Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!brahms!jablow From: jablow@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Eric Robert Jablow) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Singles, Lonely Mathematicians (and CSpeople), and networks Message-ID: <12149@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Mon, 3-Mar-86 23:47:21 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12149 Posted: Mon Mar 3 23:47:21 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 5-Mar-86 04:08:18 EST References: <951@nmtvax.UUCP> <576@hoptoad.uucp> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: jablow@brahms.UUCP (Eric Robert Jablow) Organization: Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Lines: 115 **HEY, LINE-EATER!! DON'T FORGET TO BRUSH!!** I've enjoyed reading some of the low-temperature articles in net.singles. I'm new to the net, as I've recently obtained a fellowship to the Institute here in Berkeley. I especially enjoy the Laura Creighton's articles, and I have a few comments that she might especially like to reply to. (I do say *might*, though.) Your friend, the CE nerd, at least had some friends to help him along, to introduce him to others, arrange double-dates, and the like. Even if they were unsuccessful, at least they were something. What if you don't have friends to provide the same service? I don't, and I never have had. I have run into trouble because of my *strange* educational history. I was an undergraduate at Brooklyn College at at 11, a graduate student at Princeton University at 15, an Assistant Professor at SUNY--Stony Brook at 20. I have always been surrounded by compatriots enough older than me that any dating relationship would be quite improbable. They couldn't or wouldn't act as go-betweens either. Graduate and Undergraduate students at Princeton rarely mix. I even tried MENSA, but they rarely had meetings on Long Island, and the ones I went to in NYC had mostly attached pairs, who I don't interfere with, punks and nuts (I can't *stand* astrology), and whiners, who seemed to think the world rightfully belonged to them because they were smart. I don't mean to seem self-pitying, but I mean to say that I and they were completely incompatible. I have no special claim to wisdom; that's why I'm asking the net.singles people for advice. I am tired of being lonely. Oh, I have friends, but I would like a little Romance. (N.B. Romance is not equivalent to sex, by my lights. They can go together, but I feel it dishonorable to ask for advice on obtaining a sexual relationship; that isn't the purpose of net.singles anyway.) I would like to meet new people, perhaps date if it works out, but I'm *not* mercenary. So, that leads to my major question; what are honorable ways for singles to meet each other? Personal ads are fatally contaminated by sex-seekers, singles bars are gauche, and men have a tendency to be soaked by women there, and I have no friends as go-betweens here (and I am going back to Stony Brook after the ICM in August). Harassing women on the beach is right out. I am getting very, very depressed. To quote my favorite folk group Lately I've been sitting around, Thinking about it, Guess I don't deserve somebody to lo-o-o-ove. Lately I've been sitting around, Thinking about it, Guess I don't deserve somebody to lo-o-o-ove. I'm an angry, angry man. I know I'm no fun, but I need a hand, O O O O, O O O Oh, Nobody really likes an angry angry man, Angry angry angry, angry angry angry, angry angry angry, man. The Angry Angry Man by The Roches. I'm becoming no good for myself or for anyone around me. Symptomatically, I spend a lot of my spare time reading network newsgroups or playing UltraRogue. Any suggestions? --- A few asides: about 12 of the 93 fellows currently at MSRI are women. I think this is much better than average. My particular program, Geometric Function Theory, has some very prominent women mathematicians represented here. Linda Keen and Jane Gilman are the most well-known. My policy on teaching mathematics is quite fair. Anyone who *asks* me for help gets it. Whenever I can, I provide special individual instruction, but I cannot help an uninterested student. Unfortunately, I have had many lazy students, and a few atrocious ones. I have had a few great students; some were men, and some were women. I play no favorites, do not guess, and I treat all my students objectively. Math is an *art*; to be a mathematician, one needs ability, interest, and inspiration. I have never seen *any* credible evidence that women have less ability or inspiration in math than men do. (N.B. Dr. Julian Stanley of Johns Hopkins did help get me into college and grad school early; I will always be in debt to him; I would never have survived high school with my sanity intact; I disagree *violently* with his psychological studies on this subject, though.) I am sure that women have less interest, though. It isn't their fault; society discourages women from entering the sciences and the technologies. These fields never seem like credible options for women. (Well, hardly ever.) My field is not blameless. Read a biography of Emmy Noether, for example. The faculty of Gottingen denied her a teaching post because of her sex. Despite David Hilbert's eloquent and later earthy protests, they rejected her. "Gentlemen, **this is not a bathhouse**," he said. They did not care. In many areas of society, the difficulties for a woman entering the sciences are on the order of those facing the protagonist of Peggy Seeger's great song, "I'm Gonna Be An Engineer." I have never encountered a professor expressing any bias against a woman because she was a woman, though. The pressures are more social. Finally, I'm interested in the answer, so I will ask. Laura, ARE YOU SINGLE AND UNATTACHED CURRENTLY? Respectfully, Eric Robert Jablow MSRI ucbvax!brahms!jablow I may be a screwy little wabbit, but at least I'm not going to Alcatraz! --E. Fudd--