Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site mit-vax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!mit-vax!oaf From: oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Question of the hour. (good :-)) Message-ID: <483@mit-vax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 12:47:04 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-vax.483 Posted: Sun Jul 28 12:47:04 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 08:22:22 EDT Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA Lines: 57 In article <1407@hammer.UUCP> seifert@hammer.UUCP (Snoopy) asks about the propriety of public invitations, especially if they represent the beginning or a significant change in a relationship: >... >A: "Hey Cutie, whatcha doin' tonight? How 'bout dinner?" >B: "Sorry, I'm having dinner with 'C'" < kisses 'C' > >A: "Oh." < slinks away red-faced > ^^^^^ WRONG RESPONSE; Suggested improvement: A: "Fine, bring C. If you're busy tonight, why don't you both come by tomorrow?" (This happened to me. Many times.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On a first-date basis, you have to take in stride the possibility of someone else being in the picture. Some of my best friends are couples (married or otherwise) I met when I asked the woman out. Why should that be embarrassing? If you can't accept that possibility you're overconstraining your new acquaintance. If you're just looking for a lay, you have a problem. But if you slink off in embarrassment, you've made that interpretation likely and public. If you're unwilling to accept the person you asked out as a friend otherwise "spoken for," what a priori value do you put on the relationship? If you're really smitten, hold your peace a while: Couples break up, marriages founder --- if you're up for long-term friendship you might someday find your original dreams come true. I'm not advocating putting life on hold until then. [Voice of experience here - oaf waxes nostalgic.] For anything else, such a request should be made privately. The man who proposed to his fiancee(?) in front of his family was a stupid, coercive dork. ["Marry me or I'll be shamed before my whole clan, and maybe go kill myself"]. He instantly proved his unfitness as a husband and coincidentally as a friend. No woman with sense would marry someone who put her on the spot like that. ["Time to go home, mother of five." "Just a few minutes, father of two."] Another topic - net.singles is a peculiar institution. It brings under one roof fairly sophisticated ideas, such as personal responsibility for emotional reactions, with unbelievably crass ones, like the inquiry whether someone sunbathing in just a hat was "available." Occasionally it juxtaposes the two, like the long (and to my mind, pointless) quotations from neo-Jungian pop psychology provoking a biting analysis of someone's motives for posting those excerpts. I've been described (by an enemy) as a hard-headed realist and maybe I am, but I try to stick to silly topics. No shortage of those --- hence I post so much. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cheers, -- Oded Feingold {decvax, harvard, mit-eddie}!mitvax!oaf MIT AI Lab oaf%oz@mit-mc.ARPA 545 Tech Sq. 617-253-8598 work Cambridge, Mass. 02139 617-371-1796 home