Wedded Bliss...Maybe.
Oye gevalt!
What would we do without Yiddish? My friend Fed is getting married on Saturday. I poked and prodded the big lug for years whenever he said he simply wasn't ever going to get married. So, like a jerk, when I prodded him about me being right and him being wrong, he cheerfully conceded that I was right and took the fun out of poking fun at him. Jerk.
So tomorrow (later today actually, it is almost 4:AM) is his bachelor party. They're going to a strip club. After, of course, hanging out at a friends house for an hour or so. The friend is a woman, and I don't doubt that the hanging out at her place is happening so she doesn't have to go to the strip club. Won't they be surprised...When I don't go either.
Well...I mean...It's not as though I could go, no matter how you spin it. I just - can't - do that. Or, more accurately, I won't. I suppose it is physically possible for me to do it, but not without ignoring everything I've ever learned about morality and God and what Christ is trying to teach us even now. Sigh... I hate ditching him. I've not seen him in months, half a year even. I really, really don't want to blow my buddy off after only an hour of hanging out with him. Unfortunately he's making a big mistake, and I can't walk off the pier along with him.
And he WOULD just pick something like this wouldn't he? Such a cliche! And so....Shitty. I mean C'mon. Does it take a genius to figure out that women who dance naked for tips at a bar aren't sexually...Normal. That just maybe most of them are sexual assault victims, and perhaps that's why they have not so many qualms about gettin jiggy wit it in public? Ergo to participate in their self degradation which stems from having been victimized not only sullies your hands and re-enforces the persons image of themselves as worthless (seriously, nobody with a strong sense of self worth does this), you perpetuate the original abuse that misguided them into doing what they are doing.
Fun!
I can commit six to eight different sins all at once and continue the cycle of abuse, or I can walk away from my friend, comrade, former roommate, and all around buddy. Which, of course, is what I'll have to do. Seriously, even if I weren't a believer in the Risen Christ, I think I'd avoid a strip club just on it's own (de)merits. From what I've heard, the women who dance in those places are borderline attractive at best, and the whole aura of the place just exudes skankism and is very...Ugly.
Lord, I honestly don't know what to do here. The thing is that I just cannot envision a way of telling the party crew that I'm not going, and then either A) Lying about why, or B) Effectively telling EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM that I think they're all doing something bad and want no part of it. Thus insulting, not only a bunch of people I don't know, but also a guy who was nice enough to invite me to his wedding even though we've not been hanging out much (just cause we lost contact) in the last two years.
It will be...Interesting. I'm seriously contemplating having someone call me on my cell phone about an 'emergency' that I have to attend to. This entails a risk though. If my acting is sub-par, I'll betray myself without the dignity of having been honest about it in the first place. Also, I'd doubtless be required to lie about it, or fess up to it, later on. So this leaves me with the option of going, and then leaving, and, when they inevitably ask me why, being honest.
Shit.
Believe me, I have no problem with not going to a strip club. They sound amazingly gross and nasty. I have a problem with snubbing my former best (and still very very good) friend. Also, I've not gotten off my butt to get him a wedding gift yet.
Ohhh yeah, that other dilemma. He's Catholic. So is his bride. More importantly, so is the wedding ceremony. Now, I endorse, believe, and avow as the absolute and unalterable truth, the Orthodox Christian faith. I think I can go to the wedding, as long as I have no part in it's actual operation and or conduction. My abstaining from it wouldn't send any messages, because nobody who goes there knows I'm Orthodox (not even the Groom, I don't think I've shared that with him yet). And not going would be horribly insulting, and disrespectful to a guy who is basically nicer than almost anyone I've ever met. So, when certain advisory parties read this blog entry, I'll be VERY interested in what you have to say about me going to the wedding. Presumably just attending is no problem, but if it is, let me know. I'll think of....Something.
And, in God's infinite cleverness, maybe not kill a friendship in the process.
Alexey the Sinner
P.S. As I spell checked this entry I discovered an ironic little quirk. Bloggers spell check software does not recognize the word...Blog.
AtS
What would we do without Yiddish? My friend Fed is getting married on Saturday. I poked and prodded the big lug for years whenever he said he simply wasn't ever going to get married. So, like a jerk, when I prodded him about me being right and him being wrong, he cheerfully conceded that I was right and took the fun out of poking fun at him. Jerk.
So tomorrow (later today actually, it is almost 4:AM) is his bachelor party. They're going to a strip club. After, of course, hanging out at a friends house for an hour or so. The friend is a woman, and I don't doubt that the hanging out at her place is happening so she doesn't have to go to the strip club. Won't they be surprised...When I don't go either.
Well...I mean...It's not as though I could go, no matter how you spin it. I just - can't - do that. Or, more accurately, I won't. I suppose it is physically possible for me to do it, but not without ignoring everything I've ever learned about morality and God and what Christ is trying to teach us even now. Sigh... I hate ditching him. I've not seen him in months, half a year even. I really, really don't want to blow my buddy off after only an hour of hanging out with him. Unfortunately he's making a big mistake, and I can't walk off the pier along with him.
And he WOULD just pick something like this wouldn't he? Such a cliche! And so....Shitty. I mean C'mon. Does it take a genius to figure out that women who dance naked for tips at a bar aren't sexually...Normal. That just maybe most of them are sexual assault victims, and perhaps that's why they have not so many qualms about gettin jiggy wit it in public? Ergo to participate in their self degradation which stems from having been victimized not only sullies your hands and re-enforces the persons image of themselves as worthless (seriously, nobody with a strong sense of self worth does this), you perpetuate the original abuse that misguided them into doing what they are doing.
Fun!
I can commit six to eight different sins all at once and continue the cycle of abuse, or I can walk away from my friend, comrade, former roommate, and all around buddy. Which, of course, is what I'll have to do. Seriously, even if I weren't a believer in the Risen Christ, I think I'd avoid a strip club just on it's own (de)merits. From what I've heard, the women who dance in those places are borderline attractive at best, and the whole aura of the place just exudes skankism and is very...Ugly.
Lord, I honestly don't know what to do here. The thing is that I just cannot envision a way of telling the party crew that I'm not going, and then either A) Lying about why, or B) Effectively telling EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM that I think they're all doing something bad and want no part of it. Thus insulting, not only a bunch of people I don't know, but also a guy who was nice enough to invite me to his wedding even though we've not been hanging out much (just cause we lost contact) in the last two years.
It will be...Interesting. I'm seriously contemplating having someone call me on my cell phone about an 'emergency' that I have to attend to. This entails a risk though. If my acting is sub-par, I'll betray myself without the dignity of having been honest about it in the first place. Also, I'd doubtless be required to lie about it, or fess up to it, later on. So this leaves me with the option of going, and then leaving, and, when they inevitably ask me why, being honest.
Shit.
Believe me, I have no problem with not going to a strip club. They sound amazingly gross and nasty. I have a problem with snubbing my former best (and still very very good) friend. Also, I've not gotten off my butt to get him a wedding gift yet.
Ohhh yeah, that other dilemma. He's Catholic. So is his bride. More importantly, so is the wedding ceremony. Now, I endorse, believe, and avow as the absolute and unalterable truth, the Orthodox Christian faith. I think I can go to the wedding, as long as I have no part in it's actual operation and or conduction. My abstaining from it wouldn't send any messages, because nobody who goes there knows I'm Orthodox (not even the Groom, I don't think I've shared that with him yet). And not going would be horribly insulting, and disrespectful to a guy who is basically nicer than almost anyone I've ever met. So, when certain advisory parties read this blog entry, I'll be VERY interested in what you have to say about me going to the wedding. Presumably just attending is no problem, but if it is, let me know. I'll think of....Something.
And, in God's infinite cleverness, maybe not kill a friendship in the process.
Alexey the Sinner
P.S. As I spell checked this entry I discovered an ironic little quirk. Bloggers spell check software does not recognize the word...Blog.
AtS
posted by Alexios at 3:54 AM
1 Comments:
There's no reason for you not to attend the wedding service. If it happens to be a liberal parish, and they invite "everyone" to take part in the sacrament of Holy Communion, that's something altogether different; and not something an Orthodox Christian should do... But you already know that...
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