i•ro•ny |ˈīrənē; ˈiərnē|
noun ( pl. -nies)
• a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result : [with clause ] the irony is that I thought he could help me.
• (also dra•mat•ic or trag•ic i•ro•ny) a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.
ORIGIN early 16th cent. (also denoting Socratic irony): via Latin from Greek eirōneia ‘simulated ignorance,’ from eirōn ‘dissembler.’
Perhaps there's a better word for the paradoxical concept behind a woman's eating disorder, but "irony" is what I'm going with for now. I don't get it. I understand the desire to look good - good being relative in our society, I realize. But here's the irony: I (being a man - discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn) #1 am turned off by "too thin" and #2 actually pass on an opportunity if she looks like she's got an eating disorder. Yes, I'm posting this because I have met a great and beautiful girl but won't go there because she shows signs of pursuing the Skeletor look. It's what's hot right now. Honestly, maybe the bigger reason I won't risk it is because I don't know what to do with it. Even previous to this new acquaintance I passed on an opportunity to get to know someone better because a girl ordered COFFEE instead of food! Does a guy have any place to personally say something to a woman who shows such suspicions? For some reason I really like alliteration. :) Wanna go ride bikes?
I'm going to be an awesome counselor, I know. *shrug. "People are dyin'!"
Let me get this straight...the big reason women develop eating disorders is to look good?
In other ponderings: were Romeo and Juliet for real? Aside from the whole star-cross'd lover thing... didn't she kill herself because she couldn't be with dear Romes? Was that love? How about Dan's second daughter? Is there something we're missing out on? Or maybe that's why they're good stories...we like fiction? I love lamp. More than anything in the world, Ron.
About Me
- fentastic
- "If you find me short in things, impute that to my love of brevity. If you find me besides the truth in anything, impute that to my infirmity. But if you find anything here that serves to your furtherance and joy of the faith, impute that to the mercy of God bestowed on you and me. Yours to serve you with what little I have." John Bunyan
2 comments:
Ok, so here's my commentary on your blog regarding girls with eating disorders...
I would venture to say that the #1 reason girls struggle with eating disorders has little to do with looking good to impress a guy and more to do with control and societal pressure to be "the perfect size." Of course I'm speaking from my own limited experience and that of a few friends...but each one of us that wrestled with this "thorn," (if I may call it that) was because we were grasping to have control over something, and that is what we found we could control. When everything around us demanded we be a certain way, do a certain thing, or persue a certain path we would turn to food (or witholding of food) because we had control over that particular area of our lives and no one could take that away. I was an incredible people pleaser and peace maker...to my own detriment. That's where some of my struggled stemmed from. I'm sure that to a guy it sounds terribly backwards and ridiculous, but...somehow...that form of control makes sense and seems logical at the time to a female. I wrestled for 2 1/2 years with bulemia and truly felt it was, a thorn in my flesh. I didn't want that to be an issue in my life and I desperately asked God (for that last year of the 2 1/2 years) to free me from it. Instead, He chose to walk with me in the midst of it before setting me free. There were days where I felt in my deepest soul Paul's words in Romans 7:17-19 (MSG)"But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time."
I totally believe that it's by His hand that I and some of my friends are free. Once that day broke and God said "enough" on Satan's grip in this area of my life, I have never even been tempted to go back.
I'm convinced that this is an area where Satan has such a foothold in so many of us women. We, by nature, tend to wrestle with the pressure to be a certain size, shape, etc. This is an area that Satan just exploits incredibly.
Your friend may be in that place where everything else is going fine in her life, but there's this one area that is her achilles heel, her weakness, that the Enemy is just working over.
Sooo...that's my commentary! Grace is required for all of us, and we all have those areas that the enemy just goes back to again and again because he knows it's a vulnerability for us. I am personally convinced that body image (including eating disorders) is that pressure point for many women...
:) That's my take on it...you can take it or leave it. :)
So this area of control, goes out of control and develops into an addiction?
Thank you Brenda, for being vulnerable and honest in this area. Though I never thought myself to be naive, I am becoming more and more exposed to the strange world of addictions (for the grace of God I can still look from the outside).
...that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
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