The Needy or Clingy Type

The needy or clingy type.

Have you ever seen the guy or gal who clung to their partner? I have, but in this one unique case, two directions. First, being needy or clingy is considered a personality defect, but what if both are doing it to each other?

This is a true story, reported without embellishment.

August 15^th, Thursday is a Catholic Holy day of obligation. Wife and I went to an evening Mass. In walks a young couple, hand in hand. They take a pew in the sparsely populated church four ahead of us.

She rested her arm on the bench rise behind him and finger combed has locks in one small section near his opposite ear. Oh that’s nice.

He then gave her a kiss on her cheek. Sweet.

She went up to do a reading. Came back and he put his arm around her waist. Next, she put her arm over his shoulder while standing. These guys must be a new couple. But they weren’t. I spotted the rings. They’re married. What retreat did they go to? And where can Del and I sign up? Arte they married to each other. Let’s secretly meet at the church.

Next reading was his. When he returned, she rested her head on his shoulder (and this happened quite a few times). My God, they must be totally in love. Paul Anka’s hit of bygone years played in my mind. Put Your Head on My Shoulder, 1959. The link to the song: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=paul+anka+put+your+head+on+my+shoulder&docid=607995728363585974&mid=F42B7149B7BDEA7FA3D5F42B7149B7BDEA7FA3D5&view=detail&FORM=VRAASM

Then, they took turns kissing each other on the cheek (this happened maybe twenty times a piece). I looked around and people were smiling. Get a sacristy, I wanted to shout out.

During the rest of the Mass, they alternated among hand holding and arm caresses, knowing looks, cheek kisses, leaning into each other, and the put your head on my shoulder. At any moment,

I half expected them to disappear from sight and imagined groans coming from the pew. I would not chastise myself—being a romance writer—for not paying much attention to the Mass. I couldn’t tell you anything about the sermon, except for the pastor’s joke at the end requiring that we all go home after Mass and have a feast, since this was a feast day.

Perhaps the couple were newlyweds, but I have seen them around for at least a year. Never in a position to observe.

They walked out hand-in-hand and starry eyed. I worried that they might trip, they had already fallen. They were neither creepy, clingy, nor needy. Just lovey. And we all could use a dose of it.

Bachelor in Paradise vs. Love Island

Love Island (CBS) and Bachelor in Paradise (ABC) go about their business in different ways, hoping for the same result.
1. BIP tapes their show, which leads to sleuthing to spoil the finish for those who cannot wait. I have a friend who constantly "fills me in" even though I ask her not to. She just can't help herself, LOL. LI films in real time and pays the winning couple, decided by the audience, $100,000.
2. LI recruits a younger range of contestants, 21 to 26 approx. BIP maybe 21 to 36.
3. BIP offers the fantasy suite (the couple stays together overnight) at the end of the show. LI insists that all couples sleep as pairs in one large bedroom (like a barracks).
4. BIP promotes marriage proposals. LI, as far as I can tell, allows nature to take it's course--without the producers "heavy" hand.
5. On LI couples are forced to choose right up front or twenty four hours later. They'll get their chances to rectify if a mistake is made. This increases familiarity and intimacy.
6. LI does not cover up body parts. BIP does.
7. LI does have some games, but unlike the failed Bachelor Pad, the games have no prizes or punishments like leaving the show. I like this. The "kids" are just having fun and getting to know each other better.
8. On LI, in order to win the $100,000, couples may try Hollywood style acting, but the cameras catch everything.
9. There are no camera persons on LI, just fixed and everywhere, with the exception of dates outside the compound which is in Figi. BIP has a camera crew.
10. Both shows have a host. LI has a voice over explainer in chief and general jokester. BIP has no guide for the love or dialect impaired, LOL.
Both shows are enjoyable light entertainment for people who like to see young men and women struggle with life's most important feature and benefit, love.

The morality play

Aren’t we all writing morality plays? Unless you’re writing a Mein Kampf feel like, in which case get off my blog. Aristotle would have been ashamed of you.

The detective, soldier, cop, FBI, boy, girl, man, woman solve the story problem showing not telling that good wins out. In some literary novels, beauty is celebrated. Beauty is the batter with which we cook up a story of victory for love. There is the exception; it would seem, of writers who lament things not turning out right. Often, they show us by contrasting love and hate and what hate can do. On the Titanic, a ship sails without sufficient lifeboats. Moral: greed, ego, and an iceberg ruins a perfectly fine passage. Romeo and Juliet should have lived but had to suffer the hate of their families. Etc.

It saddens me that there is a big increase in hate crimes. Let’s do our part to counter that by writing good stories, i.e. those where good wins out over evil.

A most interesting take on life is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The award winning author doesn't tell us what to think. He allows us to want to do better. He said, "My weapon is literature."

Kick it up.