From: orc@usite-next.uchicago.edu (David Parsons)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Where did all my "friends" go?
Date: 24 Aug 92 03:51:13 GMT
Organization: Ministry of Skritching

In article <17988@acorn.co.uk> osmith@acorn.co.uk (Owen Smith) writes:
|In article <1992Aug22.005803.8435@midway.uchicago.edu>
|orc@usite-next.uchicago.edu (David Parsons) writes:
|>   This, on the other hand, isn't quite so good.  They could either be
|>moderately dense or they don't really want you as a close friend.  You
|>could try to be rather blatant about it - when they start discussing
|>a party or somesuch, you could casually point out that "It's been a while
|>since I've been to a <x>, mind if I drop by for your next <x>?"
|
|I don't want to be pushy. If they haven't invited me, there's a reason for
|it, and I want to either correct it or get some better friends, rather than
|force myself on people who obviously don't want me.

   Yes, and one of the reasons could be that they *didn't think of asking
you.  (A large fraction of the socialising I've done this year has been
because I've asked if I could attend events in question.  I don't think
that anyone's minded, and I believe that I've made some good friends in
the process. who I will still end up asking if I can attend events they
host.  In my case, a lot of these friends are at a great distance, but
it process should be the same.)

   What do you have to lose?  Unless you're a best friend, it's quite
easy to be overlooked.

|
|>| Of course women don't socialise with me
|>|because in their eyes I'm not female,
|>  No, somehow I don't think that's so.  Men and woman do socialise, even
|>when there isn't the compelling ulterior motive.
|My scene is fairly Cambridge University dominated, which is about 35-40%
|female (it varies every year). Some women keep out of the way deliberately
|or just end up spending all their time within the single sex women's
|colleges. This leaves sufficiently few women per hot blooded male that the
|situation has often been described as a cattle market.

  For a good part of my college career, I was attending an university that
was about 70% male.  I still had a few female friends (no lovers, just
friends, but I was a shy little puppy when I was in school...)

|The only relief is in the orchestras I play in. They are over half female,
|and the women know that you are there primarily to play music so it's more
|relaxed. However, rehearsals are at slightly odd times so there is little or
|no socialising. One of them finished at 10:30 PM on a Monday (too late) and
|the other finishes at 6 PM on Fridays (too early).

   Knowing the bizarre closing hours of too many places in the UK, a 2230
finish wouldn't leave time to pop around to the pub, but 1800?  You can
probably bet that they'll have something to do that evening, but it won't
be until later;  surely something can be found to fill the 1800 'til 2000
interval?

|>And, you
|>know, there are still all the *men who do those things, and if you don't
|>want *them for their bodies (I may be biased [so to speak], but I can think
|>offhand of one or two computer geeks that I'd be more than happy to help
|>break the morals code with), you can at least strike up a friendship with
|>them and then become friends/lovers with their sisters/girlfriends/girl-
|>friends sisters.
|
|They don't have girlfriends or sisters, and if they did have girlfriends
|they're up-tight enough that the mere thought of polyamory would give them
|heart attacks.

   Um, I didn't mention polyamory, you know.  If you know person x, who's
dating person y, who has sister z, and person x knows you're unattached,
s/he might pull strings to have you go out with sister z.  No polyamory
in sight...


   (Does this belong in soc.singles?)
                 __
   david parsons \/ orc@pell.chi.il.us