Dear SML - Cuddling Nausea

Dear SML,

I am attracted to characters in TV shows and movies. This isn't unusual in and of itself - the problem is that I'm not attracted to real people. I don't tend to put people on pedestals - I love them hairy moles, buck teeth, and all - but once I get to know a man I lose any attraction there might have been. It's not that I like him less - a lot of times I like him more once I get to know him. So what's the deal? Why does the thought of cuddling up with someone I know make me want to vomit? And how do I fix it?

-Suspended in the Second Dimension


Dear Suspended,

It is natural to become attracted to characters on TV and in movies. They are represented as ideal people with great looks, ideal living situations, they always seem to say just the right things, and they often appear to have no faults, quirks, or irritating qualities that can be so important when it comes to real life situations. This can be heady stuff to our fantasies.

I’m wondering if you’ve simply been rushed into the “cuddling up” stages of potential relationships in the past. It may be that you’re someone who needs to know someone better and longer before you will allow yourself to get intimate physically and emotionally. It’s possible that a man in your past has tried to rush the physical side, as is often the case, considering that most men have sex on their minds a lot from pre-pubescence on. The drive for sex can motivate men to behave much differently than most women, and seeing this may turn you off initially.

On the flip side, if you’ve found that you have no problem at all being physically intimate with people you barely know, but not with those you do know, then I’d venture a guess that you have issues with underlying fears holding you back. The fears that come to mind first are:

•fear of rejection
•fear of getting too close so you may get hurt if something goes wrong
•fear of letting someone real see your body that you may find imperfect
•fear of choosing the wrong Mr. Right, as if there can be only one perfect man for you
•fear that you will be sinning if you get physical with someone

If it’s fear holding you back from becoming physically close to someone you really like, I’d suggest counseling. This can do wonders for discovering what makes you tick, and for eliminating fear. Sometimes it is easier to see what we need to see through a therapist vs. seeing it in ourselves.

Many people grow up in religions that repress sexuality as sinful and wrong. This can cause a young woman (or man) to miss out on many or all of the normal steps youth take to discover their own budding sexuality and become comfortable and confident with it. Sometimes this causes fear of the unknown, especially if you have not been intimate yet. It can also cause fear of disappointing a lover, and fear of communicating what your desires are with your partner, because you were unable to practice anything remotely sexual or intimate without risking committing an unforgivable sin.

To fix this, I suggest practice. Practice touch and intimate speech with the one you are attracted to, starting with flirting. If you find your subconscious trying to convince you that it’s wrong, work on an inner dialogue where you can rationally tell yourself that you like this person, and you want to get to know them better, and that you deserve it. It is not wrong to have such feelings and desires. Breathe deeply to avoid undue nausea if you feel it coming on. Taking Dramamine before a date may also help if you truly come close to vomiting in instances like this.

If it helps you during intimacy to fantasize that the person you are with is one of the characters on TV, then do so in your own mind, and try hard to avoid saying the wrong name at the wrong time.


(Send your own DEAR SML request to sistermary_lisa@yahoo.com)

Dear SML

I've been toying with a new creative idea to try out here.

You remember Ann Landers? I was thinking how fun it might be to allow anyone who wishes to e-mail questions/problems to me, and I can attempt to dole out wise, good, funny, or horrible advice, depending on what you want to hear vs. what you will hear from me. I will keep all identities anonymous except my own. I reserve the right to pick and choose which requests I'll answer, and some weeks I may answer more than one in a post.

If you want to give it a whirl, just e-mail me at sistermary_lisa@yahoo.com with a problem. I will copy what you say in full, and then answer, just like the advice columns we used to love. Hopefully.

If this idea goes over like a lead balloon, meaning not one person e-mails a Dear SML request for advice, then I'll nominate myself as Weenis of the Week.

He'll shit a ring around himself for sure

The portrait is proceeding nicely. I worked on it most of the day with sporadic breaks here and there...you know, the kind of breaks that sustain life like lunch and dinner. I got one of the two faces done. I always like to wait overnight and look at it again the next morning with fresh eyes ~ sometimes it reveals mistakes that I didn't see as I was drawing. You know I'll post it on here when it's finished. What artist doesn't love to blatantly beg for praise?

Have I mentioned lately how much I love not having to cram church into my Sundays? I have had so much less stress without the weekly primary presidency meetings, sharing time preparation, phone calls from the primary president (who loved to re-hash decisions we'd made over and over and over). I'm just so glad that I don't have to do it all anymore. Not that I resented it before, just that now I can see how much of my life was sucked away into it, and it's a real relief not having it to do anymore.

I found out my dad is coming up from Utah for Christmas. I know Christmas is on Monday this year, so he'll for sure be here Sunday, and expecting us to attend church. He needs to find out that I don't believe anymore. The only way we communicate is through e-mail, and it feels weird to consider sending shocking news like that via e-mail to a parent.

A few things that could happen:

1. If I do e-mail it, there is a strong possibility that he will mass forward my explanation to every single family member I have, plus all the extended family on his e-mail list. Cousins I haven't talked to or seen in 20 years. He will most likely request that each of them put me and my family in their prayers, since our eternal souls are at stake. I can also imagine he'd do this with a regular letter scanned into the computer. He will find the most God-awful picture he has of me in his vast arsenal and will attach it to said e-mail.

2. He will come armed with as much information, books, pamphlets, and persuasion as he can to try to lead me back into the fold. I think my sister and I (who are the only ones out of his 7 children who still attend church) were his only hope. His shining stars. I'm not sure if this is presumptuous to say, but I think he felt that. Last time he came to visit, he went to church and sat in Primary with me to watch me teach sharing time. He had that same proud father look he used to get when we'd give youth talks in Sacrament Meeting.

His method will be to try to corner me and keep me in the conversation until I capitulate. He has tried doing this numerous times with talking about my mom, his ex. Like the time this spring when he found out that she was living with a boyfriend (a month after it had been going on) and he pulled my sister and me into my bedroom and said, in a hushed voice as if there were a dead body before us, "Did you know your mother has MOVED IN with a man?" My sis and I looked at each other and it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Um, yeah, we knew it a month ago. I was good at shooting down any talking about her. I think I said something like, "I've never seen her more happy and that is the most important thing to me. I only want her happy." He tried a couple times to get us to say something and finally I just said, "This life is all about free agency, right? She needs to be allowed to choose her own life for herself." Don't make me say it, Dad. You could have kept her, but you blew it. BOTH times you were married to her.

3. He will wield his well-honed control freak nature and tell my kids to go get ready for church. Now. Then we will have a big fight. Of course, if he's a good LDS priesthood holding man, when my husband interjects and says HIS KIDS are not going, then he'll probably back down without a fight. Maybe.

4. He will leave sticky notes all over my house with reminders to choose the right. Once when I was 16, a friend came over and saw the notes. I had become used to them (translate: had ignored them for years). She and I went through the upstairs alone, and found 34. "Lint causes house fires" written directly on the dryer in permanent ink. "Lock door at all times" on the front door. "Hang Towels Up." "Turn off lights" by every light switch. "Keep fridge door closed." "Re-line garbage can." "Flush the toilet." "Wash your hands." Actually, the first four are the only ones I remember for certain. I do remember the number correctly, though. How embarrassing. And no, I'm amazed to report he never thought of writing one that said "Breathe in, breathe out."

5. He will most likely stay with my sister, and I worry that he will not talk about it at all with me (once he tries and I tell him I have nothing to discuss), but will keep my sister up every night until 2 a.m. trying to come up with reasons for how I could have had this horrible tragedy happen to me. Poor Tony. I suggest you say like I do. "I'm not discussing this. If you want to discuss it, please discuss it with Lisa." Then when he tries again, I will tell him there's nothing to discuss. I've done it and I know I'm doing what's right for me and my kids. No offense to you personally, Dad.

My sister still goes to church, even though she says she may believe the things that led me to leave it. So she'll be the one to take Dad to church on Christmas Eve, I guess.

6. He will blame my apostasy on the fact that my mother is OPENLY LIVING WITH ANOTHER MAN. Wouldn't he shit if he knew that the guy my mom lives with IS MARRIED???

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it. Just another fun thing to add to the holidays.

Get On It!

I got up early so I could blog without censure and also so I could get back to working on drawing all day on the portrait due (framed) before Christmas.

Here's a painting I did in the last year (one of my first oil paintings that I did straight from my own imagination). For me this is huge, because I'm usually not comfortable with creating art that doesn't have a reference photo. The painting is rather large, and it hangs in my bedroom amidst a bunch of other art, either finished and drying the required 6 months before varnishing, or not finished and waiting for me to remember them.

Modern Dancer 24" x 30" Oil on Canvas

What in the WORLD?!

I was on the Google search page and entered sistermarylisa. Usually I click on the top/first link to get to my blog. (I obviously don't want my blog as my home page on my work computer). Today, I answered my phone and got distracted while talking, and I ended up scrolling down the page. When I got off the phone my eyes fell on what my cursor was hovering over.

I saw my link on a website called That's News that I'd never heard of before. I have no idea how or why my blog got put on this list (found at the bottom of the page.)

Check it out, and tell me what in the heck it means, please...I am startled and wonder why this occurred. I was put into the category "News and other important links." There is a longish list of 45 news websites in the UK and other news sites from other countries, like the Irish Post, Irish Times, Washington Post, The International Herald, etc..and then at the bottom,

sistermarylisa.blogspot.com. (an artist with paintings to sell.)

What in the world?!

The header at the top says "We search the web for news and cool content, so all you have to do is to bookmark this page! Please provide backlinks to Thats News. Thank you!"

Does this mean that someone thinks I've got "COOL CONTENT" or what? I'm flattered. I really am. Not quite sure why they think I've got paintings to sell, unless they saw one or both of my posts that show 3 drawings I've done and think they are good enough to be considered paintings. Or maybe they saw this drawing I did with colored pencil back when I was 18. I do paint as well, but have nothing really available "for sale" (yet).

So...Thank you, my Anonymous Champion. Feel free to let me know who you are and why you put me out there on That's News.

UPDATE
I figured out the mystery all on my own! Some of the page layout in That's News looked familiar. It's from Matt at NOTAMORMON, who runs his own news portal at www.thatsnews.org.uk. I think this was due to some shameless self promotion I forgot I made a long time ago on his blog. I had forgotten that he'd written about his other interests and work.

Thanks, Matt!

I'm not sure I'd be so brave...

Janet, I'm taking this moment to tell you that I'm impressed with your bravery in putting your address out there for all of us to see...all so we will SEND YOU A POSTCARD!

I will try to come up with a perfect postcard to send you. I'll try hard not to do it Post Secret style, as it looks like you may be copying any you receive on your blog. Or maybe I will......

Wouldn't that be the best???

Sister Mary Lisa's secrets right out there for your viewing pleasure. What would they be? What could they be? Does someone that prim and proper even HAVE secrets?? Oooh, I can hear your imaginations bubbling over from here!

Let me help you.

Of course I don't have secrets. See that little halo shining above my head right now? Now get your minds out of the gutter and go get a postcard and send it to Janet.

Thanks.