Willow Rosenberg's Plea

I want to expand on the issue mentioned at the end of my post about Facebook stalking. Because it is making me crazy.

In the Buffy episode 'The Body', Willow queries "Why can't I just dress like a grown-up? Can't I be a grown-up?" This resonates with me today. Not the dressing part, my wardrobe has few issues. But in terms of acting like a grown-up, I'm all at sea. Suddenly I'm supposed to be an adult and it occurred to me that it's not something that just comes naturally once you turn eighteen. Nobody mentioned that. I just thought that I'd be good at it once I was one, but this is not the case.

Today I feel like my fifteen year old self, all giddy and excited over a new THAT person. I haven't had a regular heartbeat all day. I feel breathless and excited and heady. I don't know why I'm so surprised I feel like this, but I really did think that it would be an exclusively High School feeling. In hindsight, this was a silly presumption. If one can be pathetic at seventeen, one can be pathetic at eighteen. And yet it's come as a surprise.

I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not a silly young girl anymore to stop myself sinking into silly teenage habits. Like Mr. Darcy in the BBC adaption I'm saying: "I shall conquer this! I shall!"

It's just that I can't will my heart to resume a regular beating pattern, that one just comes naturally. And I can't make my brain stop swimming in hormones. So how does one conquer this? It's just as irrepressible as when I was fifteen, except then everyone felt it and talked about it constantly, and now it's just me saying firmly "get over it right now, Belle!"

Can't I just be a grown-up?

The Ins and Outs of Facebook Stalking

I have been working on a post concerning how awesome Chloe Sullivan from Smallville is, but as I love her with a dedication that is disturbing to those unused to parasocial relating, I haven't been able to write something that both adequately conveys how important she is to me and doesn't sound like I'm a really, really disturbed person.

So while the perfect ode to Chloe eludes me, I can still say a word or two about Facebook stalking. Because I'm guilty of it. ALOT.

I've actually only had Facebook for a few months. But I've discovered that stalking people on Facebook is very close to parasocial relating. Just for clarity, my definition of Facebook stalking is checking their Wall regularly as opposed to intermittently and exploring their photo albums quite throughly.

People put their lives on their facebook pages. By looking at their pictures you can be dropped into the middle of a party, wedding or ordinary day of their life. I don't know about anyone else, but for me it's actually a little creepy when I pull back and think about it. I have access to the lives of people I would otherewise only see one side of. In the Social Network, the Sean Parker says "We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're going to live on the internet!" And by golly that was correct. I can find out quite a lot about someone without even asking. It's not a bad thing, but it is a jolt in one's way of life. No one needs to ask me what kind of music I like because they can just look on my Facebook page.

Whatever happened to talking? I sound like a Grandma, but that doesn't invalidate my point. I will meet someone in a lecture or the like, and we get along, so they look me up on Facebook. And I check their page once we're Facebook-friends. I can learn about them before I even see them again. I am, in affect, relating parasocially with the version of themselves they put on Facebook.

So that's what I've been thinking about lately. I'm not giving up Facebook though, it's far too useful. In other news I have gotten stuck in the can't-stop-thinking-about-them stage of liking someone and it's really annoying me. I let myself do this kind of thing in High School because it's the National Pastime of High School but now I am an adult and I should not have to deal with this!!! My patheticness knows no bounds but that's not news to me. If anyone ever comes up with a cure for hopeless romanticism they're going to be a BILLIONAIRE.

Polygamy: Sims Style!

I watch Sister Wives, that show about the Fundamentalist Mormon man with four wives and sixteen children. I absolutely love it, I think the women are smart, sassy and fun and the kids are adorable. I think anyone would be lucky to have just one of those women, and he's got all of them. Luckiest guy on the planet!  Of course, at times I felt desperately sorry for them. Watching the ups and downs of the Sister Wives really made me think about:

a) Whether polygamy is really the moral and social evil that people think. I know it often has an ugly side but done right, as the Browns do it, it doesn't look so bad when everyone's consenting.

b) What would polygamy really be like/feel like/look like?

So what does someone like me do in this situation? Why play it out on the Sims 3, naturally, Watson! In my Legacy family (family in which you try to reach 10 generations) I have my very first Polygamist family. Just four generations after I had my first same-sex couple on Sims, which was heaps of fun.

But, I've discovered, not as fun as polygamy. I'd like you to meet my little virtual people.



This is Esther De Le Morte, Fourth Generation Heir



This is her marrying Edgar Jawa



And THIS is her marrying Tucker Granger at the Courthouse



How did I get one sim woman to marry two sim men? Surely the game doesn't allow that? It doesn't, and I didn't. Tucker and Esther, that was a legal, bona fide sims wedding. Edgar and Esther just threw a party, held hands and kissed and then I put wedding rings with all their outfits. But if you think about it, that's exactly what polygamists do anyway. Only one wife is legally married to the guy and the rest consider themselves married on their terms. Certificate aside, for all intents and purposes, they are married. And such it is with Tucker, Edgar and Esther. They think they both married her, I think they both married her and none of us care much that the game thinks Edgar is merely a 'romantic interest.'

I bought each of them the 'no jealousy' lifetime reward so that one Hubby can walk in on Esther making out with the other and not bat an eyelid. Then I let the mayhem begin.

They live in a symmetrical house, built around a central courtyard/graveyard. Each husband has his own lounge, dining, bed and bathroom. At the front is Esther's personal space for painting, reading, dressing etc. She has no bed as she switches between her husbands' beds. At the back is a large shared kitchen. The top story has bedrooms for all of the eventual children.

I could go on for days about my sims, and there will be more instalments about this family, but for now I'll jump straight to: What My Sims Taught Me About Polygamy (some of these are no-brainers but they were reinforced by my Sims)

1)That the discrimination must be really hurtful and frustrating. Rumours float around my sims town ad nauseum that "Esther De Le Morte has been found cheating!" She spends half her time at the courthouse suing for slander. It makes them all very unhappy, because she isn't cheating. It must be frustrating to have people labelling your relationship something it isn't.

2) That it can be difficult to tell which husbands' the father of your latest baby. This would only be a problem for polyandry (one woman, multiple men)

3)That your two husbands can be BFFs

4) That it's really nice to go out to dinner with one husband and know that the other is home taking care of your babies.

5)That it's not so nice when your wife forgets that she slept in the other husband's bed last night and she misses your night.

So there you have it. Non-traditional family model exploration is a hoot and a half. To sims players out there, I thoroughly recommend you try a polygamist family. Don't believe me? Look how chuffed they all look!

Princess Belle, Attorney-at-Law

I haven't even mentioned the Royal Wedding on my Blog yet. How lax! How sad!

Beautiful, wasn't it?

Naturally I watched it. I watched it for nearly seven hours. I'm in general a republican (not in an American politics way, I just favour the Republic model over Monarchy) but in the case of weddings, and I'm guessing Coronations, I don't care. Those Royals can put on a show! I LOVE weddings. I'm barely old enough to get married and I already read wedding blogs religiously and have a folder full of wedding pictures on my desktop that I sometimes watch as montage while listening to the Glee version of 'Marry You.'

Anyway, this is what I thought about during the wedding: Would I really want to be a Princess? My initial reaction was "Well, yeah! Why the hell wouldn't you?"

But as I watched Kate Middleton's wedding, it struck me as kind of over-churchy. I'm all for traditional services if that's what the couple wants, but this one was just extra-impersonal. So out-of-touch with showing who the couple is and how their love grew. If I was Kate Middleton at that moment, I would be thinking: "Jeez! We've prayed three times now! Can't we mention me already?"

In a word: it was Royal. In a sense it did reflect the couple because they are a Royal couple and no matter what, that's really all they'll ever be defined as. I'm not feeling sorry for them, but I can see that being only 'Princess' and all the hoopla and public engagement that go with it isn't for everyone. I realised as I watched that I wouldn't want the 'me' me to melt away under public scrutiny and court protocol. I love the 'me' me. I can do whatever I want as a career and be who I want in the meantime. But if I was a Princess, to a certain extent, 'Princess' would be my job, my identity, my everything.

So maybe my childhood dreams of marrying a Prince really have gone. I remember the message of one of my favourite children's books, A Little Princess. Every girl is a Princess inside, you can be a Princess if you believe it and act like one, no matter how much money you have or if you have a crown or kingdom or anything. I'm not explaining this very well, just read the book, it's by Francis Hodgson Burnett.

So, bottom line. I don't want to be a Princess. I'm going to get a Law Degree, and get my licence to practice law, and I'm going to always believe that I AM a Princess inside, just like Sara in A Little Princess.

I'll be Princess Belle, Attorney-at-Law.

Which has a rather nice ring, don't you think?


Picture originally created by John Pannell, used with a Creative Commons license

Hate, Exes and My Uni Bestie.

On Tuesday night me and my Uni Bestie (not to be confused with my Best Friend, they're two different people...I really must give all these people Blog names) went to the bus stop together and there under the glow of a streetlamp was my Ex-boyfriend.

My Uni Bestie knew me in High School, but not very well, so she'd never seen me interacting with him. Under the streetlamp, he and I bantered a bit while she looked on. I was kind of mean to him, calling him a nerd etc. etc. but he took it all in his stride as usual and teased me back. It was a typical conversation for us.

When he got on his bus, my Uni Bestie turned to me and said:

"Belle, don't get angry, but seriously; you guys will be back together in five years or so."

"What?! Why?" I said, genuinely perplexed since we'd just teased and insulted each other. I ran that thought by her.

"That's why you'll work," She said, "I reckon you have to be able to hate someone to properly love them."

Which was a very interesting thought. At first I wasn't sure what she was getting at and I didn't think that her me-getting-back-with-my-ex theory had alot to it. But the next day I thought about it in terms of power and control. Maybe not hate, but you have to be able to be angry at someone if you're going to have a functioning relationship.

I thought about another failed relationship I'd had where I simply couldn't admit the other parties guilt. EVER. I couldn't be mad at him, I always blamed myself. No power, no control, no self respect. You have to be able to feel angry at someone and to tell them, otherwise you're powerless in love. And that's not healthy. So maybe my Uni Bestie in her own special blunt way, came across this thought. It wasn't a new thought in the scheme of the world by a long chalk. But it was new for us, being young and having our heads in gossip magazines.   

In other news, my Hogwarts Robe and Tie have arrived. They're perfectly wonderful! And I have recommenced watching Smallville after about seven months. So I'll probably be blogging about that too now, as Chloe Sullivan is one of my greatest and most dedicated parasocial relationships. She is the most awesome hacking-sneaking-Watchtowering blonde chick the DC-verse has ever seen and I have worshipped her since I first saw my very first episode of Smallville. Not to put in spoilers, but that thing she does at the end of the Season 10 premiere episode? I wept. No, seriously. Wept.