Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!granite!mandel
From: mandel@granite.cr.bull.com (Mark Mandel)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: The Woman Beside
Message-ID: <1990Jan19.160031.19228@granite.cr.bull.com>
Date: 19 Jan 90 16:00:31 GMT
References: <9001151717.AA03010@fsdcupt.csd.mot.COM> <9060008@hpfcso.HP.COM>
Reply-To: mandel@granite.cr.bull.com (Mark Mandel)
Organization: Bull HN Information Systems Inc.
Lines: 47

In article <9060008@hpfcso.HP.COM> daq@hpfcso.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom) writes:
>Cynic enters the bar. ...
>
>I ride alone.  If you ride with someone behind you, then you
>always have someone at your back.  People behind your back
>can get into mischief of all sorts.  Their hands could be
>at your neck and you would not even know.  People who ride
>beside might decide that they are leading and expect you
>to follow.
>
> ...  My male friends are all
>slowly being sucked up and devoured by the evil disease
>of marraige.  Marraige.  I hate it.  It steals your 
>friends and makes them dead to you.  No longer can you
>do the things you did.  They are gone, and it is never the
>same.

(Silverblack thoughtfully turns the braided gold ring on his left ring
finger.  On -- or just above -- the table in front of him, a feline
grin slowly fades in and then out of visibility, seeming to emanate a
warm glow.)

I'm sorry you're so bitter about relationships and marriage.  I have
to guess you've been badly burned, perhaps by relationships other than
your own (parents', perhaps; I'm not asking, just thinking aloud).  He
who has no one at his back has to have eyes in the back of his head to
feel safe; and then, what when he must sleep?  There IS no safety this
side the grave.

My lady and I don't expect 100% compatibility.  (Also remember what
Janelle said about compatibility; net timewarps being what they are,
you may be reading this before you read her observations.)  But being
together, with its compromises, disagreements, and choices, is much,
much better for both of us than being alone.  We lean on each other.
We enrich each other.

Cynic, there are always choices to make, giving up some things to get
others.  The solo way is not the only way, and many of us find the
road immeasurably more bearable, even *good*, with a companion.

No toast this time.  (Up to the bar.)  Mike, a decaf coffee please,
with milk.
-- 

	-- Mark Mandel          (InterNet: Mandel@granite.cr.bull.com)

 /* My employer is not responsible for anything I say, do, think, or eat. */