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Z and I spent 4 days down at the Southern Oregon coast with some close friends. The topic of romantic notions came up and we basically distilled it down to this:
Women (in general) grow up with the romantic daydreams of a man riding up on a white horse and saving them. But more than saving them, choosing them. Picking them out from all the other women in distress and saying, "You."
We wondered if men had an equivalent of this female notion of romance and the guys said that they thought it was being the knight. They wanted to be this strong man that could fight and win for a woman. But then they also said that they wanted to be able to fight and lose and still have the woman see their value and choose them.
It was comforting somehow to think that the white knight wasn't just our (female) story alone. That maybe the story isn't created just for little girls but for little boys as well. Little boys who dream of being that for the woman they love. To be, in the end like the woman, picked out of a crowd. "You."
(Also cleeeeearly we were working off reeeeally strong generalities here.)
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Firstly, I love strong generalities. And secondly... I don't know if it was part of the discussion, but weddings bring up a lot of knight in shining armor beliefs for people. For myself, it started with my e-ring. He couldn't get over that I didn't want a diamond, because it meant he couldn't show the world how much (ahem, $ = love) he loved me with a huge ring, the full extent of his purchasing power. Good-luck superstitions, too, came up - like staying the night together before the wedding, and others. His pull to fulfill them in the way society prescribes as "masculine" was a strong one, and as interesting to confront as my own white wedding social conditioning!
ReplyDeleteI wrote people. I meant women AND men. Gah.
ReplyDeleteSooo interesting. No. We didn't discuss how weddings play into this at all but that is so interesting. The power of wedding symbolism and tradition is a fascinating discussion all on it's own.
ReplyDeleteYay for strong generalities!