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From: bth@drupa.UUCP (HellandBT)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: re: view on male roles
Message-ID: <910@drupa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 01:44:19 EST
Article-I.D.: drupa.910
Posted: Tue Apr 10 01:44:19 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 01:37:21 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 72

Open letter to jrl.

jrl,

Your article is too long to quote extensively, so I'll try to
make this one stand on its own.

Accepting specific roles?  Conformed?  Good?  Bad?  The creative
person creates and then plays roles!  I think the purpose of role-
playing is to provide (as a kindness) an image that can be related
to by someone-who-scarcely-knows-you (almost everyone).  Yes, image!
An honest image!  An entity that contains that part of you important
to one who may never get to know you.  With people we don't intend to
become close to, we may never want to ease out of the role we have
played for them.  A careless person may come to live a role so
thoroughly as to forget it is a role (maybe I'm an expert).  In fact
it's sometimes hard to find one's self, without a role-map (sorry).
But the fundamental error, it seems to me, is to forget we are playing
roles or to play roles for ourselves.  The role is, above all, NOT to
provide some single simple-minded rut for us to fall into.

Other than the rut, I've found some other traps I can fall into.
There are some roles that alienate and frighten people.  Such a
role may be chosen to get rid of a nerd.  But it is an unkindness to
choose to play such a role persistently.  Beyond human relations, the
error of so persistently choosing to play that role is that it must
be defended strongly enough that one is forced by accumulated pain
or stubbornness to buy into it.  Its price is too high to ignore.

Regarding "hunter ... goal."  The goal you mention is certainly
single-pointed.  I suppose I have some auxilliary goals such as
expressing (and finding) warmth and affection, learning new games,
ways of life, etc., that make an otherwise unfruitful date worth
while.  I think "rules," like aphorisms, are simplifications of
the ways of the world.  With that in mind, and positing a date
that is self-supporting (not overly interested in money), this is
how I would rewrite your rules.  (I assume you are a male dating
a female.)

1) Dressing tastefully             (appropriately and attractively)
   (Of course, I could always limit myself to one uniform or to
   places where my uniform is welcome, but my point is not one of
   self limitation!)
2) Consider her comfort          (let me cover the shabby car seat)
                       (perhaps the dirt bike will soil your dress)
3) Find out what she likes      (what do you like to do at liesure)
4) Play an appropriate role     (until you're ready to get serious)

I guess my counter to "role ... thrust upon the male etc." must be
to say that I really don't see a single role.  I see us as free!
Some women are impressed by Burt Reynolds, but some also swoon over
the puppy-eyed doctor on the "Loveboat" TV show.  Sure, I have
found attitudes that some women seem to detest and vulnerabilities
they will attack -- and it would be easy to get cynical about them.
But in enough ways to matter, we have left the trees.

Well, 55 lines has got to be a long enough sermon.  I could hear
myself talking, though, when I read your article, I picked up a
lot of those ideas in the '60s too (playing games ... ignore ...
nonesense ... docile sheep ... Madison Ave.  ... rules ... thrust
upon the male).  In fact I seemed to hear some Phillip Wylie or
other gurus left over from the anarchism of the thirties.  I
suppose that makes two cycles of Rebellion, Reform, and Reaction in
this century.  But I'm trying to lead a life of curiosity and fun
now and I can no longer afford to battle the (essentially good
and humane) masses, so if I'm not finished off by a hurled bomb
in the '90s, maybe I'll live to enjoy my second childhood during
the Reform of the 2000s.  (There are those who say I've already
regressed to adolescence.)

Yours in empathy,
Brent Helland