Grounding in Real Hope

I love my girlfriends, I really do. I've bonded much more tightly with them this year than I did last year, and I'm so excited for all the fun things that means for the next three years. However, we are dangerous together. In an extension of last night's post, as much as I love my girlfriends, we make emotional chastity so much harder for each other. One of them has asked me to say that we don't create problems for her because, as she puts it, "I don't have emotions". This is untrue. She has lots of emotions, it's just that most of them are expressed by fond insults or threats.

We were all gathered in the Newman Center today, pretending or attempting to do homework, and somehow, Taylor Swift ended up coming out of somebody's laptop. And then we started talking about who's been on dates in the last couple of days, and well, you can sort of guess how the conversation went from there. We started talking about how one of us looks like she's just been asked on a date, and who else can we get set up with whoever she's interested in, and as much fun as this is (it's pretty much an essential part of how girls bond with each other), it does wonders to impede any efforts we might be making to be emotionally chaste.

I know I shouldn't be talking, because I willingly participated in the conversation as well as routinely allow my emotions to run away with me, and I even pointed out what we were doing was unhelpful. But still, I feel like even if I'm a part of the problem, I should still be pointing out that there is one. And this one is big. Big enough, in fact, that the friend who is leading our Freshman Retreat with me has agreed that we should talk about it with the girls. I've also noticed, as the only friend who commented on the last post admitted, that I am prone to people-watching the Communion line to see if there are any hopeful prospects, so this isn't just an isolated, I-only-do-it-with-the-girls type of thing.

There really is no lesson here, as of yet. I wish there was, believe me, but I've got nothing. I guess the lesson is that I (and really a lot of women) need to be more mindful of my thoughts in addition to my words and my actions. It's one thing to have a crush, but it's another to see a future with someone where there really isn't one. Real hope is good, false hope is dangerous. And this is coming from the "grounded" one.