists” was countered with “Most men are horrified by rape.” Suddenly, the world seemed a much better place, and I became a much happier woman.
Men are different
Another Herculean task women have to complete before they can form a happy marriage is to understand that men are different from women.
One of the biggest mistakes I see women make is speaking to men as if men were women. For example, if a woman tells another woman about terrible things men have to done to her—the boy who turned her down, the man who got drunk, the ex who cheated—the other woman is likely to feel sympathy and/or enjoy the drama, give reassurance, and tell her own stories of disappointment and chagrin.
However, the man who hears these stories doesn’t relate and then share anecdotes about the girls that done him wrong . First, men are less likely to admit to pain or to get relief from sharing stories of humiliation, especially at the hands of women. Second, men look to other men for their cues to how to be men. Therefore, when a woman tells a man that men treat her badly, he forms the impression that this is the kind of woman men treat badly. Yeah, in novels the man feels angry and wants to protect the woman from this cold, hard world forever. In reality, the man might feel angry, but he will not think “This woman whom so many other men have rejected is definitely the wife for me.”
A difficult truth: until a man knows you better, or unless he perceives that you belong to him in some way (sister, girlfriend, niece, wingwoman), he is much more likely to identify with other men than with you. Like it or not, his first loyalty is to himself as a man, and men define themselves by, and compare themselves to, other men.
Therefore, my dear young ladies, whom I want in happy marriages if cloistered convents are not your bag, I beg you: do not tell a man that other men have treated you badly unless he is on the other side of the grille or you are paying him £80/hr to listen. I understand that when you are on a date you want to create closeness and that sharing misery makes you feel closer to someone. However, this does not make men feel closer to you. It merely gives the truly bad ones dangerous information to exploit and makes the good ones run away.
Men aren’t unpaid therapists
In fact, you should avoid talking about all unpleasant realities in your life for the first three dates, at least. Hopefully you have women friends, a spiritual director and/or a kind therapist with whom to share that stuff. Remember how your grandmother (or your friend’s grandmother, if your grandmother is a hippy) says “All you owe a young man on a date is the pleasure of your company”? Well, make sure that your company is a pleasure. And that means finding and keeping to subjects of interest to both of you.
I have now written a thousand words, so I will return tomorrow to share more dating wisdom.
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