From: mlloyd@westmark.Stanford.EDU (Mike Lloyd)
Subject: Re: Some fears and doubts about my sexuality
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 18:37:43 GMT

idx009@cck.coventry.ac.uk (the Crisco Kid) writes:
: In article <1992Sep23.035528.22908@leland.Stanford.EDU> mlloyd@westmark.Stanford.EDU (Mike Lloyd) writes:
: (you *are* still coming back to the UK, aren't you <please> <please> <beg>
: <grovel>)

Moot point, I'm afraid.  My current PostDoc offer is on ice, pending
me sorting out what I want to do with my life, and which continent
I want to be on while doing it.  I'll come through for a thesis
viva if nothing else, but long-term plans are in a state of
serious dishevellement.

: >the Crisco Kid, aka the Human Air Freshener, aka idx009@cck.coventry.ac.uk writes:
: 
: Human air freshener?  <giggle>

In ref to your BZ OD diagnosis, and your effective attempt to steer
conversation into a cleaner environment :-)

Anyway, on to the serious stuff: 

: >: (there's nothing intrinsically blessed about duration,
: >: after all)
: >
: >It's that parenthetical point I wanted to pick out.  Maybe
: >it's obvious to y'all, but it struck me as one of those "Of Course!",
: >lightbulb-above-head remarks.  Assuming I read it cleanly (in
: >at least one context, durability can be quite appealing ...)
: >it seems to point up another of those heinous traditional
: >value thingys.
:
: I guess what I'm saying is: you can have any, all, or none of {duration,
: security,monogamy,permanence} in a wonderful relationship.

You're quite right that I had confounded these, again using a
traditional picture as a reference point (bad boy Michael - 100
lines, "I must be more alternative in my thinking" *grin*).

I've been considering why the observation that durability is
not everything struck such a chord in me.  Partially, it is
just a very good point, and one that we are trained away from.
However, I think my present and history set me up to *really*
pounce on the idea when it came up.  The amount of travelling
I'm doing makes it much harder to sustain relationships, but
that doesn't mean I don't want them.  I'm in NYC for 4 months
(3 now), and have met a fairly cute guy.  I find it hard
to negotiate a relationship where "no future" (in one sense)
is a basic premise.

In the past, most of my relationships have been quite lengthy
(1 or 2 years, which I think of as lengthy), but I've been
noticing recently how dependent most of my partners were:
how in need of reassurance, how touchy about the future.

Combining such experience with my journeyman lifestyle, and
with my improving self-image since coming out, I guess I've
arrived at some dreamlike notion of strong, independant
partners who can take pleasure in the transitory, and live
a day at a time, the way I try to.

I think that's a fine goal, but I analyze it carefully to
try to find inconsitencies between it and the real world.
I'm concerned that it's too naive, and fails to take into
account the real feelings of those I deal with.

When discussing this with a TOCOTOX recently, the image of
The Unbearable Lightness of Being came up (I haven't yet read
the book, but it's at the top of my "soon" pile).  For those
who know it (film or movie), the question I was asked was whether
I thought the male lead (the surgeon) was being destructive with his
independance, his polyamorousness, his single-minded purposelessness.
My jury is still out on that one.

Anyone care to comment on the implications of such an attitude
in the real world (assuming I've expressed it coherently)?

Mike, the mind-expanded
-- 
Mike Lloyd                         | B0/1 h- f- t w- c g+ k(+) s m- e?
Retro-hippy, music nut, bi and     | "The Trouble with Normal is it
owner of a one-track mind:         |  Always Gets Worse" - Bruce Cockburn
   "thesis .. thesis .. thesis"    |    (-:   F**k Your Gender!  :-)
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