I am not Bella Swan.

[deird1]

I read an article by Donald Miller, and now I want to hit things.


It was a two-part article, which can basically be summarised as follows:
Part 1 - "Girls! Stop being sluts and then you'll have a great love story!"
Part 2 - "Men! Get a good career, man-up, find a girl, and write her love story for her!"

(No, I am not exaggerating. At all.)


While there are a number of things I could rant about in this - such as repeated uses of "slutty", dividing people into "girls" and "men", and the implication that women should be valued entirely by how much sex they haven't had - the bit that is actually annoying me the most is this:

Be willing to suffer: What this means for you is that your love story needs to have a lot of lonely crying in it. Believe it or not, there will come a day when a man will fall madly in love with you and you will have the honor of sitting down with him one special night to explain that, while you weren’t perfect, you turned down plenty of guys and and cried yourself to sleep hoping somebody would come around and treat you with respect. He will be honored by this, and he will love you and feel humbled. If he doesn’t have the same story, he will feel intensely convicted and unworthy. You’ll really be giving him the foundation he needs to love your heart.

Uh-huh. Apparently, what makes me a desirable wife is having spent night after night sobbing into my pillow, wishing to be loved, until that glorious day when the man of my dreams strode in to take charge and write my love story, at which point I flung myself into his arms, weeping uncontrollably, and clutched at his manly arms, begging, "Never ever leave me! You will fulfil my every dream! YOU ARE THE ONE I'VE WAITED FOR!", eyes still reddened from the long sorrowful evenings of huddling into my quilt and wishing that the man who would bring my life meaning would hurry up and bring it already...

Call me crazy, but I'd think that having a fulfilling life regardless of my single status (in which writing music, learning languages, performing in plays, helping friends, going to barbecues, and babysitting nephews will be regular occurences) is much more attractive than making the highlight of my week crying myself to sleep. And even if it isn't more attractive, I'd rather do it anyway, because it's much more fun.



Dear Donald Miller,
You suck.
Sincerely, Me.
(PS - Before you decide to give the world pompous advice on the perfect marriage, maybe you'd like to wait until you've actually gotten married? Just an idea.)

Comments

[velvetwhip]

He was being satirical, right? Right? RIGHT?????



Gabrielle

[snickfic]

So, uh, presumably he doesn't give the men this same advice?

I wouldn't have expected this kind of thing from Miller. I haven't read much by him, but I had the impression he was more progressive (for lack of a better word) and less hardcore conservative.

[lirazel]

Waaaah? And I generally like him so much! Admittedly, I liked Searching for God Knows What better than Blue Like Jazz, and I never actually read Through Painted Desserts, but I sobbed/laughed my way through To Own a Dragon and it had nothing to do with my life!

Dammit.

[next_to_normal]

Pffft. I don't know what you're so upset about. I've taken to crying myself to sleep every night and it has CHANGED MY LIFE. I'm still single, kinda depressed, and possibly dehydrated, but I AM PREPARING MYSELF FOR LOVE, OKAY?

You'll be sorry someday! You're gonna look back and be like, "Man, I wish I had CRIED MOAR."

[smurasaki]

Whut?

Can he please crawl back into whatever cave he crawled out of? The sooner, the better?

[aerintine]

I... have no words.

[curiouswombat]

Good grief! I don't want to just hit things - I want to go and hit this man - hard. Hopefully until he cries into his lonely pillow - when I will tell him it's good for him and keeping him in touch with his feminine side...

And you will have to imagine either my WFT penguins or my Granny Weatherwax icon attached to this post. Or my Charlie Brown one - or even my Lucy from Peanuts one!

[lutamira]

Good lord. Guy has a hit book and thinks he can tell the world how it should work. This sounds an awful lot like that John Eldridge crap that was going around a while ago - Wild at Heart and the truly disastrous Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul. Both books had basically this same message to this - men are active and adventurous and the best way to be happy if you are a woman is to wait quietly at home, practicing virtue and keeping things spotless until the man of your dreams comes along. Miller sounds, if possible, even more offensive.

PS - Before you decide to give the world pompous advice on the perfect marriage, maybe you like to wait until you've actually gotten married? Just an idea

And I spilled my tea 'cause I laughed too hard.