Another thing I wanted to mention recently was that I, for reasons beyond my control, had to sit in for a "Brachos Party" this past Shabbat. Now, I'm the youngest of my clan, and I don't often see children, so seeing a whole array of toddlers and young children in their own environment is, to me, ...similar to the experience of watching a group of guinea pigs interact with each other. Perhaps it says something about my being "too interested" in the opposite sex or gender relations, but one thing that caught my eye the most was some of the interactions between the boys and the girls. The two specimens I studied most closely were a pair of toddlers (a male Uzbek and a blond female with Swiss features) and a pair of children (both Uzbek-American).
The toddlers concerned me since the girl was only a month older than the boy yet she seemed to run circles around him intellectually (unfortunately, probably a sign of what their future statuses will be in relation to one another in society when they become adults). Though all-in-all, they seemed not to harbor any particular disposition towards each other, in fact they seemed to get on quite well. Not half as well, though, as the two Uzbek-American children (male: 6, female: 4). If I didn't know better I would think they were just a happily married, albeit very small, couple. The way their personalities complimented one another was uncanny, and even when one wronged the other to the point of causing tears, they were not able to, or perhaps did not want to, recall each others wrongs later on.
To me what these children seemed to be doing was enforcing a theory I had already had regarding the spousal compatibility of men and women, namely that any two people have the potential to live side by side in relative harmony. The only reason two people would not do so is because they are both concentrating their vision on unimportant and negligible differences between them, yet they overlook the vast amount of things they have in common with one another. And even if you grouped people with nothing in common (say, a Polish man and Ethiopian woman stranded on a desrted island), chances are they both manage to live in harmony and work for one anthers welfare.
4 comments:
yup, it's pretty logical to assume that two normal people will get on just fine.
Yeah, I mean, it's logical, but in reality it's usually far from the case (you know, "shidduch crisis" n'all).
I didn't want to mention it, but the second half of my theory is that it seems that the mor similar people are the more they notice small differences. Again, an imagined example, say there are two people from the same town, but the girl is from uptown and the guy is from downtown. Any time the guy does something she doesn't approve of she'll mention to him, "you know uptown we don't do things quite like that". Whereas, if she met someone from far away, she wouldn't have as many preconceived expectations (as we see, for example, with American and Chinese couples).
Religion gets in the way of them trying to get along, because each think their way is THE right way.
Also ego.
Actually put ego first, even before religion.
Well, all religious people have a certain amount of religio-centrism, but I wouldn't be so quick to say that it's intertwined with the ego.
I was actually on good terms with an enchanting Catholic girl once, but...I was (and am) far too religious to have thought abut it in long-term terms. I have little sympathy for Jew-Gentile matrimonial unions. "Jewesses for Jews". Even though they're all chatter-box brats! : P
Unless they convert, ..of course.
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