I’m sending you away today!

@Kristen, excellent succinct explanation. I've been wondering what was so damaging about the purity culture. I was raised before the thing had a name and became a fad, when it was expected that Christian kids would wait until marriage. I am convinced it saved me a lot of heartache, so it is interesting to learn how something that sounds good has a dark side.

And you have a wonderful attitude about leaving people (and things) better than you found them. I'm not sure that my former boyfriends think I left them better!

Well. Hm. It has never occurred to me that I should help to make people better than they were, except for my children.

Now granted, I haven't dated much. Some guys in high school and ditto the first couple years of college. Then I met my future husband and we were together for 26 years, married for 29. I have dated a couple times since then and was pretty bored, and decided that I just don't care if I'm single, it's too much trouble and I'm fine as I am.

The last guy, I think I mentioned this, told me he was going to fight Covid not with vaccines but with crystals. I was amazed because he'd seemed fairly intelligent up till then. I certainly did not think it was my job to teach him that he was a moron.

I guess I feel like I wend my way through life as a neutral. I don't ask anything or expect anything from anyone other than my immediate family. I like to do good by helping homeless animals and helping stock the local food pantries, as well as buying local children coats and Christmas gifts, but I don't think I make things better than they were, as the need is always so much greater than I can help.

I try to do good work, the best to my ability, when I have a job assignment or project, and I think it's generally good, but again, the world is about mediocrity. The magazine I was editor in chief of, which the state press organization awarded me a first prize medal and said the mag was "a masterpiece" is now edited by a dingaling. I was let go because I had the highest salary on staff and salaries had to be cut. So they then made my magazine into crap, but no one cares much. The quality that was there isn't as important as a lower salary.

So this is rambling and I'm tired, but I guess I feel like there is so much uncaring, stupid bilge in the world, from seemingly intelligent men believing in crystals, to people who just don't care about children and animals who need help, to publishers who don't care about quality, that it's not my fault if the world isn't better for my efforts. It's not my problem to solve. All I can do is my best but it's never enough.

@Kristen, "hopefully at the end of each one, you leave the person you were dating better than when you found them"

Wow. I would never in a million years think that way. I'm kinda flabbergasted actually.

Ohhh, for sure. I grew up in the height of purity culture, where the worst thing you could do was have a bunch of relationships before getting married. People wrote books saying things like if you have multiple relationships, you lose a piece of your heart each time and then you are not a whole person when you get married.

As if hearts do not regenerate or grow.

Now I think...if a dating relationship isn't working out, it's fine to end it. And it doesn't matter if it takes a lot of dating relationships before you find someone you want to marry. Each one is a learning experience, and hopefully at the end of each one, you leave the person you were dating better than when you found them. That is not a waste of time, and I think it could save a lot of heartbreak in marriage.

@Rose, I wished I knew how to repair my site when it crashed last week instead of having to fork out what to me is big bucks to have it repaired. At least each tech I speak to teaches me another thing. . . sure hope I can read my notes if I get into this pickle again. (I paid for an entire month and am making a huge list of things to learn and fix.)

@WilliamB, well, that makes me feel a lot better, ha! I got the malware off and now all I have to do is backfill all the content. In my next life I hire IT people imstead of doing all this tedious junk myself.

@Rose, Fun fact: unless you speak them, Indonesian is almost indistinguishable from Malay. They're mutually-intelligible dialects of Bahasa.

@Kristen, Probably spam.

Ugh, my own site was hacked AGAIN. This time by Indonesians (I'm guessing from the language) instead of the Chinese. I do not want to spend my time cleaning this mess up again. sigh.

I did used to have it set up that way, but I turned off that feature once I heard that it is no longer best practice. I'm struggling to remember why it's not best practice. Was it spam? Site speed??

@Blue Gate Farmgirl, I love I Wonder as I Wander! I don't hear it much at Christmas anymore, but it was a favourite of mine from childhood (maybe because I could relate to being "a poor ordinary" girl?) I also can't get over the underlying spiritual messages written into these classic carols (minor or not). So much depth!