Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site opus.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!cires!nbires!opus!rcd From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Pedestalization digression Message-ID: <584@opus.UUCP> Date: Tue, 3-Jul-84 03:26:47 EDT Article-I.D.: opus.584 Posted: Tue Jul 3 03:26:47 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 13-Jul-84 03:50:14 EDT References: <2082@mit-vax.UUCP> <778@pucc-h>, <791@bbncca.ARPA> <801@pucc-h> Organization: NBI, Boulder Lines: 78 >>=Dyer, >=Sargent: >> I'm going to go a little bit further and claim that you sound a bit >> prideful of your own "loathsomeness."... >...It does feed >my ego to defiantly hurl my problems in all your faces, to make grandstand >plays (not that I've said anything untrue about myself, but that I've packaged >what I've said in the most memorable manner). It is all too tempting to make >similar grandstands when I do date women... Jeff (and others who do it but don't verbalize it as well as Jeff does) - that's one of the standard things we do when meeting a MOTAS. It's not a particularly good approach, but it comes out from time to time - in a lot of people, depending on the mood of the times. >...Part of this >desire to overemphasize the darkness in me is from the idea of letting a woman >know the worst of me early on, so that if she's going to reject me, she'll do >it early... That's another common reaction at the start of a relationship, particularly if you've been through the cycle of initial interest and rejection a few times in recent memory. (Hmmm, actually "a few" = ">1" here...) The difficulty I see here is this: It may be common to react this way, but it's not constructive. A used-car salesman doesn't start the pitch for a Pinto by talking about the gas tank. >and can anyone imagine anything more horrible than voluntarily imprisoning >oneself in a situation where one was committed to love another person, day in >and day out, year in and year out, whether one felt like it or not, until >death? > >Obviously the above is a very jaundiced and fearful view of marriage. I would >be interested in the response from married readers of this group. OK, you asked for it: Look, a bad marriage can be pretty rough; no question about it. But a good one is unbelievably great. You can't be "committed to love...whether one felt like it or not..." Either you love or you don't. You CAN'T love against your will, and if you pretend to do so, you're only lying. Problems can be solved if you want to solve them. Fear of marriage? Fear of the unknown, I say - but don't get me wrong; xenophobia is mostly a healthy reaction; leads to survival. Let me phrase a different question, and then answer it: Can anyone imagine anything worse than an absolutely failed marriage? Yes: Never experiencing even a minute of a successful one. >> This has been said before (but since when did that ever stop anyone?) >> Lighten up a bit! >How can one lighten up until one has solved the problems? If you were >concentrating terribly hard on a project, working 80 hours a week to finish >it as soon as possible, and making some progress, would not your boss (or >major professor, or whatever) prefer you to keep at it rather than lighten >up? How then ought I to lighten up in my work on this project? Now wait a minute. Where's that software engineering? If you're concentrating terribly hard on a project, your boss is a damn fool if he wants you to run yourself into the ground, or even to drive yourself too hard for very long. It's like searching intensely for a bug in a program - often the true problem is that you're looking too hard. It's a funny Zen- like phenomenon. You may succeed through diligent perseverance, but I have my doubts. More likely you'll succeed when you stop to catch your breath and someone catches you being who you are instead of trying to be who you think you ought to be. >...Anyway, I distrust mind-bending figures such as >psychologists unless I either know them or have them recommended by someone >I trust... That, my friend, is an exceedingly healthy approach for almost everyone. There are a few people who can help you, more who think they can help you because they found something that helped them (and don't realize that people are different!), and many more who would like to relieve you of your money. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.