Best Friends Forever

It's confession time again.

Sometimes I like to read those dating and relationship articles on MSN.com. It's mostly an entertainment thing. After all, most of those articles are one person's opinion and experiences presented as absolute truth. I definitely am not going to go date a guy who is all wrong for me but has great abs just because some online writer put that on a list of things to do before I get married And it's fun to laugh at the lists of 50 things women wish men knew - about half of which are blatantly untrue. For me, at least.

But mixed in there are some not so fun ones. Griping, bitter ones. Lists of annoying things that couples say or do. I sometimes read those ones too. And most of the things listed I see nothing wrong with. But the one I least understood was on a list of annoying relationship cliches.

"I married my best friend."

I was a little bit stunned to see that on there because I had always thought it was about the most romantic sentiment out there. After all, who doesn't want to be married to somebody who always has their back, whose company they enjoy, and around whom they can feel completely comfortable just being themselves? Then I read the commentary on it:

"Of this, a married girlfriend of mine writes, 'Oh, you're so unique! Your spouse is your BEST FRIEND? Wow. My husband is probably my favorite person to spend time with, but … I have a lot of great friends in my life.' This one is true. Perhaps your spouse is your closest friend, or your best guy friend, but he doesn't have to be your end-all, be-all. So stop making other people feel bad."

So what exactly do these people think a best friend is? Evidently not your closest friend or your favorite person to be with. No, a best friend is apparently supposed to be your only friend. An idea I thought everybody had grown out of by adulthood.

Beautiful Beast

Earlier this summer, I read a new (to me) retelling of Beauty and the Beast. As usual, at the end of the story the Beast turns human because Beauty confesses her love for and to him. Although this version didn't say much about the Prince's human appearance, he typically is depicted as being very handsome. And for probably the first time, I wondered how Beauty felt about that.

Generally in the story, it is a good thing - she is able to see past his exterior and love him for who he is, so she is rewarded with a handsome exterior that she can be actually attracted to. But she learned to love the Beast for who he was. And who you are does include, to some extent, your physical body.

She probably does eventually get used to and appreciate his new form. But how long does it take for her to look at him and see her Beast?

A Disturbing Misconception

One morning a few years ago when I had gone in to work a morning shift, before we all dispersed to our various posts, one of my coworkers claimed that if a boy has not had sex by the time he was fifteen, something was wrong with him. The woman he was talking to, who I would guess to be in her thirties, seemed to agree with his assessment. I felt that had to be challenged. So I said what I could think of to say at the moment, which was basically that there was nothing wrong with having moral standards against early sex. It has always felt somewhat inadequate, but was the best response I could formulate at the time.

Of course, it is not at all wrong for a boy to remain a virgin long past the fifteenth birthday. In fact, there is something wrong with a boy who does have sex that early. If there wasn't a problem before, there will be one later in consequence. I really do not want to go find the appropriate research now, but I know that aside from the spiritual issues that will come, especially if he has been taught better, people who have sex earlier tend to have more emotional problems than those who wait.

And there is something very wrong with a society where that opinion is accepted as fact.