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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!rti-sel!wfi
From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Nominally single????
Message-ID: <431@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Sep-85 16:25:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.431
Posted: Sun Sep 29 16:25:28 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 03:31:51 EDT
References: <285@whuts.UUCP> <533@oakhill.UUCP> <286@whuts.UUCP> <1919@reed.UUCP> <158@aplvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Distribution: net
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 65
Summary: 

In article <158@aplvax.UUCP> reh@aplvax.UUCP (Ron E. Hall) writes:

>...  The second group is single by choice and their life-plan doesn't
>include a permanent live-in spouse or SO. ...
>The second group is interested in meeting people to share activities
>and interests with, including long-term friendships/love relationships,
>but really do not want to live with or be entirely accountable to 
>... as they become older and more experienced
>in relationships and more acquainted with their wants and needs,
>move toward the seccond group. At this point, they would marry or SO
>with the right person but they are no longer devoting a  significant
>portion of their time and energy in looking. ...

Thanks for a detailed and (I think) mostly accurate description of
both groups. Describes my current situation and attitudes fairly 
closely. Boy, now that you lay it out in black & white I can see what 
a real SICKO I am! Quick, where's the nearest singles bar?   ;-)

>... I know there are lots of
>people out there in netland in the first group ...
>but I wonder 
>how many there are in the second group and if they are as intolerant 
>and self-indulgent as they have been made out to be. Comments?

I'm in the second group. I'll be 39 in January and have lived alone
for about five years now. You should know that we're far MORE
intolerant and self-indulgent than you could ever imagine; why, I just
HATE people who accuse me of being intolerant and self-indulgent!
That's why I never, never talk to other people or let them into my
life! And as for self-indulgence, why, I'll show you self-indulgence,
buddih: I'm going to go out and buy a lobster dinner and eat it ALL BY
MYSELF and not even invite anyone to share it with me! So THERE!
(Oh, and by the way, :-)

No one is ready for a sustained and giving relationship with another
person until he is happy with his own life and likes and respects
himself as a person. Many people spend their youth frantically
searching for a One True Love; a few find a relationship that lasts
for a substantial period of time; many live dissatisfied after the
initial sexual glow wears off; many more flit from relationship to
relationship searching for a One True Love that is a grand lie foisted
on us by a thousand-year-old European romantic tradition and mass
media that are as obsessed with selling True Love as with selling Sex
(The long sad history of the True Love myth will have to await another
posting). The relationships that last are the result of plain old hard 
work and dedication, folks, with a small element of luck thrown in. 
There's nothing magical about sex OR love. 

There's also nothing about living by myself that changes me magically
into a different person if I don't 'share my life' with someone else
by having them in constant proximity to my person. Like, wow, you've
been living by yourself for five years now; you'd better find a
housemate or SO soon, or you'll become too INTOLERANT and SELF-INDULGENT 
to ever do it again! A-and all those close friendships with other 
people don't count: you've got to have them under your roof to stave 
off these twin menaces!

Someone very close to me is on his third marriage. It's precisely his 
intolerance and self-indulgence that doomed his first two marriages,
and I'm terribly afraid it's going to happen again. He was married the
first time at 18, and has been unattached for only a few months
between marriages. So don't give me any crap about how having an SO
makes one tolerant and generous. Life doesn't fit into pigeonholes,
my friends.
                            -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly


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