Charivary

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I just read about a ceremony in middle age France, "charivary", to mock the wedding between couples of very different age, or a marriage of a widdow, regardless of her age. You know, the sound of the word sounds like a fun thing, but they said its to ridicule. So could it be that they are counting on the fact that the couple is so stupid that they don't know that they are trying to ridicule them and, instead, like me, they think charivary is something fun. So the couple gets all dressed up for charivary, totally looking forward for it, as a TRUE celebration of their marriage, and they are the only ones not knowing they are being ridiculed.

Here is another interesting question: what the f**k would the couple do after that ceremony is completted? I can tell you what I would do: If I were to marry someone and they were to do charivary pertaining to my marriage (say, they don't like that I have Asperger or that she is younger or whatever) after the charivary is over and I am one on one with my would-be wife, I would beat the hell out of her. You know why? Because they just fucken ruined our wedding and we would never have another one. So if they fucken ruined our wedding, well I can ruin it some more, I have nothing to lose anyway. So yeah, I would just yell at my wife as to how fucken ret*d she is and how the only fucken reason I am even with her is that I can't have anyone better and that she should be fucken ashamed of herself. They ruined that fucken wedding anyway, so I will ruin it some more, nothing to lose.

Cultivating anger like this never helps anything though. Would you really want to "beat the hell out of" a woman who wanted to marry you because someone disapproved your union? Do you really view your spouse as a possession, depreciated in the presence of anyone elses words or actions?

May I grant you that this was hyperbole?

Well, I would never hit anyone physically. But I have already done the "verbal" part of it, just for a different reason.

I remember one time when my research paper was rejected I sent a text to my then-girlfriend, seemingly out of the blue, saying "if I was given a choice to become 10 years younger at the exchange of never seeing you again, I would gladly do that without a slightest regret" What I was referring to by "10 years younger" was that I wouldn't have had wasted so many years not being productive as a physicist, but she misunderstood me and thought I meant to say that I wanted to date younger women. So then I had to explain to her that wasn't what I meant.

Another such example was when a chairman of a math department I was at told me I was not a serious student. At the time I wasn't dating anyone, but I was talking to the woman who was "considering" dating me (she was still formalizing her divorce, so her dating me was postponed for at least a couple of months). In any case, since I was angry at the chairman, I sent an email to that girl, again out of the blue, saying "quite frankly I am better than you: I am working towards my second Ph.D. and you have never been to graduate school, so people should look down at you, not at me". I deliberately *didn't* tell her the context so that she can feel hurt, but I told her the context *after* she became angry. But she never believed me that I don't think I am better than her, despite my telling her over and over that I was displaying the anger on her. She refused to consider dating me, although she was still willing to be my friend, and then I got pushy trying to get her to change her mind seeing that I dind't mean what I said, but it just kept pushing her away further and further until she stopped talking to me.

There are a lot more of such examples. But no, I don't see women as objects. I just try to displace my anger at whomever is there. So if I am dating someone, it would be that woman I am dating. If I am single, I would go through my facebook contacts to see whom to send this type of message, the type of person who knows me well enough to feel hurt, yet at the same time isn't the type of person in front of whom I would feel embarassed. More often than not I don't find anyone that meet that description and refrain from sending such messages.

It seems every example is an illustration of misdirected anger. It's someone who's close to you rather than the source of the aggravation who gets verbally attacked. It's possible to voice your irritation without attacking anyone, however.

Per my therapist from years back, the simple formula is, "When you said __, it made me feel __." The other person can say they didn't mean to have that effect (or maybe they did), but they can't very well deny what you felt. If they're well-meaning they might then apologize or at least say they didn't intend that outcome. Otherwise, they're not worth your trouble. This seems both more productive and more fair than using friends and family as verbal punching bags.