Thoughts about Finnish Halloween & dating and appearance

I know it's been a long time since I've written on my blog. I've had a very busy time lately so I just haven't had time to sit down and write down my thoughts. The period has not only been busy but also confusing. Issues of my personal life complicate things. Sometimes I find myself blocked in writing because too much is going on. In order to write, my thoughts have to clarify themselves, how silly it might sound.

Halloween in Finland

I wanted to mention something about Halloween, even though it has already passed a long time ago. Looking at the photos from this year's celebrations, I realized something. Halloween here in Finland, and maybe all over the world, is a day when it's allowed for us to dress up as something. Something else, not ourselves. Somehow this feeling is liberating, and at least here girls take this very seriously. We can dress even naughty, and it's acceptable even though Finland is a quite closed community where alternative ways of acting are not supported. But all the rules are thrown out of the window when it comes to Halloween.

I don't know how well people understand the truth behind the costumes. We dress as we want to see ourselves. So, in reality, Halloween is the best party of the year for shy people or others that feel that they just don't dare to show another side of them. I love Halloween for this. I can read a lot from the costumes and realize how their wearers really are.

Appearance

Halloween made me think about how much we women are allowed to change our appearance in order to look better. We use makeup of course, but nowadays new ways of enhancing our appearance have become more common, for instance, fake nails, contact lenses, and even hair extensions. Where goes the limit? I mean, if a girl meets a boy in a club, for instance, they react to each other’s physical appearance no? If that is not truly worthy, are we then fooling each other? At least I would get surprised if the guy I met, who had hair, suddenly when you get him home shows not to have that kind of hair after all.

But on the other hand, don't we always give a false impression of ourselves at the beginning of a relationship or in a dating situation? We consciously do not share all information about that we could, but at dates only give hints of who we truly are. And then, of course, there are rules about these things. We cannot give out all the information at the same time, because then we'll scare away the other person. “Too much to handle”, we call it. My sister said the other day that she does not want to support this. She aims to tell everything about herself immediately. She is not embarrassed about who she is, or her family situation, why should she be?

Dating = pretending?

That made me think about who is right and who's wrong. What is the right way to act? Are we doomed to give a flawless picture of us at the beginning of a relationship? Where goes the line? Dating is complicated. Actually, it's all about pretending. I've been talking to some of my friends that are guys and one of them told me for instance that he does not like to pay for his date if he does not think that the girl is really interested in him. He also said that he doesn't want to give too much of himself to her, tell her too much about himself if he doesn't think that they will become a couple. The reason for this was that it hurts too much when it doesn't work out, and as soon as he starts "giving something of himself", he is emotionally attached. He described it as difficult to start new emotional relationships, therefore he hates dating. How much is the amount of information about us that we are supposed to give out on the first dates so that we don't get hurt? I found it interesting that my friend called it tiring to tell about himself, give a piece of himself to new people that he might not see again.

I think giving pieces away is always difficult and when one is dating, it is particularly difficult. We need to trust in the unknown. If one doesn't share thoughts, ideas, passions, dates can never work and relationships can never be built on. But now, on the threshold of Christmas, we need to believe. In the end, Christmas is the most romantic period of the year, at least after Valentine's Day.