From: martinc@grover.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: More on guys who aren't dating Ed Wright
Date: 28 Sep 92 14:54:41 GMT
Distribution: soc
Organization: UNC Department of Computer Science
In-reply-to: ewright@convex.com's message of 28 Sep 92 00:57:32 GMT

In article <ewright.717641852@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

   In <MARTINC.92Sep27145032@grover.cs.unc.edu> martinc@grover.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin) writes:

   >You notice where it says "the seats are not empty"?  Or "You may not
   >*go* *to*"? And actually, I *didn't* know the Super Bowl and World
   >Series are the highest rated shows on network television -- in fact, it
   >isn't even true -- but assuming it were, is the Bay Area the only market
   >to which network television is sent?

   Most football fans don't attend every game. More fans watch a typical
   game on television than attend in person.  Just as classical music fans
   spend more hours listening to CDs than live concerts.  But a single
   football game, as you noted, may have 40,000 live spectators (and thousands
   more on TV), while a free Shakespeare performance may draw 400 spectators
   and a public lecture on astronomy may draw 40 -- with no live TV coverage.
   What does this suggest about the relative numbers of people who enjoy
   sports, Shakespeare, and astronomy?

   And the World Series *is* the highest-rated program on television.  It
   has only been beaten in the ratings once, by an episode of the Cosby
   show.  Networks generally avoid putting anything but repeats up against
   it, because they know no other show has a chance.

... while complaining that the World Series doesn't get the viewership
it used to, that even the Cosby show beats it, etc.  I don't think
you're correct.  I'll call my friendly reference  librarian when I've
got the phone line back.  (My computer's using it.)

   >Why are you so *devoted* to defending the idea that ANY interest in ANY
   >sport whatsoever is morally wrong?

   I do not believe that an interest in sports is morally wrong.  What I
   do believe is morally wrong is the idea, popularized by the sports and
   fitness movement, that athletes are better than nonathletes.  This much
   I already explained to you, in the email that you refused to acknowledge.

Ed, try to grasp that computers are even more fallible than I am.  I
can't "refuse to acknowledge" an email I didn't get.

   I do not have anything against "sports" (yes, if it pleases you, I will
   concede that they are sports) such as hiking, motor racing, martial arts,
   etc. that do not make such claims.

What's "better"?  Martial artists certainly claim that they're better
able to defend themselves -- and/or choose not to fight -- than others.
The other sports (or "sports") make analogous claims.

   >Yeah, I know.  Any time spent on sports detracts from improving your
   >mind.  I remember that argument.  It's still asinine.

   So, please explain to us how a human being with a lifetime of X minutes
   can spend Y minutes playing/watching sports and still have a total of
   X minutes to do other things.  Enquiring minds want to know.  Next you'll
   be telling us you can sleep 12 hours a day and still have as many waking
   hours as someone who only sleeps 8.  Sorry, Charlie, it's a logical 
   impossibility.

Nonsense.  First of all, your argument assumes that someone can improve
their mind with optimal efficiency at every waking moment.  This isn't
medically defensible.  Assuming that one is *not* optimally efficient at
mind-improvement at every waking moment, then something that makes one
more efficient may well give more total "mind improvement points" than
constant effort at mind improvement.

(Of course, the "seats in a stadium" model suggests that now you say "I
wasn't talking about mind improvement, I was talking about time doing
other things."  However, I've included the whole applicable part of our
exchage to either (a) remind you what we were talking about or at least
(b) document it when you slide away.)

Also, since people who are *moderately* fit tend to live longer, trading
no exercise now for more time may not pay off in the total.

   However, you still miss the point.  It's a *value judgement*, Charlie.
   A real nerd wouldn't choose to play softball because he could doing
   something else, like reading or computer programming, that he enjoys
   more instead.  It is someone with those interests and values that I
   am looking for.  Why should I look for someone who likes to spend her
   free time playing/watching/talking sports when I am *not* looking for
   someone to play/watch/talk sports with? 

Because you may just find -- you may well *be* finding -- that by
completely excluding someone who spends *some* of her free time doing
sports, you narrow your sample too much.  Try to grasp emotionally that
you are unlikely to find Edwina Wright, and that searching for her may
be costing you too much.

   >But in the mean time, you carefully deleted the *point*, didn't you?
   >The part where I wrote:

   >      Hunks with Porsches are in the distinct minority, and while they
   >      often seem to get the "trophy" women, you're not looking for a
   >      trophy anyway, are you?

   There.  This time I didn't delete a single word.  Happy, Charlie?

   >You see, there are lots of physically inept, unfit, bright and ambitious
   >but merely salaried computer people who *do* have relationships, get
   >married, all that stuff.

   Unfortunately, the world is not as simple as you'd like.  There are
   other categories of people in between "unfit" and Arnold Schwartzenegger.

I don't think it's my categoruies that are the issue.  At least, your
category of "unfit" as it communicates itself through what you write
seems to oscillate rapidly through "not a Muscle&Fitness model" to "not
a health club fanatic" to "only those completely uninterested in any
exercise."

   >(Also, by the way, you're making some pretty strong assumptions if you
   >presume that the ONLY women you're likely to be interested in will have
   >GRADUATE DEGREES in SCIENCE or ENGINEERING.  How about lawyers?  M.D.s?)

   I've always considered medicine to be a scientific discipline.  

I'll concede you that one -- having worked at a med school for so long,
I tend to think of M.D.s as a "professional" school rather than a
"graduate" school, but I think that's reaction to the "PhD == 'phony
doctor'" thing common in med school.

   As
   far as lawyers go, unless they have an undergraduate science degree,
   their background and range of interest is likely to be quite limited.

You mean "different" rather than "limited, don't you?

   (Read C.P. Snow's "The Two Cultures" and "The Two Cultures Revisited"
   for a more detailed explanation.)  I have, however, compromised on this
   criterion from time to time, to the extent of asking out women who didn't
   completely fulfill it.  In fact, right now I am dating a woman who is a
   CPA.  (Or at least, as you would say, I think we're dating.)  However, I
   have not yet been able to convince myself that I could be *serious* about
   any of these women.  So it's not an assumption, it's the result of my own
   experience.

Hmmm.  Okay, up to now you've usually given the impression that you
weren't really dating; now at this point, you seem to be saying that you
can't convince yourself that you could be serious about the women you
are dating.

   >I doubt you regularly go to church socials and AARP meetings, 
   >so that narrows the age range.

   Why do you doubt that?  I haven't attended any church social functions
   in the last six months or so, for lack of time, but prior to that I
   probably attended an average of three or four every month.  

Because I'd remembered you as being in the "rationalist-atheist" camp; I
posted that before you mentioned being a Christian.

So okay, here's a suggestion: do a little networking.  Mention that
you're lonely etc to people at your church.  Maybe someone knows 

   >You're much more likely to go to plays than to Cowboys games -- thus
   >you'll likely meet women who are interested in the theater and
   >literature, and who are bright in the bargain. 

   >You work for a high-tech company, so unless you're the night 
   >janitor you're much more likely to
   >meet women with technical degrees, or at least college degrees, than you
   >would in the general population. 

   That depends.  Do you mean as a percentage or in absolute numbers?
   If the former, I might agree, but in fact there are so few women
   working here that perentages don't really matter.

Percentage, obviously.  Remember, Ed, this was part of a comment
pointing out that you meet a skewed sample.  You've already shown that
by your measure there are likely only 80 women in Dallas who meet your
total collection of acceptability criteria.  I'm showing that you're
much more likely to meet those 80 women than the 80/1,000,000 odds you
suggest. 

   >In fact, if you think about it, the women you meet in day-to-day life
   >are most likely interested in the same things you are, or at least some
   >of them, simply because they're there!  

   The operative phrase there is "some of them."  The things I'm looking
   for in a woman are precisely the things that I *don't* find in people
   I meet.  After all, why would I insist on something in a mate if I had
   lots of other friends who could provide it?   

I don't know -- why?  Why do you insist on something in a mate that
would make her different from the people you consider friends?

   >Why?  Because I *asked*.  Because I met women I thought were
   >interesting, and asked them out.  I also got turned down a lot, but what
   >the hell?

   "Asking" requires that I have already met someone who I would
   like to go out with if she said "yes."  It seems you have conceded
   that it might not be a snap to find women like that -- otherwise,
   why would you have suggested that I modify my requirements?

Sure.  The total problem from day 1 seems to me to have been "Find Ed
Wright a woman he thinks might be marriage material."  One part of it
seems to have been "Ed Wright doesn't want to go out with women who
don't completely fulfill his value system."  I think you're shooting
yourself in the foot thereby.

   >See, that's just what I mean.  What you've actually done is
   >*consistently* mistaken my honest attempts to help for personal attacks.
   >But Ed, if I just wanted to *insult* you I could do a *helluva* sight
   >better job on you than I've done.  (Remember what Dawn wrote to you a
   >few days ago: about how I'd said "Wait a minute, I think this guy really
   >needs help" and told you about my therapy?  *She* certainly thinks I was
   >trying to help.)

   Oh, alright, Charlie.  If you insist, I'll play your silly little
   game.  I apreciate your sincere desire to help, and I am grateful
   for it.  I am every bit as concerned about you.  I think you should
   phone the nearest psychiatric hospital and have your head examined
   *immediately*.  And I am every bit as sincere in saying that as you 
   are.  I hope you're satisfied now.

See?  You've turned this explicit statement of personal concern into a
personal attack that you then defended yourself from with the good
old-fashioned, childish and sophomoric "you ought to get your head
examined."  Why do you find it so hard to accept compassionate concern?

   >I don't know what happened, or how -- if it
   >was your childhood or your karma or your stars or your genes -- but you
   >have this massive investment in hopelessness and your own worthlessness.

   Sounds like something out of Orwell's "1984."  The fact that I tell you
   I am not worthless proves that I believe am worthless.  The only way you
   will believe that I don't think I am worthless is if I tell you that I am.
   "Ignorous is knowledge, truth is falsehood."

Nope, that wouldn't work either.  If you tell me, in the fashion you've
written so far, that you're worthless, I'll believe you.  *Everything*
you've written reads to me as having very little hint that you feel worthy.

   >Ed, so far in this most recent exchange, at one point you've accused me
   >of saying that your fat friend "deserved to die".  I'm quite certain I
   >didn't say that -- nor have you responded to my request that you show me
   >where I said it.  When pressed, you said that I said she had low
   >self-esteem and that being fat was all her fault.  I don't think I said
   >*that* either, but it doesn't matter: it certainly isn't the same as
   >saying she deserved to die.  Misquotation.

   No, selective quotation -- on your part.  What you ommitted was my 
   statement that I spent several hours on the phone with her trying to 
   talk her out of a state which seemed, to me, to border on suicidal.  
   You said anyone who did not follow the DUMB Book of Diet and Fitness
   deserved to be in that state -- "their own fault."

Ed, in a word, bullshit.  I don't believe I said it, I don't think
anyone else remembers me saying that, and it's completely out of
character for me.

   And believe it or not, I'm not recording the Gospel According to Charlie
   for posterity.

Or even reading it very closely.

   >You've also said that I said I "didn't have a girl" in this very post.
   >I don't remember saying that, and doubt you can find a post in which I
   >said it.  Misquotation.

   Mistake.  I make them sometimes.  Often, in fact.  Unlike some
   people, I'm not afraid to admit them.

   >You twisted your own argument from "seats in a stadium" to "watching
   >television" -- misquoting *yourself* for Christ's sake! -- in order, I
   >guess, to avoid the idea that maybe some people other than yourself
   >didn't watch sporting events.

   I *refined* my argument in an attempt to convince the twit on the
   other end that "only" 40,000 people showing up for a single Giants
   game does not prove that most people in Silicon Valley don't enjoy
   sports -- your claim.

You "refined" your argument and presented it as a refutation of my claim
that very few people ATTENDED sporting events.  You misquoted me to set
up a straw man you COULD defend.

   >If *I've* misquoted you, show me the quote and what I said that
   >misquoted, and I'll apologize.  

   Oh?  Well, most recently, you've accused me of saying that I bike
   long distances. The closest thing I've ever coming to that
   was saying that I was of afraid of being run *over* by bicycles.

Ed, when someone uses a modifier like "As I recall..." it is to
explicitly make the point that they aren't certain they're quoting you
correctly.  It explicitly makes clear that this might be MISremembered.

   You accused me of saying that you were a bronze god when, in fact,
   what I said was that I thought you were reasonably fit.

Nope, I didn't quote you as saying I was a broze god.  Go back and look
it up.  I *did* say "I'm no greek god" or something close, but it
clearly wasn't set as a quotation from you.

   You accused me of saying that most women only want to date men who
   look just like Arnold Schwarzenegger when what I actually said was
   "men who are physically fit."  In fact, almost every time I use a
   phrase like "athletic" or "reasonably fit", you replace it with a
   reference to Schwarzenegger.

And it should be more than clear from context that my whole claim is
that "reasonably fit" -- if it makes sense at all -- probably includes
you. 

   When I said I wanted to date women who didn't care what I looked
   like, you twisted this into "will not date women who like or dislike
   his apearance."

Are you sure that's me?  There were a lot of people in on this before
you concluded I was the antichrist.  In any case, the logic of what
you're saying escapes me: Either they like your appearance, dislike your
appearance, or don't care.

   Although I stated from the start that my primary problem was meeting
   women who shared my *interests*, and that being turned down for my
   looks and athletic *in*ability was a secondary problem after that,
   you continually accused me of believing that my physical appearance
   was the only reason why I hadn't found a woman.

You clearly remember this differently than I do.  As *I* recall, you
originally were pissed off because women only wanted to date atheletes,
or "fit people" or guys who work out a lot, or something.  (At this
point, what they want to date and why you aren't it seems to jump around
a lot.)  I got involved when you claimed that there are no reasons to
exercise except vanity and a desire to fit the current style, and that a
true intellectual *wouldn't* do that stuff because it steals time from
improving the mind.

   Then there's all that nonsense about my believing I am "worthless."

Ed, either you believe you are unworthy of other's love -- the *very*
strong impression or inference I draw from your writing -- or you
believe what you seem to be saying in this posting, which is that no
woman (at least that you meet) is worthy of your love.  Whether it's
exaggerated lack of self-worth or delusions of grandure, it's not
helping you be happy.

   >You, however, are not a strong, assertive, self-confident man.  

   Let me get this straight.  Because I am confident enough to stand
   up to you and assert my own opinions, I am not an assertive, self-
   confident man.  "Black is white, right is wrong...."

So far you haven't really done much of a job of that.  You avoid my
points, misquote me -- or youself -- to avoid a counter-argument, and
somehow twist what I say into personal attacks so you can simply get mad
rather than *think*.

   >You're still a poor kid who can't get over his mommy calling him skinny,
   >or his daddy calling him a klutz, or his grade school gym teacher
   >laughing at him when he fell down, or something.  

   On another occassion, you accused me of saying that my mother
   was the only the only person who could fidn me physically attractive.
   Now, you say that my mother thought I was skinny.  Which is it, Charlie?
   If you're going to make up a life history for me, at least make it
   consistent.

Hmmm.  I presented a series of hypothetical possibilities: your mother,
your father, your gym teacher, or something else.  But you focussed on
your mother.  Why are you sensitive about your mother, Ed?

   Of course, you left out possiblity D.  Last year, I placed a personal
   ad in a local paper.  I talked to one of the women to one of the women
   who responded, on the phone, several times, and we agreed to meet at a
   restaurant.  We gave each other vague, general discriptions of our physical
   appearances in order to recognize one another.  I arrived at the restaurant
   first and was waiting just outside the door when she pulled up, saw me,
   turned around, and drove back out of the parking lot.  Afterward, she
   would not accept any of my phone calls.  Okay, you're pretty creative,
   Charlie.  Please tell me how this reaction could be due to anything
   *other* than my physical appearance.

Maybe it was.  Life's like that.  Maybe she was married, and lost her
nerve.  Maybe she just got a call on her car phone that her father had
had a heart attack.  Maybe she's shy, and chickened out.  Maybe she
liked the way you looked so much that she lost control of her bladder
and was too embarrassed to tell you.

   >Don't you see something of yourself in
   >your own list of accomplishments?  Don't you think, down deep, that if
   >you were only admirable in all things that it might get you what you
   >*really* want: love that you can value and accept, love that makes you
   >feel, finally, good about yourself?

   No, I've been around too long to think that life is always fair and
   people always get what they deserve.  And I believe that I *am* admirable
   in all things.  (Yet another one you owe me, Charlie.)

Except your physical appearance, apparently.  Or your fitness.  Or your
abilities with the Opposite Sex.

   >That scene is always played with the serving girl looking at Cyrano with
   >awe, and admiration, and maybe even love -- and Cyrano is always blind
   >to it.  He can't see past his nose when it comes to seeing that someone
   >*might* love him even with his disfigurement.

   Yes, and I have even experienced the real-life analog of that scene.
   I was in a restaurant with a group of friends one night when a woman
   came over and started coming on to me.  She was dressed in an outfit
   that covered about 2/3 of the areas it really needed to cover, had hair
   dyed a very unnatural shade of red and lipstick of an equally unnatural
   color, and talked more like a "Valley Girl" than anyone I would expect
   to find in Texas.  In the course of some polite conversation, she informed
   our group that she was employed as a topless dancer.  She was visible under
   the influence of alcohol (at least) and was, as one of my friends said
   later, "seriously in lust" with me.

   >Ed, it's time you learned to see past your own nose.

   If you mean that I should settle for "serving girls," I can only
   repeat what I have said before.  I am sure that if I was willing
   to settle for just anyone, rather than someone who shares the interests
   I desire in a woman, that I could have found someone long ago.  But
   I won't.  You can say that's irrational -- you may even be right --
   but it's as simple as that.  I will not because I choose not.

Then what's the point of the whole thing, Ed.  If what you're telling us
is that you choose to be alone, that's fine.  Go ahead.  We can't stop
you, and wouldn't if we could.

But you don't seem to be very much at peace with that decision.

Figure it out for yourself, Ed.  Do you want to be happy or not?  Are
you willing to take steps to become happier or not?
--
Charles R. Martin/(Charlie)/martinc@cs.unc.edu/(ne crm@cs.duke.edu) 
O/Dept. of Computer Science/CB #3175 UNC-CH/Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175
H/3611 University Dr #13M/Durham, NC 27707/(919) 419 1754
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every
one I meet,/Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew
before?/ Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your
nonsense?"  _Leaves of Grass_ xxiii.4.