An Update On My Self-Absorbed Ex Friend “Doug” – The Friend Who Made My Mother’s Death All About Himself

An Update On My Self-Absorbed Ex Friend “Doug” – The Friend Who Made My Mother’s Death All About Himself

Here is the background on this post – if you want to know more about Doug (not his real name), and why I am angry at Doug, please see this previous post for the details:

(Link): People Really Hack Me Off (Part 2) The Clueless Christian Who Likes To Send You Upbeat Updates About Himself In Reply To Your Announcement of Your Mother’s Death (ex friend of mine named “Doug”)

The very, very short of that post is that…

Doug was a Christian guy who is very self-absorbed, ever since I knew him back in our twenties when we went to college together, and he later made my mother’s death all about him.

He sent me an insensitive reply to my e-mail telling everyone on my e-mail account that my mother had passed, and I had sent this e-mail within a few days of the funeral.

He wrote back to send me a very chipper, upbeat response going on and on about how great his life was going.

“Doug” didn’t care about me or what I was going through. He didn’t hardly comment on my mother’s passing – his e-mail reply was mainly about him, him, him, and him.

For the next two to three years, I stopped all contact with Doug, until I finally sent him a link to a page about how NOT to talk to someone in grief.

I told him in that e-mail he was guilty of doing to me what that page said NOT to do.

Doug wrote back, defended himself, dug his heels in, and he actually had the audacity to lecture me on how he thinks I should be handling and reacting to my own mother’s death.

(At that point in time, he had not even lost anyone close to him, so he was in no place to offer such condescending advice.)

I wrote him back, chewed him out over that, and told him never to write me again.

Doug Tried Contacting Me Again in June / July 2018

I heard from Doug (not his real name) a few weeks ago (July 2018, or maybe late June).

He sent me some kind of private request on Facebook.

It was not a friend request, but some kind of request to talk to me privately on Facebook’s messenger system or something.

There was an “accept” and a “decline” button attached to that notification.

The Entitled, Insensitive Comments Left by Entitled Christian Mothers, and the Men Who Support Them, Under the Post ‘Don’t Ask Moms To Stand In Church This Sunday (Mother’s Day)’

The Entitled, Insensitive Comments Left by Entitled Christian Mothers, and the Men Who Support Them, Under the Post ‘Don’t Ask Moms To Stand In Church This Sunday (Mother’s Day)’

As of 2018, the snotty entitlement and insensitivity of some mothers – and Christian men who support them – continues.

I’ve been blogging about this topic for a few years now on this blog. It makes me sad to see this still going on.

DefendTheSheep (person on Twitter) tweeted out a link to this reasonable essay imploring Christians to be more sensitive towards those who find the Mother’s Day holiday painful. Link to that:

(Link): Don’t Ask Moms To Stand in Church This Sunday

My problem is not with the essay itself.

As a matter of fact, I encourage you to click the link above to visit the page and read it.

My problem was with some of the hideous comments various people left below the page.

Some of the comments were just incredibly insensitive or very mistaken about why some people find Mother’s Day – especially when it’s celebrated during church services – to be hurtful or stressful.

Christians often like to teach that parenthood and marriage are necessary to make people more giving and loving and compassionate, but that is not so. The married parents leaving comments under blog posts such as the one I am discussing here are very selfish and entitled – being parents has done nothing to make them more loving, caring, or empathetic.

Sex Robots Are Being Made to Look Like Customers’ Dead Wives

Sex Robots Are Being Made to Look Like Customers’ Dead Wives

I do not find this touching. It’s gross and weird.

(Link): Sex robots are being made to look like customers’ dead wives… and one firm insists it’s the best way to help with their grief

by G Harrison

For many people, the social aspects of owning a sexbot are far more important than the physical side of things

SEX robots have become so lifelike that bereaved men are flocking to order dolls designed to resemble their dead partners.

More 40-Something Single Women Falling Prey to Dishonest or Violent Men in Dating (says report)

More 40-Something Single Women Falling Prey to Dishonest or Violent Men in Dating (says report)

I don’t know how accurate this type of story is. Sometimes the media like to report ideas and leave the impression there is a huge crisis going on, because it generates panic and makes for good click-bait and gets them more views and hits.

For example:

(Link):  When Newsweek ‘Struck Terror in the Hearts of Single Women’ – Bogus Study Said Women Over 40 More Likely To Be Killed By A Terrorist Than to Marry

This story is in a UK-based paper. I’ve no idea how common this is in the United States vs. the UK. Some of the folks who left comments below the (Link): Twitter post felt that the article is “victim-blaming.” I don’t know if I took it that way or not.

I have posted other stories to this blog before of women who were killed by men they had met online, and one story about a guy who was robbed (and I think killed) by a woman he met on a dating site (she brought her male friends with her to the man’s house, and her friends killed him – she was part of the plot). I don’t think it’s necessarily “victim blaming” to remind people who use dating sites to use caution when meeting people through sites.

(Link):  The tragic story of Helen Bailey’s murder shows how easily an unscrupulous character can fool a lonely romantic by J. S-Porter

“At 49, I met and married a man within three months. It was a disaster, and I quickly realised I’d been hopelessly naïve. Sometimes the dream gets in the way of reality”

Excerpts:

A successful middle-aged woman was murdered by a partner she trusted implicitly. Helen Bailey’s story is shocking because it reveals how little she really knew about her partner of five years. How can such an intelligent person be so oblivious to the dark side of her lover’s personality?

Death, Grief, Marriage, Single Again, Soul Sleep, Christianity, Obnoxious Male Fixation on Female Looks

Death, Grief, Marriage, Single Again, Soul Sleep, Christianity, Obnoxious Male Fixation on Female Looks

I have several topics I’d like to address here. I’m going to discuss death, grief, dating, how men are too fixated on women’s looks, etc, and so on, all in the same post.

I learned from watching the Christian program “It is Written” today (Feb 2017) that the wife of Christian TV host Mike Tucker, Gayle, died. I’m not sure when the episode was first filmed or first aired.

You can read a transcript of that episode, “From Grief To Hope” (Link, off site): here.

You might be able to watch that very episode or one like it here: (Link, off site): Coping with Grief.

I see from an online obit that Gayle Tucker passed away in April 2016.

I am sorry for his loss.

I lost my mother, and it hurt a lot.

(Link, off site):  Gayle Tucker, Beloved Marriage Counselor on Faith For Today TV, Dead at 60

April 2016 –  The prominent Adventist television personality dies after a brief struggle with pancreatic cancer.

(Link, off site):   Beloved Christian TV Host, Couples’ Counselor Dead at 60

I learned a few years ago that the hosts and backers of “It Is Written” are SDAs (Seventh Day Adventists).

I also learned from a glance over google search results that Mike Tucker is a Seventh Day Adventist.

Part of SDA theology is something called “Soul Sleep,” a view that I totally disagree with and find discouraging and cruel.

Why Being a Childless Woman is Rarely a Simple Case of Choice or Infertility – Childless by Circumstance by J. Day

Please note all you are getting here is a long excerpt. I did not paste in the whole article. The author discusses how she tried IVF at one time, or she considered using IVF, if I remember correctly.

(Link): Why being a childless woman is rarely a simple case of choice or infertility – by J Day

• An estimated 80% of women who don’t have children are ‘childless by circumstance’, rather than choice or medical reasons
• Feb 28, 2016
• Before I became a statistic, by reaching my mid-forties without having children, I thought, as many of us do, that there were two ways to become a childless woman: you either didn’t want them (“child-free”) or you were infertile.
• It has been estimated that 80 per cent of women who don’t have children are “childless by circumstance”, a phrase coined by the Australian academic Dr Leslie Cannold in her 2005 book, What, No Baby?
• The figure comes from the work of Dr Renske Keizer, a professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, who in a 2010 meta-analysis of data from the Netherlands and the US estimated that 10 per cent of women without children are childless by choice, 10 per cent for medical reasons, and 80 per cent by circumstance.
• Applied to statistics about UK women, it can be estimated that there are (or shortly will be) almost 1.5 million women in their forties and fifties here who won’t have children, with only 10 per cent of those being unambiguously by choice.
• ….Perhaps the most difficult-to-digest reason for childlessness is that of never having been in a suitable relationship.

A Book Called “Prude” That Uses the Term “Neo Virgin”

A Book Called “Prude” That Uses the Term “Neo Virgin”

An author by the name of Carrie Lloyd was on Christian TV program The 700 Club today. She wrote a book called “Prude” about her choice to remain celibate after having been very sexually active while in her 20s. I think she also used the term “Neo Virgin” on the show and maybe in her book.

I have not read her book, I only saw her interview on the show today.

She was raised in a Christian household, but later drifted away from the Christian faith and then came back to the faith later.

I support her choice to remain celibate until marriage. I don’t have a problem there. However, I have to admit to not being fond of terms such as “Neo Virgin.”

Either you are a virgin or you are not one. I’m over 40 years of age and have never had sexual intercourse, not even with my ex fiance, because I was wanting to wait until marriage to have sex.

I find terms such as “Neo Virgin” or other Christian phrases such as “Born Again Virgin” or “Spiritual Virgin” to be a little demeaning to actual, honest to God virgins such as myself. Such terms dilute the real meaning of, or state of being, a virgin.

I also find it ironic that Christian culture continues to uphold fornicators as experts in how to resist sexual temptation or how to go about sexual purity and celibacy, rather than publish books by honest- to- God virgins who are past the age of 30 or older who are still maintaining their virginity.

Here is a link to a page that discusses Ms. Lloyd’s story and book:

(Link): Making Healthy Relationship Choices in an Unhealthy World

Excerpts:

• ….Growing up, Carrie was teased about her stance on abstinence.  By the time she entered high school, she was infamous with the boys at the neighboring school as one of the last remaining virgins.  Once her photo was pinned to the school notice board.  She was the target to see which boy could get her to lose her virginity.  Her peers didn’t feel the same way she did.  “No one wanted to save it for one person,” says Carrie.  “This subtle prejudice toward my choices made me more determined to hold out.”
• …. Meanwhile, women were fighting for someone to love them.  “I call this the curse of Eve,” says Carrie.  The curse says, “Everything will be redeemed once I have found my husband,” and that a woman will be happier having found her purpose.
• THE DECADENT DAYS
• Carrie was 18 when her father underwent a serious heart operation so severe it almost killed him and left him with some brain damage.  In his effort to deal with his pain, Carrie’s dad began to drink.  “Seeing my preacher papa enter into substance abuse caused me to question everything he taught,” says Carrie.  “What happened to relying on God?”
• When she was 23, Carrie’s dad passed away.  One night Carried decided to walk away from God.  She was mad at God and men and started on the path of hurting others.  Several years later, Carrie had several physical relationships and reached the lowest point of her life since her father died.  She prayed to God and heard an inaudible voice that said, I’ve been here all along.  Carrie realized that God had never left her.

According to the rest of the article, and from what I remember from the TV interview, when she decided at some stage in her late 20s (or her 30s?) to remain abstinent, some of the men she dated broke up with her. One guy did stay with her for two years and respected her “no sex until I marry” belief, but the relationship ended, though not due to the celibate aspect.

Here is a page about her book:

(Link):  Prude: Misconceptions Of A Neo-Virgin

• Overview

• “SEX. LOVE. VIRGINITY? In the dating game, the V-word has become as strange and complicated as the L-word, with purity as outdated as pay phones.
• What is an ex-athiest, post-porn addict, unorthodox Christian girl to do these days?
• How can she create boundaries without scaring off every available guy? Is purity even possible without being puritanical? In this candid, humorous account of the true-life trials of Christian dating, the author shares the wisdom she’s gleaned in her quest for love in a modern world.
• She guides with grace and honesty through the often hush-hush topics of sex, porn, shame, female competition, misconceptions about purity, and those dreaded “waiting till marriage: conversations.

————————–

Related Posts:

(Link):  Churches Would Rather Hear From Ex Porn Stars Than Adult Celibates or Virgins – Church Invites Ex Porn Star to be Guest Speaker

 (Link):   Why are young feminists so clueless about sex? by M. Wente

(Link): Article: Our Born-Again Virgin Bachelor – Secondary or Spiritual Virginity

(Link): Celebrity Deems Herself A Born Again Virgin And Vows to Stay Celibate “For A Year” – Oh Puh-leaze

(Link):  Woman Says She Refuses to Hook-up with Men ‘For Fun’ – Says Most Men She’s Met Are Willing to Wait

(Link):  How About Using Celibates as Role Models For Celibacy? (Oddity: Christians Holding Up Non-Virgins [Fornicators] As Being Experts or Positive Examples on Sexual Purity)

(Link):  She’s Waiting Until Marriage to Have Sex. Here’s Her Response to Those ‘Inevitable Jerks’ Who Think Her Decision Is ‘Stupid’ – by E. Kahn

(Link):  Sometimes Fornication Can Impact Another Relationship Later – One Example

(Link):  When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments

(Link): Self Control – everyone has it, is capable of it, but most choose not to use it (New Study Says Conservatives Have Better Self Control Than Liberals)

(Link):  Hypocrisy: Secular Pundits Judge Christian Sexuality: Josh Duggar’s So-Called Vanilla Sexual Preferences Deemed Dull

(Link): False Christian Teaching: “Only A Few Are Called to Singleness and Celibacy”

(Link): Statistics Show Single Adults Now Outnumber Married Adults in the United States (2014)

(Link): The Netherworld of Singleness for Some Singles – You Want Marriage But Don’t Want to Be Disrespected or Ignored for Being Single While You’re Single

(Link):  Ever Notice That Christians Don’t Care About or Value Singleness, Unless Jesus Christ’s Singleness and Celibacy is Doubted or Called Into Question by Scholars?

(Link):  Are Single People the Lepers of Today’s Church? by Gina Dalfonzo

(Link):  No Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity and Sexual Purity – Christians Attack and Criticize Virginity Sexual Purity Celibacy / Virginity Sexual Purity Not An Idol

(Link): Secular, Left Wing Feminist Writer Marcotte on Anyone Choosing To Be a Virgin Until Marriage: “It’s a Silly Idea” – What Progressive Christians, Conservative Christians, Non Christians, and Salon’s Amanda Marcotte Gets Wrong About Christian Views on Virginity

(Link): Want To But Can’t – The One Christian Demographic Being Continually Ignored by Christians | Re: Marriage Not Happening for Hetero-sexual Christians Over the Age of 30

(Link): On ‘Late’-In-Life Virginity Loss (from The Atlantic)

(Link): Why Some People Become 30 Year Old Virgins (Article / Study)

(Link): Virginity Lost, Experience Gained (article with information from study about virginity)

(Link): Some Atheists Are Just As Ignorant About Adult Singleness and Celibacy as Progressive Christians, Secular Feminists, and Protestant Evangelical or Conservative Christians

(Link): Celebrities who waited until marriage to have sex (list 2)

(Link): Living Myths About Virginity – article from The Atlantic

(Link): I Shouldn’t Need An Excuse To Be A Virgin – (Secular Editorial Defends Virginity – More Rare Than a Unicorn Sighting)

(Link): Virgins and Celibates are Sexual – Not Asexual and Androgynous – You don’t have to have sex to possess sexuality

(Link): Asexuality and Asexuals

(Link):  Meagan Good Tells Single Women Why They Should Stop Having Sex

(Link):  Preacher: ‘They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Hot SEX Lives’ – and once more, never-married celibate adults and their experiences, wisdom, and input are ignored

(Link):  Want To Grow Your Church? Advertise Sex (Story via A Little Leaven Blog)

(Link):  The Decisive Marriage – Study Says Couples Who Don’t Have Pre-Marital Sex, or Not Much or Not Many Sexual Partners Pre-Marriage, Have Better Quality or Longer Lasting Marriages

(Link): Weak Argument Against Celibacy / Virginity / Sexual Purity by the Anti Sexual Purity Gestapo – Sexual Compatibility or Incompatibility – (i.e., Taking Human Beings For Test Spins – Humans As Sexual Commodities) (Part 2)

(Link):   Stop Pretending Sex Never Hurts, By D.C. McAllister

(Link):  The Myth of Safe Sex by D. Foley

Leaving Christianity gave me the fairy-tale ending I always wanted / Divorce and pre-marital sex destroyed my relationship with Christianity by T. Sheehan

Leaving Christianity gave me the fairy-tale ending I always wanted / Divorce and pre-marital sex destroyed my relationship with Christianity by T. Sheehan

Even though the details of my life and situation are different, I sure did relate to this lady’s story.

My eye brow did raise at one or two points of this essay, such as her claim that people at her church encouraged her to get an abortion when she became pregnant out of wedlock, and from the way she discusses her church, they sound pretty conservative and legalistic.

Perhaps she is telling the truth and that really did happen, it’s just that most conservative Christians are pro-life, not pro-choice, so I am having a hard time picturing any of them advising a pregnant woman to get an abortion.

With possibly a few wacko Protestant church exceptions, (Link): like this one, where the church’s preacher allegedly encouraged the women members to get abortions. But then, of course, there is information such as this: (Link): 2015 Poll: 70% of American Women Who Have Abortions Identify As Christian

By and large, though, most churches are pro-life, not pro-choice.

At one point in this essay, Sheehan says that although she and her male friend were not having sex, that due to being constantly suspected and accused of having sex by Christians at her church, is actually what in large measure drove her and her boyfriend to become sexually active with one another.

Major irony there. Or maybe not…

As I have said time and again at my blog, most Christians, just like secular culture, just blindly assumes that celibacy is impossible for anyone over the age of 25 or so, and that it is impossible for men and women to be platonic friends.

It is entirely possible for men and women to remain friends, and it is entirely possible for an adult to stay celibate for months or years at a time.

I have also explained before, in previous posts, that one reason there is so much fornication among Christian singles is precisely because most Christians have such low expectations: they expect that single adults will, or have, had sex outside of marriage. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy quite often.

The couple discussed in this post were expected, assumed to be, and suspected by their fellow congregants of sleeping together; this couple got tired of being falsely accused, so they figured, well, we might as well have sex, since everyone is already assuming we are and harassing us over it.

I also notice that one reason this woman’s husband, who was a Christian at one time, but is now an atheist or agnostic, began losing his faith over how miserably his grief (over the death of his father) was mishandled by Christians.

Oh yes, I relate: after my family member’s passing a few years ago, rather than receiving love, empathy, and encouragement from Christians in my family or churches I went to, I instead received judgment, criticism, platitudes, or indifference. This in turn is one of several things that caused me to partially leave the Christian faith.

One of a few things that caused Sheehan to leave the faith is over how one church she attended mishandled her abusive marriage – her priest told her to stay with the abusive husband.

This advice is also usually given in Baptist or Protestant situations. Christians often put keeping an (abusive) marriage before the welfare of the two persons who comprise the marriage.

Abused wives are usually instructed to stay with the abusive spouse and submit to the abuser more, or just pray about things. None of this resolves the situation but actually prolongs it.

I am not surprised in light of all the insensitive treatment that she and her husband endured at the hands of other believers, that they both developed major doubts about Christianity and walked away from it.

There were a few supportive comments to the woman who wrote this, in the comments area under the essay, but there were also a lot of hateful, judgmental, or naive posts left to her by Christians.

There were also a few annoying posts by atheists who were just there to say “all religion is idiotic, there is no God” to any of the well-meaning, yet naive Christians who were telling her to hold on to the faith, in spite of the Christians who had been mean to her at her prior churches.

Honestly, I wish those types of atheists would refrain from posting under articles like this one by Sheehan. I find their opportunistic, anti-theism drivel and rants to be about as bad as the nasty posts by the Christians who scolded Sheehan for leaving Christianity.

(Link): Leaving Christianity gave me the fairy-tale ending I always wanted 

• Divorce and pre-marital sex destroyed my relationship with Christianity by T. Sheehan

• My family has always been part of the Catholic Church, including being actively involved in fighting for those beliefs in Ireland and France through the centuries. It is all I knew and I never imagined a life without it. Even in today’s permissive society, divorce is still a huge don’t in the Catholic Church.

  When my priest advised me to stay in an abusive marriage rather than lose access to the Catholic religion, I stayed — until my husband left me for one of the many women he had been seeing.

  I went back to my priest for help but instead found myself without a church.

  Confused and directionless, I ended up seeking help at a Word of Faith Christian Church in Texas.

  Although the church and I both believed in Jesus, the similarities ended there. Everything was so different from what I had grown up with, it made the transition very difficult.

  They kept trying to break down my identity by using scripture to suggest that everything about me, from Catholicism to my Irish culture, was evil and against God. It was like going through spiritual boot camp as they attempted to rebuild me into a person that could gain access to heaven.

  During my time there, I met my current husband. He was also having a tough time as his father had died suddenly the year before, causing him to question the church he had been raised in and even the existence of God due to how they handled his grief.

  We became really good friends who spent hours talking as we each struggled with our sheltered worlds collapsing around us, no matter how hard we tried to fight to keep the walls intact.

  The damage in our lives, caused by blind devotion to a religion, forced us to question all the truths we had been raised to believe.

People Really Hack Me Off (Part 2) The Clueless Christian Who Likes To Send You Upbeat Updates About Himself In Reply To Your Announcement of Your Mother’s Death (ex friend of mine)

People Really Hack Me Off (Part 2) The Clueless Christian Who Likes To Send You Upbeat Updates About Himself In Reply To Your Announcement of Your Mother’s Death (ex friend of mine)

(July 2018 update below)

I had this friend who I shall call “Douglas” (not his real name) who I met while in college.

This post will probably not be nearly as long as (Link): Part 1 of this series about the ingrate and hot head, Ellen (the other ex friend of mine).

Doug is about four or five years older than I am.

Doug is a devout Christian guy and a Republican. (Though he didn’t fixate on politics and go nuts about it the way Ellen did, who I mentioned in my last post.)

Like almost everyone I am blogging about in this series, he was self absorbed.