This will take a little searching of my databases and rendering into
sentences for the first time. I'll get back to you on this.
>>(Have we covered the abuse business, or would you like more input on
that?)
I'm reposting a post of last Monday about this that I think got lost in
the bit pit.
(Incidentally, did you see Ann Landers yesterday (Sat. Oct. 4)? It
looked almost like someone was plagiarizing agr!)
>>I think some of the apparent confusion (yes, same kind of apparent) is
just a matter of knowing what kinds of experiences men vs. women go
through on a daily basis.
Tell us more about things like talking to your tits. It drives you crazy
when we ________ (fill in the blank).
>>So I switched to Crystal, which is the name on my birth certificate.
You mean you got a Rainbow-y name that's your REAL name? Lucky stiff!
>>So does this mean you don't want a love life? Are you just trying to
see the perspective of women in general, or just want to be friends?
Do you want to be a knight in shining armor for the female gender?
Trying to expand your role as a man? Some combination? I guess I'm
still unclear on what you need.
It started out as my wanting a love life, and it still is - but now it's
wanting it only in certain ways.
I'm trying to see the general perspective, win a small but big enough
crowd of women as friends, and one (or even two or three, if possible)
for intimacy.
If I were galloping in on my white horse, I would like to think that
it's for all humankind - but if I had to choose one side for emphasis,
I'd concentrate on my fellow fellers (you sisters already have got a lot
of help, we're a little shorthanded over here). But if I have to be the
hero - rather than be Sir Lancelot - I'd rather be General Eisenhower,
coordinating a large group of people acting mostly on their own
initiative.
If I were convinced that it were necessary for myself to give up having
a love life of my own in order to create the world where others can have
them the way I wanted - I'm POed enough to do this seeming act of self
sacrifice out of a very ego driven desire for (for lack of a better
word) vengeance. Not punishing vengeance, but satisfaction of having
overcome and eliminated.
I'm not convinced that is necessary yet - but I still won't call up
someone on the phone, go out on dates, be formally introduced to her
parents, buy a diamond ring, put her name on the bridal registry, spend
money for a wedding in a Christian church, and then drive off dragging
our cans thinking we're gonna live happily ever after. And if this means
that I have to do without, I can still bide my time while looking for
better ways and places - while occasionally taking advantage of myself.
What kind of better ways and places? What a perfect lead-in for part 3
of the thing I wrote two years ago. We'll be about three quarters of the
way thru it at the end of this post.
- Butterfly Bill
*****************
I have had great times going with women to see shows, have dinner in
restaurants, and other things that are traditional dating activities -
but never when I was doing them on a date. It has been after we had
discovered our intimacy outside the dating game - something I have been
able to do only on rare occasions.
What really makes me unable to believe in dating any more is contrasting
it with some of the times I have actually achieved a talking and
affectionate relationship. They have happened mostly in reverse order to
the way it's supposed to start. To give some examples:
I was involved in a political group in college, and a woman came in one
day, said "Hi", and agreed with me when I started complaining about some
things that on of the leaders of that group had said. After listening to
each other complain and laugh sarcastically for a few minutes, she said
she was going to lunch in the student union, and asked me if I wanted to
come along. I said, "Yes", and we wound up sitting at a table for three
hours gossiping about all the people we knew, as she also told me story
after outrageous story about the pranks she and her best friend pulled
in a boarding school she went to. She impressed me immensely with her
humor, her insight, and her intelligence - and she didn't even know she
was doing it.
I wound up hanging out with her most of the night after the next meeting
of that group, and the following Saturday I went to her house, and we
spent the evening lying on her bed in each other's arms while we
listened to old Spike Jones records. We gave each other our class
schedules and just started meeting each other after classes. Later, we
would go to movies and concerts together, and do some of the things
normally associated with dates, but this didn't start until after we had
been seeing each other in our daily routines for a few weeks.
I was living for a while in an intentional community. First one - then
later another woman - each asked me to come over to her house to look at
some repair work she wanted me to do. One had a broken autoharp, the
other had some plumbing. In both cases we talked about the job for about
15 minutes, then I stayed while we wound up talking for over six hours
about things from all over our experiences. We gossiped about the other
people in the community, we griped about our jobs, she told me all about
the crazy things that had happened with her kids, she talked about her
ex-husband and past boyfriends. One brought out her photo album and
started telling me the stories that went with each picture. They both
started asking me to come over again, and I eventually wound up in bed
with each of them. I never asked either of them out on a date.
The main activity of our early meetings was talk, and not much else.
They revealed to me almost the full range of their emotions, and shared
the ongoing problems in their lives. They showed me the way they use
their humor in dealing with them (and didn't just crack a bunch of
manufactured jokes). I found it easy to do the same things with them.
We did a lot of things the etiquette books said we weren't supposed to
do. We gossiped, we griped, we cussed, we talked about religion,
politics, sex, and bodily functions. It was a two sided affair, not just
I talking. We found an increasing number of feelings that we shared, and
the conversations started to avalanche.
The best places - and just about the only places - where I can really
meet women (and other men, too) are ones where we are brought together
for many hours at a time, and frequently - either every day or at least
more than once a week - to do things that require a lot of talking and
interaction with each other. Places like:
work,
team sports,
volunteer work that has to be kept up steadily,
a communal living situation, or
a small school class learning an activity, such as a foreign
language, or small ensemble music, or the psychological games of an
education class.
Subjects for conversation arise out of what is happening to all of us.
The feelings we can share are the feelings we all have from the
difficulties and pleasures we experience together. We find out what
other people find interesting. We get together after the work is done
and wind up talking about all the rest of our lives as well.
Affairs that happen monthly or a few times a year are nowhere near
frequent enough. Activities where we all sit facing one direction and
watch the same thing silently - or listen to one person speak to all of
us - are places where we only get to look longingly at each other. A
dark bar - where the music is so loud we have to shout, and we have to
beware of volatile alcoholic feelings - is one of the worst places to
get to know someone. A date - where we are supposed to have
conversation, but there are few stimuli beyond the four walls around us
- is very likely to inspire awkward silences.
The absolute best places are ones where we share crises together -
places where urgent demands arise, we all need intimate interaction with
each other to meet them, and we all need to rely on each other coming
thru with things done at right times. This could be anywhere from a
hospital emergency room to a busy restaurant. In an environment like
this, you see how everyone is when they are scared, frustrated, angry,
and elated over success. You hear what kind of humor they come up to
deal with things. You observe their ideas of morality and how well they
practice them. Everybody has experienced the sudden intimacy that
surrounds an accident or disaster - feelings that sadly start to vanish
when things return to normal.
I've been in many good environments for meeting people like these, but
unfortunately they don't include women as much as other men. The things
that the gender roles of our society allow men and women to do together
still are few, and not usually the activities that foster intense
interaction and intimacy. We don't do much work together. There are few
things that the two sexes do in common to talk about. Much of the
experience of one gender is not shared and understood by the other. As a
result, conversation is often difficult between the two.
When I do manage to get in such places with women, and the intimate
talking and sharing does start to happen, they most of the time don't
realize what is happening. Instead of picking up on what is happening,
some have still gotten mad at me because I haven't asked them out.
I have sometimes tried to deliberately maneuver into situations that
encourage getting to know each other, and haven't been able to.
With many women it would be taboo to ask if I could come over to her
house and talk, and maybe look at her photo album. Such a request would
be regarded like the corny old one about coming over to look at your
etchings. I can't ask to do things with them in their homes that I could
of any other man, like play music or a board game or watch TV. I can't
offer to work on her plumbing, and hope that we wind up on her sofa
talking.
I have frequently had to endure the frustration of finding a woman I
have really gotten to be able to talk with, and then have to listen to
her carry the torch for some other man that she is too shy to say a word
to, or complain endlessly about her current romance who doesn't want to
communicate.
To summarize again: they want me to make all the first moves. They send
me nonverbal signals, in the hopes that I will receive them and do so.
Since the signals they send me have been proven unreliable - and the
consequences of responding to a misinterpreted signal are so great - I
don't respond because there is usually great doubt about their signals.
I don't Ask Them Out in the traditional manner, but try to get us into
situations where I think we are more likely to get to know each other,
situations where talking is likely to be spontaneous and fluent. Few
women recognize what I am trying to do, and get frustrated waiting for
me to ask them out.
As a result, I have very little love life and many women get angry with
me. Many are the women who have refused to try to even understand any
other offer of intimacy than asking them out on a date.
(more follows)
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com