Today's first topic, boys and girls, is Society and the Typical Cute.  Society decides what is beautiful, and what is not. For women, today's beautiful is reasonably large (at least firm) breasts, a small waist, and slender hips. Long legs, possibly, but also slender. It sucks. Less than 1% of the women in the world look like that, and yet we all strive for it. I've given up, for the most part. I'd like to look more like that, but I don't care enough. But the point is, why do we follow society? Three hundred years ago, being beautiful meant being fat. It showed you were wealthy enough for extra food. Then it evolved into the Victorian stages a few hundred years later, in which corsets which made breasts stand out and waists about 20 inches around, actually harmed women for life. They rearranged organs. Women today have plastic surgery, liposuction, and ribs removed, all to look better.  By today's standards, I have a nice face. Child-like, innocent, whatever you want to call it. The big wide blue eyes (weird looking blue, too), little ski-jump nose....you name it, it makes me look five. (Except the haircut, makes me look a bit older). I have a nice face. Pretty. Maybe model-like, if it were less round. (Don't think I'm vain - people who know me know that I admir my failings as well as my streghts - sometimes more easily. But according to society, my body fails in certian ways. Small breasts, rather...well, not quite pudgy, but solid. I actually have a stomach and all my ribs. And wide hips. (Although, according to one book I read, "Wide hips cushion the ride." So nyah :) If you dont know what the ride is, I'm NOT explaining). But, according to today's society, I should be about two jean sizes smaller (I'm rooting for one, but I doubt I'll get there).  Know whats weird though? According to pictures painted by the Greeks....Aphrodite - the Goddess of Beauty - has a body rather like mine. Puts things into perspective, n'est pas?

The second section of this is guys. I have to point something out here - in this way, I'm not a typical female. I have my own definitions. Now, at least in my opinion, there are several types of cute. There's the type of cute where you'll look no matter what (a la Lou, a guy at my school) and then there's guys who you think are cute until it turns out they're mean. I tend to start thinking a guy is at least unattractive once its been proven that he's not very nice. Then there's the type of cute you look at, before continuing your walk. Just a bit of eye-candy, nothing to worry about, move on. Thats the fun kind :) Then there's the most confusing kind - the guys who aren't that attractive, but because they're nice, they are to me. Like today in the bookstore. Two guys behind the counter, both around my age, neither really worth looking at. One had a few scars over his face like burns. But they both went out of their way to help me find a book, even after the computer said they didn't have it. One helped me scour the history shelves, and the other hacked away at the computer until we found it. Suddenly, they were both cute to me. Simply because they were incredibly helpful and obviously cared about my reasons for NEEDING the book.

All I have to say on the subject right now. Shall we move on?

Now that I have your attention... :)

One thing that I've known for awhile b ut never really paid attention to is something I call Virgin Ideals. I noticed the trait in myself, my boyfriend, and my friends Rob and Robbie. We all are, so it fits :P Rob, awhile ago, might have had to spend the night in a hotel room with a girl he used to like. He was told by a friend that if he didn't "get any" he'd be in trouble. Rob told me he wasn't sure he trusted her enough to wake up in her arms. Robbie got upset when he found out his current girlfriend (ex now) had had sex.  And Tony and I are the same - we'd both counted on meeting and being with one of the few teenage virgins left in this world. All will be explained fully.

Now, Rob. Most guys I know would have loved to be in that hotel room, especially if there were no strings attached the next morning. The need to trust someone to sleep in their arms is a desire I've really only found in people who are still virgins. Now, with me and Tony....by the time you get to the age that we were when we met, a lot of kids HAVE had sex. (Average age for losing it is, I think 16 for guys and 17 for girls). But its something we both took for granted - that we'd find one of the few remaining pure people. Didn't even realize it until he had to go to a floor meeting about STDs and I commented taht its something we dont have to worry about - and I realized I had never really planned on worrying about it, only pregnancy.  I asked, and he was the same way. It was just something odd.

Now, to the second topic. A friend of mine on a MUSH who's trying to convince me not to have sex until I'm married. He said there's too many minuses, not enough pluses. Now, in some ways, I'm prone to agree. In other ways - I dont THINK I'm waiting.  It was a long, tangled conversation. Actually, two long and tangled conversations.  He says my soul is at stake, I say I think God has more important things to worry about than whether I have sex or not. He keeps trying to use the religious angle on me. I keep explaining that I'm not Christian. I was raised Jewish, but I don't really believe in anything concrete right now. He asked me if the person I was planning on sleeping with was a person I'd be with forever. I said no guarentees, but I thought so. He then started on marriage, I said even marriage has no guarentees - over 60% of marraiges end in divorce. He threw out some number about how only 10-15% of devout Christian marriages end in divorce, and what did that tell me? I said it told me that people who blindly follow religion like sheep are more likely to live a life they dont really like anyway. A divorce, to me, is the rectification of a mistake. Like how I'm leaving Plattsburgh. I tried very hard, but it didn't work out for me here. If I ever got as depressed in a marriage as continually as I'm depressed here, yeah, I'd want out.

The question I asked him, is whats so bad about premarital sex, huh? I mean, marriage is only a legal thing. If you believe in your heart that its right, thats all that matters. Why wait until the law says you'll be together "forever?" Why bring law into it? (Although many sexual positions are outlawed in a hell of a lot of states).

Anyway, my wrists hurt. I'm ending this here - will check back in some other time.