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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: thoughts on desperation
Message-ID: <709@pucc-h>
Date: Thu, 17-May-84 20:02:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.709
Posted: Thu May 17 20:02:50 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 19-May-84 00:43:43 EDT
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 30

Those of you who are my fellow members of the confraternity of those who want
an SO very strongly, even desperately, might want to ask yourself the
following question:

What are you really desperate for?

Based on my own experience and feelings, I might suspect that a lot of
desperate people are really seeking forgiveness for something -- for existing,
for being who and what they are, or perhaps for something they've done that
they feel guilty about.  In my earlier days, the first two applied; now I'm
still struggling with guilt feelings because I feel I treated a girl I dated
a little in high school very badly.  (Rationally, I know I didn't actually do
anything really horrendously terrible or nasty to her, but I still feel guilty
about it.)  As a result, my normal desire for a female friend and lover is
vastly inflamed with a desire for some incredibly kind and merciful woman to
come along and, in a supreme gesture of charity, take me as an SO and thus
grant me absolution for having been so unkind to my quasi-SO 14 years ago.

Obviously, this is not the correct way to deal with guilt feelings.  But I
suspect that guilt is the secret motive, the secret cattle prod that drives
many people (perhaps even others on the net) into a desperate search for a
MOTAS, when that isn't what they really need.  I will risk more flames by
saying that I believe Christ's forgiveness is what they REALLY need most.
But if you reject Him, at least try to be conscious of what you're truly
seeking and why, so that you can deal with it directly.

-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{allegra|decvax|harpo|ihnp4|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
"...I've got to be where my spirit can run free..."