[hero/shadow = still #1 OTP. le sigh]

[reenka]

I've just finished 'Wolfskin' by Juliet Marillier, and while it's interesting and I like the main characters (one of which is the Plucky and Strong Yet Fragile and Feminine Heroine), I can't help it... the most intriguing part of the book is the bond between the straightforward, kind yet quick-to-anger warrior boy and the snarky, cunning, needy, lonely yet ruthless sociopathic boy whom he shared a blood-oath of friendship with during their childhood. Mmmm. The warrior-boy's denseness and simplicity and loyalty set against the other's insecurity and need to prove himself and sheer single-minded desire to get what he -wants-... oh, it's like music to my ears.... And yes, I admit, in its basest elements it's really proto!H/D to me.
    And much as I understand these two are 'straight' both by author intent and common sense in context of their times and history, I can't help it-- I can't help but feel -this- is the more striking love-story, no matter how honestly heterosexual the warrior boy may be. This is the archetypal relationship between Hero and Shadow, and to me, nothing could really equal it in meaning or intensity, since it represents the basic union of Light and Dark of everyone's nature.

It occurred to me that the reason I'm so very fascinated strikes to the very heart of the reason of why I slash, why close male friendship means so much to me-- and the emotional stuntedness and closed-in inability of the latter boy to communicate his real self sort of underlines the 'normal' situation. It's almost like-- almost like -all- boys are a little sociopathic compared to ourselves (the girls, I mean); it's like they're often this closed in and verbally eloquent about everything but what lies in their hearts, so scared and insecure and ruthless in their defensiveness.

It also reminded me of the exchange I recently had with fictualities about being able to see the surviving 'half' of a pairing happy after the 'end'-- in a situation like with Frodo and Sam, where Frodo had little left to give before he'd finally departed and Sam had his wife and children. In my natural inclination, I'd say 'settling' is bad, even if the person is unaware they're settling for something 'lesser' or not as intense and deeply vital. I'd rather a character be miserable with the one they can't bear to love or lose than content with the one who merely makes them uncomplicatedly happy. But then, I'm rather perverse. -.-

I was thinking (with some chagrin), of how friends normally tend to make you uncomplicatedly happy, especially female friends (in my experience). If a friend isn't monumentally messed up, your relationship isn't likely to be fraught or angsty in terms of betrayals and secrets and overall tragedy, though clearly misunderstandings and resentments are normal. Uh, this is all 'in my experience'. And so, perhaps this is only the life of a relatively tame, easy-going female like myself-- men are much more likely to hold things back, to be eaten up by ambition and divided loyalties and duties, to be rotted from the inside with feelings they simply -can't- express, to be-- emotional basketcases, basically. And of course... of course, that's why I love them.
    More to the point, that's why I love to slash them, leaving aside the hot boysex for a sec.

I can't really imagine a healthy relationship here, and can't guarantee this rift in the boy's soul can be mended with the love and faith another clueless boy can offer, but oh-- oh-- the very idea. The possibility. It is like the dream of somehow bridging the gulf between Self and Other; more desperate and dark than any mere love-story, but also more painfully close to the heart, perhaps.

Comments

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

But Sam never settled! When his wife (Rosey, Daisy, Posey ...?) died he took the last boat to the undying lands to be with Frodo.

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

The second to last paragraph?

YUP.

Thatisall.

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

But he was technically sort of dead/dying at that point. The main thing is, he didn't throw up all that comfort and safety zonishness to venture with Frodo into the unknown again. He spend the fruitful healthy years of his life with some wumman. Him going across the sea in the end is kind of the equivalent of meeting your lover again in heaven, or something, because wasn't that what that land was supposed to be?

[fictualities.livejournal.com]

The situation at the end of LotR is a little complicated, and made even more so by the fact that what happens in the end to Sam happens outside the main text of LotR as we have it. This is going to get a little detailed, but I think it speaks to your overall point, because the text we're left with is one that seems almost designed to divide its readers into at least two camps, depending on how much they value evidence of domestic happiness or evidence of the sort of love that is a little more like the hero/shadow sort of relationship you're discussing here.

Okay, the canon: in the original final chapter, which Tolkien deleted only because everyone he knew told him that it omg sucked, we see Sam and Rosie and their children living happily in the Shire and basically doing some rather turgid exposition work explaining the final fates of all the other characters. At any rate, in this chapter it's pretty clear BOTH that he loves Rosie (and his many children) and misses Frodo.

That got cut. What we have in the published book is the main text, which ends with Frodo leaving and Sam returning to Rosie and his first baby, and a note in one of the Appendices about what finally happened to Sam: he became Lord Mayor and had thirteen children; Rosie died after they had been married for sixty years. Sam, then 102 years old, went over the Sea -- though whether he met Frodo there (Frodo would have been 116) is never stated.

In any case, what this means for someone writing the F/S pairing is that they have to decide how to address those sixty years of marriage -- no fly-by-night commitment, that -- and the debate among fans really has been all over the map and quite, erm, lively at times. What's interesting about these debates is that they are at bottom debates about what people value in a pairing, about what seems like a fulfilling relationship to them, about whether you can classify one or the other of Sam's loves as "lesser." And on that question, to judge by this debate, people's mileage most definitely may vary.

Also, hmmm:

It's almost like-- almost like -all- boys are a little sociopathic compared to ourselves (the girls, I mean); it's like they're often this closed in and verbally eloquent about everything but what lies in their hearts, so scared and insecure and ruthless in their defensiveness.

Well, a lot of my favorite pairings, slash and het, work just that way. There's something fascinating to me about a love that dares not speak its name. But a) eee, the gender generalization here is pretty big, and b) hmmm, just because someone is more eloquent on topic X, does that necessarily mean that they are really being more open? Speech isn't always used as a means of opening your heart; sometimes just the opposite. Then again, I am the most Cynical Person on Earth, so perhaps you should just ignore me on this question.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's a good sum-up of the LOTR situation. Though I'd add that the other thing is that Rosie simply doesn't really exist as part of the story. She's not set up in the beginning at all. Sam is free to follow his master. The one time she maybe is hinted at is when Sam is describing his vision from Galadriel where he imagines a house and a garden with...and doesn't speak the name. It's not even as obvious as Aragorn's moments of thinking about Arwen, which isn't much.

Then suddenly he brings her up just in time to go home--I tend to explain it as Sam having this great relationship with Frodo we're invested in and then he comes home and marries the girl he liked who worked at the local Dairy Queen. Perfectly respectable thing for him to do, but why should the readers care? In fact, one of the things I remember hating about that deleted chapter was Rosie claiming she knew Sam was coming back that day before she heard him, which just read to me like the classic Mary Sue being forced into the story as if she was somehow involved when Tolkien forgot to write her that way.

So the thing with Rosie is that whatever you imagine about her she's not just Rosie, she's a domestic life with children. It's no random thing, imo, that Sam already has Elanor when Frodo leaves, because his choosing Rosie over Frodo would be a very different thing than choosing Rosie and Elanor over Frodo, just because it would set up a triangle in a way the book very much avoids.

I mean, I've always felt--and I think this is one of the things I like about Mira's "Rain"--that Sam is naturally a domestic kind of guy in a way Frodo obviously isn't. At the root of their personalities Sam is a caregiver and natural family man and Frodo is naturally introverted and solitary. It's part of what makes their relationship so interesting. Sam and Rosie, by contrast, work because they are compliments of each other, very much the same. But Rosie could therefore be anyone. The personality we do see of her certainly works with Sam; there's something to build on there if you're writing Sam/Rosie. But frankly, she could still be anyone. Sam would have built the same kind of family bond with another girl had he come home to find Rosie married to someone else. Frodo was one of a kind for him. So when you're writing Sam "torn in two" that's always going to be there. When he misses Frodo he misses the person, when he misses Rosie she's tied up in sixty years of companionship and sharing children.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, I think he settled but then unsettled near the end of his life, though I don't really blame Sam for betrayal or desertion because actually I think Sam & Frodo's bond was different-- not romantic, really. But if it was!! If it was :>

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahahah I can't believe I was actually sitting there going 'damn, why don't MY friends make me cry because of the DARKNESS in their SOUL', or something :)) *facepalm* But you see, this makes it all so much STRONGER and, uh, more DRAMATIC :D

For realz, man. I've never had a female friend act all uncommunicative or shieldy-of-their-true-nature&feelings or... whatever. I FEEL LEFT OUT :( AHAHAHAHASHFLkjaskjasdf

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

In my natural inclination, I'd say 'settling' is bad, even if the person is unaware they're settling for something 'lesser' or not as intense and deeply vital. I'd rather a character be miserable with the one they can't bear to love or lose than content with the one who merely makes them uncomplicatedly happy.

Just to be contrary -- you can think of this in terms of stages of life, too, though. Because adventure is a natural mode for people when the world is still radically mysterious, and their own identities or sense of worth are unsettled, but it doesn't necessarily have the same meaning, or the same "intensely deep and vital" charge, as time goes on -- and exploring a stable identity can be an important phase, too. I mean, that's the scary part, that adventure itself palls, that the "charge" is only an artifact of ignorance, of the process of losing one's innocence and gaining knowledge. (I hope I'm not there yet!)

Of course, it's possible to take another step and say that this eventual achievement of a stable personality is false, or is also something that you get over -- so that after a few decades as a "householder" a traditional Brahmin was supposed to give it all up and go live in the forest. And some characters aren't susceptible at all to a domestic phase. But I can see Sam as having his adventure, then his domestic life, and then as the end of life approches giving that up and going West on an adventure that in a way is even more radical.

You can obviously argue about what works best for different characters and their temperaments. I mean the classic example is Odysseus, and you know as much as he wanted to go home he'd never have given up his adventures (and certainly took his time hanging out with Calypso.) But then when the time came he had to get back to Penelope. But then again, Kazantzakis has his "modern sequel" where Odysseus gets bored back in Ithaka and goes out adventuring again, because that's how he needs to live.

the reason I'm so very fascinated strikes to the very heart of the reason of why I slash, why close male friendship means so much to me-- and the emotional stuntedness and closed-in inability of the latter boy to communicate his real self sort of underlines the 'normal' situation . . . it's like they're often this closed in and verbally eloquent about everything but what lies in their hearts, so scared and insecure and ruthless in their defensiveness.

Hee. I know what you mean. But to expand on the above point, isn't dealing with this a self-consuming process? Because the charge comes from them "discovering" what is in their hearts, or learning to take a risk based on it. But once they've done that, then they're changed, they've achieved some insight, they're not the same anymore, and the tremendous repressed energy has been released. So they need a different story, next.

It's almost like-- almost like -all- boys are a little sociopathic compared to ourselves (the girls, I mean);

Ahem. :) If you get to generalize, then so do I! If I get to weigh in on the great mystery of gender, I would say that boys are just more interested in the masks that they wear, the roles and games that they play, than in the messy and unreliable personality that lurks somewhere underneath; they find the level of stylized behavior and action more real than the "inner" emotional level. While girls are more grounded in what they want and what they feel, take it for granted as a starting and ending point, and see masks and roles as purely instrumental things. And since we all go way out on a dangerous limb in generalizing about gender, you are welcome to saw it off on me. :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

If you get to generalize, then so do I! If I get to weigh in on the great mystery of gender, I would say that boys are just more interested in the masks that they wear, the roles and games that they play, than in the messy and unreliable personality that lurks somewhere underneath;

Now this makes me think of...well, lots of things. One is the Sandman story which I am suddenly unable to remember the title of, where the girl creates her own dreamworld that comes to get her later. Anyway, there's a character that talks about the basic fantasy of boy and girl and...wait, I have the silly book nearbyu, let me find it. Aha! The character says, "Boys and girls are different, you know that? Little boys have fantasies in which they're faster, or msarter, or able to fly. Where they hide their faces in secret identities and listen to the people who despise them admiring their remarkable deeds. Pathetic, bespectacled, rejected Perry Porter is secretly the Amazing Spider. Gawky, bespectacled, and unloved Clint Clarke is really Hyperman, yes? Now little girls, on the other hand, have different fantasies, much less convuluted. Their parents are not their parents. Their lives are not their lives. They are princesses. Lost princesses from distant lands. One day the king and queen, their real parents, will take them back to their land and then they'll be happy for ever and ever. Little cuckoos."

It just...uh, seems to relate. In one fantasy it's about trying on masks, the other is about the "true self." And I think in terms of growing up and initiation that's usually stressed. Girls are about "being." They naturally are initiated through menstruation where they become a doorway for someone else. Boys have to be wrestled into a role, symbolically wounded etc. They are about "doing" rather than "being" so it's a mark of maturity for them to find their role. Girls are more seen to have it passively handed to them through biology-even if they never actually have children.

A friend of mine has this awesome photograph of two children playing with one being totally boy and the other being totally girl. It's funny because I loved the picture and interpreted it the same way she did-both kids are fantasizing, in their own world. Another person didn't like it because immediately saw the girl as being dominated by the boy! I can't quite make that story relate but I had to bring it up.:-)

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

But if your friend was all uncommunicative and shieldy, your interest might cross the line into sexual attraction. I like my girlmates because they're safe in that sense. Sure, they get tired of me because I am kind of tiresome (I'm sure you've noticed that) but I can understand them in a way that I can't understand boys. Perhaps I cede boykind too much power, but they seem to dictate the score with me all the time. It's never a case of oh, I'll make them fancy me, it's always I fancy them, what can I do to make them fancy me, stop fancying her, etc forever. Perhaps it's the complete lack of comprehension that is the lure. That, and the fact that boys can have extremely hot arses.

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

I see more like Sam still had stuff do while Frodo no longer had obligations to Middle Earth. It wasn't that he chose comfort over Frodo, but he had to put off being with him until they could be together without burden.

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

I go back and forth on their relationship all the time. I can't decide if I find their friendship or their romantic love more touching. And I like older!Frodo and younger!Sam (who're better in friendship) much more than the movie versions (who seem, to me, more suited for romance).

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

After reading the comments below, I feel ashamed that I even tried to write an opinion on this.

I agree with everything. Also don't think for a living. Or at all.

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

Haha. I don't even try and get involved, I just nod and smile.

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

And gape from awe, and add another few zeros to my psychiatrist's bill.

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

This whole comment -- thank you. I had a sociology lecture on men and medicine today and I was struggling to find my own opinion on the socialisation of men versus women in the shifting tides of pure, utter, unmitigated boredom ... and now I have. Cheers!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

In the end, I don't know how similar Sam and Frodo's situation is to Wolfskin, and it's not that I blame either set of characters for doing what came naturally and so forth. If I wish things were different, it's only because that's the sort of story I prefer to read or write, even if it may not be a better or deeper or more realistic story. In the case of Wolfskin, the love relationship had much time (in the text) devoted to it, but I still didn't feel it as deeply as the bond between those two boys, but that was me as much as the writing, I think. The het relationship had no real inner conflict, no sense of transcendence or achievement-- basically, the girl healed the boy when he was physically ill and had given up hope, and she showed him he could have a new life that wasn't that of a warrior. But even though the warrior boy was healed, I didn't think he *needed* healing quite as much as the other did, so I felt unsatisfied. In any case, at the end of this story it was also clear warrior-boy misses the sociopathic dark one, and that he's happy with and loves his girlfriend; basically, only the merest outline of the LoTR situation was probably reminiscent.

I don't think I believe of Sam's love for his wife as being 'lesser' at all, just different-- so it's a choice to be made, and as you said, of course mileage will vary. I also don't think it's really up to the reader to make that choice, but up to the character-- in that it's clear that Sam made the best choice for him, as did Frodo. He was happy, because he was always someone who wanted that sort of life, and then he got it; I imagine it was a just reward. It is only when the other person is unhappy that I feel bad, or when the happiness seems 'off' to me, like it's based on false premises. And all this is complicated by the fact that the sociopathic boy fits an archetype I'm obsessed with so I have my own 'plans' for his development, whereas Frodo is Frodo and Sam is Sam (probably the mark of deeper characterization, in other words) :>

It's true, also, that eloquence doesn't necessarily mean openness, but then, I don't think *eloquence* about what's deeply in one's heart is ever 'truth', because that sort of thing is always going to be awkward. It's just the difference between awkward and stumbling vs. practically non-existent (in certain kinds of uptight guys). I know that was a sweeping generalization though, which is why I hedged it with all those conditionals :> I do find it rather rare that a girl have that same pattern of complete incapacity for real emotional self-expression, though it could just show the limits of my experience. :>

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

You're totally right-- I do appreciate girls' safety, though being bi, I wish I did get romantically attracted more, or I start to self-doubt. But it's just that there are -so- much fewer girls of 'my type', ahahah. Oh man ><;;; Plus, I both crave safety and believe it's boring in excess :> And I'm not so much threatened and confused as bored and bewildered by the masses of stupid boys around me -.- Though sometimes they're endearing, when they remind me of James or Ron-- lovable clueless dorks. It's not so much that they're so mysterious as that they're so utterly clueless; once you understand that, it all goes smoother, though perhaps the desire to ever sleep with one might temporarily decline as you wonder just how much more intelligent than rabbits they really are~:))

...But no, I jest :>

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think it's actually because I understand Sam's motivation as being related to his own nature and predilection towards comfort/domesticity rather than passionate devotion that I feel this dissatisfaction with the *idea* behind um, actually choosing that as one's life. Like, if it's not perilous passion, I feel cheated on some level if someone's being left behind-- though at the same time, I still accept the character's (Sam's or the Wolfskin's) choices and natural inclinations. It's like our conversation about Ennis-- people's choices show us who they really are, and there's nothing that could really be done about that. But sometimes that bothers me, too :>

I don't want to force my values onto characters that don't share them, but at the same time grow dissatisfied with stories that support values I find bland, if that makes sense :> So I accept the character but resent the story :>

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Man, the 'stages of life' thing-- you seem to always know just what to say to both deflate me and inspire me on a tangent :D I totally know what you mean, and this relates to the thing about the 'self-consuming process' of self-discovery you talk about later. It's all about seeing life as a consecutive series of processes, one building upon the other, and of course I'm much more interested in some processes than others. They're all equally -valid-, of course, but for me as a -reader- (and writer), I definitely prioritize.

So while people may obviously 'move on' with their lives, I just move on -to- the next fic :))

I love the phrase 'radically mysterious'; that like, sums up everything I like about existence. Some part of me is always clutching on tightly to the ideal of eternal wonderment/childhood, that stage of exploration going on and on and on. Like, uh, the Eternal Star Trek of the Soul. Ahahahaha, oh maaaaan, I amuse myself :D I definitely do think that 'exploring a stable identity' is an important phase-- I mean, dude, it's adulthood, more or less! But... the more predictable and stable things get within, the more any conflict has to arise from without, I guess (until you hit midlife crisis), and I'm simply not as interested in external conflicts that aren't mirrored by internal conflicts. It makes things seem... less important or meaningful, I dunno. I don't mean that everything interesting really happens when you're still growing up (though actually I'm tempted to think that), but I think that once you've grown/matured, you merely face the task of refinement/completion/upkeep, which... well... bores me, personally speaking. There, I said it. :>

Though you're definitely right that different things work for different characters; I only get vaguely upset when one of the characters is still 'on the cusp', still ignorant and yearning and needy, while the other sort of goes 'oh well, I've arrived, and this nice companion is right there waiting for me, making me comfy as a clam'. I really start to resent the whole 'comfy as a clam' pairing and fiercely identify with the disenfranchised lonely one even if he's (as in this case) a sociopathic rapist rationalist boy (ie, nothing like me).

I really love characters-- maybe like Odysseus, but definitely like James Kirk-- who never really grow up or reach the stage where they want to stop adventuring. Especially if they have a lifelong companion who's devoted, rational and practical (while also being someone who knows when to step aside), I'm just on cloud nine. It's my ideal partnership; I never tire of reading about it :>

I think you're brilliant-- and right!-- about boys being more -interested- in masks/social roles; that's been my experience. I, on the other hand, am even more interested in the 'messy and unreliable personality' than most girls I know by far, though it'd be odd to think of myself as some ultrafeminine freak, ahah, since I'm so nonfeminine in many ways, but. Yes. It boggles my mind, actually, how stylized behavior could be 'more real', but I suppose the mystery is why I'm drawn to these people in the first place :> I want to crack them open and see what messy weirdness makes them tick!! :D :D :D!! *sadistic cackle* Erm.

So yeah, someone else is going to have to do the sawing, I'm off over here playing with your toys :D

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

...Man, when I read that bit in Sandman, I definitely thought 'omg, I'm a typical girl, so predictable it actually hurts' (with a side of 'omg, NEIL IS GOD', but that's neither here nor there). But that really is a brilliant illustration! I've always had tons of fantasies about my 'secret identity', except it was always my 'real self' at the same time-- it was never an -ability- and always a sign of who I really was (like, even if I get a power, it would be a power that'd reflect on my identity, y'know? I couldn't imagine myself with say, fireball-throwing powers, because it just wouldn't -fit- me; it'd be 'archetypally wrong').

Omg, the 'symbolic wounding'!! Especially in 'Wolfskin' (as in many ancient societies & male coming-of-age stories within them), maaaan, it was utterly literal-- the boys wounded each other as a pact of manhood! They pressed their scars together and swore they were brothers-- or rather, 'became' brothers as an oath. A girl and a female selkie from the same book, on the other hand, 'recognized' their sisterhood-- it's unimaginable for girls to have to wrestle and wound each other, somehow, to realize they're 'blood of one blood, flesh of one flesh'. It's an intuitive process; a girl would 'know', somehow, would 'acknowledge' the pre-existing sisterhood that was already there. And yeah, a boy 'becomes' a man through some struggle and trial whereas you can argue a girl 'turns into' a woman through 'flowering' into selfhood. Hm.

All this (predictably) makes me sad, like we've been making a practice of psychically wounding our boys all this time. I mean, I can't find an excuse for it, a way it's 'better for them' to pretend. I dunno. Roles. I like them as play but can't help but think their usefulness is limited in reality and only healthy if one is self-aware. Ahh, maybe I'm just missing a boy's insight :>

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

I sometimes think being bi must be hardest of all, because there isn't really a safety net, is there? (If you excuse the whole 'everyone is bi to a point' thingy.) My mother insists that I am such an intense person that casual stuff would never satisfy me, that I have to wait for the 'one person' who'll be right. That seriously bugs me, because I'd always thought myself above crap like soulmates and Mr/Mrs Right. I've come to appreciate that she must be on the money, though. The thought of the casual getting-off that my classmates indulge in just makes me squirmy (and not in a good way).

Okay, so that was prolly TMI. But sometimes I look at boys and can see that they're just like me: they really don't know if they're saying the right thing, they don't come armed with a foolproof plan, they're really just winging it. Winging everything.

And other times they call all the shots, because I let them. One thing you can't change is how other people feel (unfortunately). Am determined to get a better grip of my own feelings, though.

And this is your new facet! Reena, the Confessional Box. Eep. (Or EEPS, as the ukes ALWAYS say in yaoi.)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Omg ze kitTEN!!1 :D :D *distracted* (It's like porn, except... not. It's actually more like catnip to me-- kittens I mean. Er. I'll just stop now.)

I'm also an intense person, haha, and so I know where you're coming from. I feel I -should- be more of a 'loose woman' (easier that way, too!), and I theoretically know the Mr/Mrs Right thing is highly unlikely if not ridiculous, but. I yam what I yam, and so on and so forth. I don't think it was TMI (or is unless we mention *actual* bodily functions and not just 'squirming' in a metaphorical way, ahahaha. And even then, depends on what-- snot is okay... er.....)

I know what you mean about knowing not helping 'feeling'. That's like, my constant doom, because I know a lot but uh, my feelings aren't much progressed since I was 16. But boys really are winging it even moreso than we are, y'know, 'cause they're DUMBER, yes DUMBER :D :D *feels unjustly satisfied*

I've totally been used (USED I SAY) as the Confessional Box rather frequently. Even by boys. I dunno what it is, I think it's Eau de Reena. Or possibly everyone thinks I'm a sucker :D :D

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Here, have this icon too. I always feel wary of using it in case people think it's because of them, but it is too cute.

Pornip?

TMI in the sense that I can yabber on for three days about myself and not say more than three actual things. What wrecks my head is having to wait -- wait for the right person, wait until the boys I know grow up, wait till he breaks up with her, wait till he sees that I'm just bloody wonderful damnit.

And I'm extremely IMPATIENT. I do not LIKE waiting.

I worry a lot that boys never want the same things as girls, that it's doomed to the perennial conflict between the hunter-gatherer and the cave-maker. Or whatever the hell. It's been proven scientifically and whatever. It makes me sad and also desirous of buying one of those long-stitch cushion cover sewing things so I can be ahead of the game when my life turns into Never Been Kissed except without the Kissing.

Yet they still seem to get what they want all the time, whereas girls are left in the dust going "Why didn't he call? Why'd he say that? Why'd he ignore me?" ETC ETC ETC.

Yup, you're a sucker.

No, I always seem to ... know who'll take me blabbering like this and who'd cosh me over the head for it. If it's any consolation, you're one of four people, one of whom gave birth to me. Perhaps that's actually an insult, I DO NOT KNOW.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hee! You could always become one of those take-charge type females that (some) boys like. Like, if you dress to impress, eventually (I hear) it pays off :)) Then again, everyone and their sister gets more play than me, so I may not know as much as I could :> You could always also try to be friends with them first-- 'cause you don't have to wait for that. And if they're too clueless after awhile, you could think of um, more desperate measures then :>

I think -some- boys (not a lot) want the same things as girls, but they tend to be either repressed or geeky. Personally, I go for repressed, because geeky/emotional is just too easy, and I likes me a challenge. But there -are- boys who're waiting for The Right One and they just don't know it-- however, this is The Great Female Myth, so there are people who'd laugh at this, but! It's just that most girls don't apply this discriminately enough, and use wishful thinking rather than careful analysis (by which I mean, get 'em drunk and get 'em talkin', ahahah).

...I try to imagine bashing anyone over the head, like, ever and fail :( On the bright side(?), once I lose, I'm more likely to kill you than thwap you or be mean. But uh, I haven't lost it that much yet (isn't that just REASSURING, ahahah? Yes, yes it is.)

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Given that I'm too busy (with, er, writing and lj and fic) to brush my hair most mornings, I don't think that's gonna work for me. I'll probably just have to stick to the ... uh ...

Yeah, the cats and Celine Dion, that's it.

To be fair, I do have some boys that I could loosely call friends, which is an improvement for me. Mind, the only reason I ever spoke to the most gorgey one is because he's got a girlfriend.

Same here. I'm soooo pleasant to everyone. And then one day, I'm sure, I'll take my flatmates out individually and kill them one by one.

(That's actually a Maeve Binchy quote, btw. She is love.)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

...or you could just give up and date desperate boys who don't know how sekritly cute they are and are too introverted to ask :D :D But that tends to mean 'emotionally fucked-up geek' :(


.......and then there's the ugly assholes :))

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Darling, it's the getting 'a boy, any boy at all' to ask me out (or what we do ever here, which is to go with ... not quite the same thing) that's the problem. I could never ask a boy out. Not because I don't think it's cool, it's that the rejection would utterly, utterly crush me.

And next on Station Emo ...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean-- in that I've definitely never asked anyone out. I'd probably rather die. However, that whole trick with getting to them first definitely works. Like, uh, do they have sci-fi/fantasy/writing/etc clubs at your school? Stuff like that. 'Safe' places where you talk (I made my mistake and 'talked' online with several of them, but the idea still holds, right?)

It's sort of like-- you find your target, right-- or at least, someone who doesn't freak you out & seems bearably attractive-- and you sort of... talk to him. And if that doesn't work (because it probably wouldn't with me!), you sort... well, I was gonna say stalk, but... occupy his space :))

...Okay, I'm just bullshitting, really, but you could always sort of pick out boys without ever doing anything, and then waiting for the moment to... inobtrusively move closer to their line of sight :D

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

They do have a sci-fi club at UCC, only I borrowed Neverwhere from their library in Freshers week and as yet have not figured out where they hold meetings so I can return it, much less find geeks. Though, technically, my class is full of geeks -- only, after five years of geekhood due to good marks, they are determined to scrub that stain from their personalities.

Hugging them whilst drunk tends to get your arse felt up, but that's Irish boys for you.

I'm tending towards the 'boys smell!' mindset right at the mo ...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, they -do- smell, 'tis true. I'm just grateful when it's not weed or cigarettes or like, heavy alcohol, or if it is, it's not too strong ^^;;;

...Man, I've never met geeks in denial before. *is fascinated in spite of herself*

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

I'm guilty of the last two myself, so I'll say nothing ...

Warl, they're swots more that geeks, I guess. They have not reconciled themselves to the fact and swots = social death where I come from. Given that they're in med, they have a helluva lot to be in denial about.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that's probably okay since um, that sort of person doesn't sound like fun to me either :)) But then I'm a complete lazy-ass who never studies and can't be bothered to do any more work than she *absolutely* has to... but I can see what you mean with the med-student thing. One imagines they think there's money in it :-? However, you're still not missing out on anything if it's just swottishness; like, does that even count? Well, perhaps it implies passable intelligence, but really, who cares about -that-, ahahah? *cough*

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, I'm horrified by the idea of "deflating" anyone! I mean, I tend to think by contraries -- when something makes too much sense to me, and seems to fit all the data in too pat and orderly a way, I try to imagine exactly the opposite, or exactly the strongest refutation I can, and then see what happens.

So at a personal level, I'm not exactly pining and yearning to grow up so I can become middle-aged -- I mean, I still miss being ten. I think the idea of life becoming routinized and losing its emotional intensity is kind of terrifying to me, and so it's an idea that I sort of pick away at. But even Jung says that the first half of life should be about expansion but somewhere in the mid-point you should stop, and deliberately, willfully start contracting, or you won't have time to assimilate it all. Which is a prospect that really sort of chills me.

But really, isn't part of what makes your "disenfranchised and lonely" boy so "ignorant and yearning and needy" in the first place, precisely the fact that he thinks Captain Kirk, et al., have discovered something important that is still hidden from him? And haven't they actually done so, really? And your boy is really pissed off about that, and wonders if he'll ever figure it out. I mean to use your Star Trek example I see Captain Kirk as sort of a balance between the two extremes, where on the one hand you have Captain Holden Caulfield crying "phonies!" as he goes down pathetically in a blast of phaser fire, and on the other hand Capt. Wilford Brimley, boldly going twice a day, thanks to the regularity-enhancing effects of Arcturan triticale, now with more fiber! So, yeah, somewhere in between is probably the ideal. :)

It boggles my mind, actually, how stylized behavior could be 'more real'

Hee! Now you make me feel priveliged for being a boy! Because yeah, I do feel the pull of this perspective, and I wonder if it really is a gender thing or not. The basic idea is that all the emotional stuff underneath the surface is a dead loss anyway, because it's so incoherent and not really individual at all -- what's truly individuating is what you do to whip the surface into some kind of shape based on a model or a "mask or role." Which leads us off into all kinds of gender-obscuring directions, about aestheticism or idealistic philosopy or what-the-hell-ever. But I am not feeling sufficiently serious or cerebral tonight to run with that. :)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

This is really interesting stuff. Definitely, I think the idea of "authenticity" is less directly comprehensible to boys -- they're less likely to have fantasies about who they "really are" and more likely to think "it would be cool to do this or this or this." Although I suppose that everyone, regardless of gender, experiences the same rush of feeling when a role or vocation is "right" for them, when it clicks for them. But I wonder if there are differences even here? I think for guys that experience feels like a suit of clothes that finally fits, perfectly, or at least well enough to be fully comfortable for once. And it's not the only possible role, it's just one that feels empowering, feels like something you can work with, and after all you have to pick something. Is it the same or is it different, over on the other side of the great divide?

And the "wounding" thing is a fascinating issue -- it makes me wonder if boys need some experience that forcibly limits them, that makes them choose among what seem like infinite and arbitrary possibilities.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I've been reading up on INFP stuff, and I like the idea that Gandhi was an INFP, right, and I was looking through Gandhi's quotes (http://members.aol.com/macvjv/docs/Gandhi.htm) and it seemed he really stressed the idea of authenticity and resistance-through-being-yourself, which is an idea deeply intuitive to me (and apparently 'my type' of person). Um so perhaaaaps, boys are either a) less likely to be INFPs (seems reasonable) or b) more likely to be conditioned out of it through the societal threat of that being 'too gay' or 'not manly enough' or what have you.

I mean, I'm both female and the Idealist-Healer/Romantic type, so of course I'm uber-focused on self-actualization to the max. I think most people, male or female, tend to 'do what's expedient' or 'what everyone else does', especially if they're extraverted and not too intuitive. The more introverted and intuitive a person is, the more they're probably concerned about the 'real' nature of their occupation and its effect on them. A person who's more 'surface' oriented (in terms of affecting others or controlling others or perceiving the world through the senses, not as in 'being shallow') would naturally care about the 'hidden significance' or truth value less, and accept it as 'one possible well-fitting role'. For an INFP/female, the point isn't to have a role but to grow into your soul, y'know :>

I think the 'wounding' thing is actual Jungian psych stuff, not sure....

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, that's why it was important to add 'and put me on a tangent'-- 'cause when -I- agree (as I tend to with you), I also need to stop, take a deep breath, and argue the contrary :D :D :D But first there's that 'sigh' and deflation, but it's pleasant 'cause it's usually born out of complete agreement :D Even when I disagree it's because I'm somehow forced into a more 'realistic' or pragmatic mindset than I'm naturally comfortable with, ahahah. But yeah, I'm pretty terrified by the idea of the loss of emotional intensity as well (I'm 27 and it still hasn't happened... still the same... *knock on wood* And this fear actually began when I was like, 9, and first heard that people 'change' when they turn 16... I thought that was way sinister, lemme tell ya.)

Ahhhh, 'start contracting'. I'm going to run away and hide now, because that honestly sound like a mental/spiritual 'winter of the soul' (not to say death). I really hate winter too, though I do like snow :>

Btw, your vision of two-fold!Captain Kirk seriously cracks me up :D And now I'm like, OMG Spock is -the- original archetype as I experienced it (though my first was prolly Sherlock Holmes, but it wasn't emotionally flowered for me yet 'cause I was pre-adolescent I think). It is true that the lonely!boy thinks the happy!boy has 'discovered something important' (and indeed he has); and yes, yes, he is pissed! Wonderfully, gloriously pissed! PISSED AT THE SKIES! YEAY! (...er... it does make me a little too gleeful... I'm sorry, lonely!sociopathic!boys of the world...). I don't think he can ever turn -into- Capt Kirk himself, precisely, but he can 'warm himself by the fire' and mellow out and open up and unclench a bit, which allows his moon to shine healthily next to Captain Kirk's sun :> (To mix metaphors deliriously, yes.)

Heh, I think the core idea behind the messy/incoherent roiling mass of Id being identifiable as 'identity' (er...) is probably the one of 'soul', or some such semi-mystical thing. Logically speaking, I suppose you can't really name all those inchoate forces (love, lust, anger, fear) and contradictions 'yourself' without feeling more than a little insane, I suppose. Like, there's a reason people get 'overcome' by these emotions as if they're not -of- 'them'. The ego freaks out, needs to define boundaries, the Id smirks and gets out a pitchfork, and so on and so forth :>

However... without letting the Id's emotions *influence* and also shape the Ego (role/whatever), what you have is an empty role that's not really individuated either-- that's why integration is key! :D! Heh. I don't really want to destroy anyone's mask, not really, I realize we need it to be social creatures. I merely want there to be eye-holes, a mouth hole, maybe even a nose hole. And I want them to look in the mirror and be afraid sometimes, and lost, and awed, because that's being human too, I guess. And also the terror of Oneness (loss of individualization) is something to accept yet overcome sometimes, methinks. (Gah, I'm clearly NEVER too tired to bullshit even though I barely slept 3 and a half hours last night -.-)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

More contrarianism: I am reluctant to see Gandhi as typifying anything, precisely because his significance as a spiritual leader would likely be his ability to cut against the grain of people's ordinary habits of mind. So he may well embody INFP, but it would be a sort of turbocharged INFP and its significance might lie in the "something extra" rather than in the INFP perspective itself.

By its very nature, wouldn't the Myers-Briggs typology beg our basic question here, because it's based on a gender-neutral set of cognitive styles? And that might be empirically correct, I just don't know enough about M-B methodology to know what I think of it. I mean, the significance of gender might be how it mediates, statistically, the appearance of certain M-B types. Or it may be an entirely separate dimension, a scale that crosscuts M-B. I don't honestly have a useful opinion here.

I'm not sure I see any contradiction between introversion and role-playing -- ask Walter Mitty! Or that "healer" or "empath" couldn't be a role one chooses to play. Or that extroversion couldn't be a spontaneous expression of one's innermost nature. I feel diffident about writing this, because I feel like I'm barely getting a handle on the issue, but I'm wary of some of these distinctions -- they don't feel compelling to me at first encounter.

I've done one of those online MB tests and I come out as INFP as well (sometimes INFJ), though almost exactly on the borderline for all four measures, so apparently I am very close to being totally the opposite! Which may be why it doesn't feel very diagnostic to me. :) But I would love to read more about the underlying theory, if you've got good links.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

So, first, a total YES to your last two paragraphs, and I don't feel so much deflated as that you have punched airholes in my mask, and I have to concede that breathing is a good thing! Since we're talking about life masks and not death masks. And I think that the balance there is just right -- you do have to adapt a mask that somehow fits the inner roiling mass. But I think this is maybe an unconscious, or a barely-conscious process of trial and error. What I think is un-boy-like, to an extent, is staring at the mass to see if you can figure out what it's like and how it works. It just isn't a place that feels like home, or a worthwhile place to spend too much time. And still, I can see how this would seem like "denial" to someone who took a different approach to it.

And yes, yes, yes, to your Id with a pitchfork, and your desperately overmatched Ego, and to the need to look in the mirror and be a little scared sometimes: "This is not my beautiful House!"

Yay for tangents! But I do want your sociopathic boy to be more than somebody's moon -- I want him to get better!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think I brought it up because we were talking archetypes/personalities and I feel this is probably a more complex/detailed axis than male/female, which does impact one's development, but I'm uncomfortable with using it seriously too much. I think certain extremes are more statistically likely in girls than boys & vice versa, but that's about as far as I'm fully comfortable going :>

I didn't mean to imply a contradiction between introversion and role-playing per se (lots of introverts become actors -because- the distancing allows more social freedom), but certain kinds of emotional introverts... I dunno, actually, because in a way writing/reading/day-dreaming the way I do is also 'role-playing', it's just that I'm still -after- The Truth or whatever. It's more about the process than the arrival; more about the awareness that this-and-this is *not* true than the certainty that *that* is. Heh. But yeah, this is all rather fuzzy :D But wheee, I like me some fuzzy :D

Interesting wide theory starting points would be this interview (http://www.innerexplorations.com/catpsy/a.htm) and this theory article (http://creativity.chaosmagic.com/custom.html) that sort of gives a grounding in the components that go into the creation of 'types' (ie, Jungian psych). To sort out whether you're INFP or INFJ, there's actually a whole in-depth informative website (http://members.aol.com/macvjv/INFJorINFP.htm); the same person did a whole extensive type overview (http://www.typeinsights.com/) website, which context/history/archetypes/etc, though I haven't explored it as much as I could. ^^;

Basically, this all started with Jung classifying consciousness into perception, thinking, feeling & intuition, and people added extraversion/introversion as another axis early on. It works because... well, that seems like a good way of modeling/understanding personality/individual consciousness to me, I guess. But I mostly like it 'cause it -fits- even if people fool around and put on masks and aren't aware of their true 'type' (which definitely happens). Besides that, it's clear some people are just more integrated than other (ie, actively learning to be more extraverted, pay attention to their senses or intuitions more, etc). The 'type' thing is merely innately preferred mode of operation, nothing too determinant. It is also typical of INFPs both to resist this categorization and to be interested in it as a pattern :D

This (http://www.cognitiveprocesses.com/infp.html) was, I thought, a fascinating breakdown into inner-persona symbolage of INFP/others (and you can see we *do* contain all modes of functioning within ourselves, they just serve different functions). This (http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/mb-types/infp.htm) is a helpful summary/bulletpoint overview of how you'd recognize an INFP/other types and how they'd appear in stress or to others. Other 'profiles' of INFP I liked (just to see if they fit, because I can't judge as closely for other types) is this (http://www.murraystate.edu/secsv/fye/INFP.htm) and this (http://www.typelogic.com/infp.html), the latter because it creates categories/names the relationships between each type (ie, mentor, anima, complement-- which I find an interesting jumping off point). This (http://www.ranshawconsulting.com/infp.htm) seemed interesting for a completely corporate/work-related view of types, though this book excerpt (http://www.psychometrics.com/downloads/pdf/samplefiromb.pdf) goes into much more leadership-profiling detail for the INFP type.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

this is all rather fuzzy :D But wheee, I like me some fuzzy :D

Hee! Me too. :) I didn't mean to jump all over this, it maybe sounded not fuzzy enough so it alarmed me!

And thank you for the multiple links. I will probably read them tomorrow since I am running on far too little sleep right now (which is also liberating when it comes to the fuzzy stuff, happily). But I have to laugh when you say that INFP's resist being categorized as INFPs, so maybe that's my problem! Though I went to the links at your Gandhi site and apparently I misstated a little bit because I had misremembered -- I mostly score INFP but sometimes INTJ, not INFJ, and E/I is somewhat of a close call for me, but N on S/N is probably the most marked tendency. FWIW.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It seems like a lot of people who have only a passing familiarity with this whole system make the basic mistake of trusting the testing too much, or even thinking that it's -all about- the testing, whereas I think the test is just a tool you may or may not choose to use. Personally, I came out INFP several times, but that'd mean little to me if I didn't -know- I was INFP (those times when I'm not pretending I could also be INTP); however, the types are -so- different in such basic ways (meaning, it's not just switching letters around, it's major restructuring of the whole psyche's 'energies' with each shift).

Perhaps the most concise starting point for the theory behind it so far is actually this link (http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/mb-dynam.htm), from the same site as with the bulleted lists I mentioned :> I have a weakness for bulleted lists, but this is also rather visual and clear-cut seeming (even though it's actually a pretty fuzzy issue, but you may as well start out from clear-cut & work towards fuzzier).

You should also trust me not to thrust something overly certain at you :D I'd rebel myself way before I'd learn much about it if it was actually like that, ahahah. My 'feel' is that you seem INFP, whatever skills and integrated qualities you also possess, but that's my fly-by estimate, of course; to look into your soul I'd haveta charge :>

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahah, 'doesn't feel like home'. This makes me and my roiling chaoticness feel like an invading alien (and isn't that how some men feel about women?? AHAHAHAHAHA). I in specific tend to want to see that part of people 'cause I'm a bit of a hedgewitch at heart, and read 'fortunes' in 'entrails', if you know what I mean-- gimme a mass of roiling chaos and I'll see ten zillion patterns in it any day. Whaaaat, y'mean everyone doesn't do that?? Ahahahah. *coughs* But yeah, I think I sort of get it, with the 'trial-and-error' thing. I mean, even if you look at the 'roiling entrails' (gotta love those yummy metaphors), you're not going to necessarily know the fastest way through, so it's still trial-and-error-- to me, there's nothing -but- trial-and-error to be had when it comes to the chaos of one's Id. So basically what it comes down to, I'm reeeeally way too comfy with either a) trial-and-error or b) process vs. end result-oriented thinking (that is, valuing process moreso than result, as a good INFP should! heh).

I think it's only gonna feel like 'denial' to me if the person *refuses* to have that mask lifted up, privately or with another person they trust. If they *always* hide, they're just like a lost little boy in the forest of their own mind, holding on to their mask under the big scary shadowy trees and shivering. So of course I feel sorry for them and want to whisper about how everything will be okay, just follow me, and want to slowly lift up the mask because it's become rotted and useless, and have them find another one, a better one, a *cleaner* one, without all those worms and dead leaves on it :D HEEEEE CAN YOU TELL I ENJOYED THAT?? :D

Um. I love random-yet-fitting 80s song quotes, btw >:D

But yes-- I think the whole idea that becoming sun-like would equal 'getting better' is what hounds the lonely!sociopathic!boy in the first place, and I think that's a fallacy, actually. They feel they have to be 'like them' and they *know* they can never be like them, so they get *really* bitter and they hide themselves deeper and darker in, and they get more and more lost & angry 'cause they hate not being like the sun, but. See, it's okay, I think-- some people are suns and some are moons, and that's just a balance, I think, it's natural. If they accepted their moonness and just let the sun love them, they would be happy, or at least close to it. I hope. So the story goes, and so on and so forth :>