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From: israel@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: missed opportunities
Message-ID: <3046@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Oct-83 01:40:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.3046
Posted: Sat Oct  8 01:40:32 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Oct-83 11:31:43 EDT
References: <2016@watarts.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 46

I would guess that probably most (all? all of us with multiple times?)
of us have missed opportunities like the one you've described.
I know that there have been many times that I've missed opportunities
for going out with people while I was, as you put it, adding up
the pro's and con's (Oh, lets cut the euphemisms and be honest,
it wasn't adding up the pro's and con's, it was chickening out).

I've never been in a situation like you describe where I've had
outside confirmation that something could have come of it, but there've
been many times where my intuition told me that maybe something
could happen, but I was too scared to act.

What I don't understand from your story is what happened with Ms.
almost-right-except-nothing-happened.  Did you feel at the time that
she was:

  " .  .  .  as close to Ms.  Right as a committed Lefty like
    me was likely to find .  .  .  "

or is this a new revelation or decision?  If you felt that then, why
didn't you pursue it?  If you didn't, what (if anything) has happened
to cause that decision?  And the sixty-four thousand dollar question:
Can you still pursue it?  I mean, if this was recent or if she's still
around and un-attached, it may be embarrassing to pursue it, but you
don't have much to lose.

I hate having things like that happen to me (I don't mean the missed
chance; I mean the embarrassment over it), but these events are only
wasted if you don't learn from them.  There's a quote from a book that
I think puts it better than I could:  From "Illusions, the Adventures
of a Reluctant Messiah" by Richard Bach, "There is no such thing as
a problem without a gift for you in its hands; you seek problems
because you need their gifts."  (I think that's it, but I don't have
my book handy).

I'm not trying to say that I always learn from my mistakes (God knows
and most everyone else who knows me know that I don't), but it's
something to keep in mind.  For this situation I would suggest that
you figure out why you caused it to happen the way it happened, and not
the way you hoped it would happen, and also how it might be different
if it happened again.
-- 

~~~ Bruce ~~~
Computer Science Dept., University of Maryland
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