The Sensitive Insensitive

I blogged the other day about how I am an insensitive person. I guess that wasn't really a fair statement to make. Willikat's comment to my rant about being a feminist made me realize that I'm kind of a jerk. I am sensitive but yet insensitive. I seem to be sensitive about animals and the environment (this is a new revelation) but yet I am insensitive to people's feelings. Its never intentional but I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth A LOT. Gerard pointed out that I have the mentality that if you don't agree with me about something then you're stupid. If your ideas are not similar to mine, they're bad ideas. I don't really agree with that statement but I can see where he thinks that. It all goes back to my tone (damn you, The Mr., for pointing that out!) and just my ability to say inappropriately mean things.

I'm trying to be a little more mindful of people's feelings but I can't help it. I blurt out if I find you annoying. I blurt out if you're out of my circle of trust (and believe me, its not hard to find yourself on the outside of my circle. Just ask Sean). What can I do? I need sensitivity training or something.

While I'm a bit of a self-centered turd sometimes, I do find myself still blubbering over wedding shows. I really thought I'd be done with watching wedding planning shows (Whose Wedding Is It Anyways?, In Style's Celebrity Weddings, I Propose, Married Away, etc.) but I'm not. I mean, I am super relieved that my own wedding planning is done and I definitely don't have any desire to plan another wedding or go into wedding planning (like Beth!) but it doesn't mean that I can just immediately turn off my curiosity about other people's wedding (hence why I'm glad I found a new blog - Willikat's - about a new bride planning her wedding). Holy crap that was a long sentence. So, yesterday I watched 3 wedding shows. While I laughed mercilessly at the In Style's Celebrity Weddings episode (1 - does Jason Priestley really still count as a "celebrity", 2 - he was BAWLING when his wife came down the aisle. I laughed so hard that I had to rewind it and watch it several times), I cried during I Propose.

First - the couple in I Propose was super adorable. Her dream proposal was to be proposed to under the Hollywood sign with a 2-carat princess cut ring. Somehow, her guy managed to get a 2-carat ring for $5k! He really lucked out. Anywho - he proposed and I cried. It was just so sweet. I didn't even cry at my own proposal. I was too busy yelling "shut up!" and punching The Mr. in the arm to even take in the moment (see - I'm insensitive to people).

The next show was Whose Wedding Is It Anyways. It featured a same-sex couple getting married in New Jersey shortly after a civil union bill was passed. I totally fell in love with this couple. They were so cute and so fun. For their vows, they decided to sing them. The Mr. rolled his eyes and said it was lame... but I was crying. CRYING. Crying over sing-songy vows! What did me in was the fact that both grooms broke down in the middle and couldn't sing their vows and so they read them. I WAS CRYING.

I figured out a long time ago that I don't really cry over things that happen in real life. If you were to put the real life events on TV, though... I'd be a mess. What is wrong with me?

And since the topic is on weddings, I came across this very interesting article yesterday about the origin of the diamond engagement ring. I had learned about the power of advertising in college and knew that De Beers was to blame for the idea that a woman needed a diamond engagement ring... but I found this bit fascinating:

But behind every Madison Avenue victory lurks a deeper social reality. And as it happens there was another factor in the surge of engagement ring sales—one that makes the ring's role as collateral in the premarital economy more evident. Until the 1930s, a woman jilted by her fiance could sue for financial compensation for "damage" to her reputation under what was known as the "Breach of Promise to Marry" action. As courts began to abolish such actions, diamond ring sales rose in response to a need for a symbol of financial commitment from the groom, argues the legal scholar Margaret Brinig—noting, crucially, that ring sales began to rise a few years before the De Beers campaign. To be marriageable at the time you needed to be a virgin, but, Brinig points out, a large percentage of women lost their virginity while engaged. So some structure of commitment was necessary to assure betrothed women that men weren't just trying to get them into bed. The "Breach of Promise" action had helped prevent what society feared would be rampant seduce-and-abandon scenarios; in its lieu, the pricey engagement ring would do the same. (Implicitly, it would seem, a woman's virginity was worth the price of a ring, and varied according to the status of her groom-to-be.)

Crazy, right? The Mr. asked if the fact that he spent much more than 2 month's salary on my ring meant that he was more committed to the relationship than me. Ha!

*No pictures - sorry!*