From: tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode)
Subject: Re: Any Available Jewish Men Out There??
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 00:14:18 GMT

 
in <ewright.726177240@convex.convex.com>
    ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
 
] In <1993Jan2.230755.19638@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode)
]  writes:
]
] >Superficially, perhaps, but only superficially.  While it doesn't require
] >too great a stretch of the imagination to believe that a Jewish woman
] >would be 'surrounded by Christians' in a medium-sized midwestern city,
] >it is much harder to accept the notion that the entire female population
] >of a large Texas city should use a bodybuilder-type paradigm as an
] >inflexible and absolute dating criterion.
]
] Okay, Trygve, put up or shut up.
 
Happy to--you should always feel free to call me on anything I claim and
expect me to provide justification for it.  (Sometimes I can't--which is
a good time for a learning experience.)
 
] I can find at least a hundred gyms and health clubs just by
] opening the phone book.
 
I'm happy for you.  That gives you lots of choices in case you decide
you want to join one someday.
 
] Open your phone book and tell me how many laboratories you
] find selling memberships to the general public. You insist
] that people (men and women) interested in science, as a social
] activity, greatly outnumber those interested in athletics. So,
] you should find more labs than health clubs, right?  Okay,
] Denver is a bit smaller than Dallas, so I'll make it easy
] on you.  Just tell me the names of the first five.
 
Actually, all I've claimed is that there are many men and women with an
interest in science and other intellectual pursuits, but I can address
your question anyway--there are a number of shops around here that cater
to people who do their own laboratory work at home, ranging from COSCO
which sells everything from reagent grade nitric acid to heavy water to
the home scientist to a half-dozen or more stores that specialize in
surplus equipment and instruments (and, yes, the great bulk of these
these stores' clientelle is hobbyists).  There are also plenty of
mail-order companies that specialize in this market.
 
A fully-stocked gym/health club is something that most people don't have
the space, money, or time to maintain in their own homes; and, since a
lot of people need an extra impetus to get through a workout, most
people do better working out with others.  On the other hand, you can
have a whole lot of fun experimenting with $10 worth of supplies from
the grocery or drug store and having a room full of people around while
you experiment is likely to be distracting rather than helpful.  Thus,
even if far more people were amateur scientists than fitness
enthusiasts, you still wouldn't expect to see a bunch of laboratories
selling memberships.  (To say nothing of the liability insurance
involved, which would probably make the memberships more expensive than
assembling your own lab.)  A better analogy would be museums,
planetariums (planetaria?), and the like, but you'd still expect to see
those in smaller numbers, both because one typically doesn't go nearly
as often and they can hold much larger numbers of people at a time.
 
If you poke through a well-stocked newsstand, you'll probably find more
science publications than you will find fitness publications--make a
stack of "Muscle and Fitness," "Runner's World," and "Powerlifting USA"
(if they even carry it) next to a stack of "Scientific American,"
"Discover," "Omni," "The Audio Amateur," "Popular Science," etc., etc.
There are plenty of people interested in science out there--and, believe
it or not, at the parties I go to, discussion of such topics as
muon-catalyzed fusion, new developments in computers, recent satellite
observations, the philisophical implications of Godel's undecidability
theorem, etc., are fairly common.
 
I don't know about Texas, but if you were in Denver and looking to meet
amateur scientist types, there are plenty of clubs and organizations you
could look into.  For starters, there's the "Mad Scientists Club" (whose
members probably wouldn't be allowed into any public-access laboratory
for fear that they'd accidentally blow it up), plenty of EE-oriented
clubs, and even an organization (whose name escapes me at the moment)
that, among other things, sponsors an annual competition (fairly well
attended, I might add) which pits the most puissant remote-controlled
fighting machines the contestants can build (under a given weight limit)
against each other in a battle of wits, spikes, squirting slime, and any
other trick the participants can think up.
 
Further, it's not as if these sorts of things were exclusively male
events by any stretch of the imagination--at the last one I went to, I
got into a conversation about railguns with one of the many women there
and shortly thereafter while I was talking to someone else, she slipped
a note with her name and phone number into my pocket.  (So far, this is
my only encounter with a putpocket.)
 
Remember, for your purposes, it's not necessary that there be a majority
of people more interested in intellectual than physical pursuits (not,
however, that these are in any respect mutually exclusive), but only
that there be a reasonable number and some way of locating them.
Indeed, if she happens to be the right one for you, just one is enough.
 
] If you've misplaced your Yellow Pages, just go down to your
] local K-Mart.
 
Alas, that's going to have to wait until after I'm a little more mobile
again.  (No need to worry--I had my gym rearranged so I could get around
between the various upper-body stations for the time being, but
installing rings that I can brachiate from between here and K-Mart is
beyond my current level of interest in the venture.)
 
]  Go to the scientific department.  It should
] be easy enough to find.  I have no trouble spotting K-Mart's
] sporting goods department, and you tell me that science is
] much more popular.  Now, tell us the prices and brand names
] of the telescopes, microscopes, and other scientific instruments
] you find on sale there.
 
Alas, I've forgotten the prices, but they usually advertise Tasco,
Jason, Bushnell (and probably others) for their microscopes and
telescopes--not exactly high-end, but try to find a high-end piece of
anything else, including exercise equipment, at a K-Mart.  As far as
other instruments, you can't get much more than a cheap multi-meter;
finding, say, an oscilloscope at K-Mart would be almost as unlikely as
finding a pec-deck or a seated calf machine there.
 
] While you're at it, tell us the last time you attended a
] science lecture on a date.
 
I tend to go more for things like plays and the like (though oddly
enough, one of those (whose name escapes me right at the moment) was
about scientists who, to prevent the world from finding out about some
of their theories that could be applied to weaponry, had themselves
committed to an insane asylum).  However, I did date someone a while
back who was rather fond of James Burke and his talks were quite
heavilly attended.  I'm much more likely to stay home and "The
Mechanical Universe" (gotta love those dancing denominators) or a PBS
special.
 
SF cons, at least around here, usually include at least a few scientific
talks or panel discussions; the ones I've been to have been
well-attended and had a reasonable gender balance.
 
] If you can answer any one of these questions, I'll admit
] that you're not full of bull puckey after all.  So go
] ahead, put up or shut up.
 
Happy?
 
] >(Incidentally, I suspect that the criterion "Jewish" is
] >slightly less restrictive than "must have a PhD in one of the following
] >subjects....")
]
] It's also slightly less restrictive than "must have spent at least
] five years in a major penal institution."
 
Fortunately, since I've got my own dungeon, I don't have to insist on
that qualification from a mate.  :-)
 
 
From the tone of this and other articles of yours, I get the impression
that the source of a good portion (if not the great majority) of your
mating troubles is that you seem to delight in creating problems rather
than solving them.  Indeed, you seem willing to put far more energy into
creating a problem where one doesn't exist than you'd be willing to put
into getting what you claim you want.  This isn't exactly an uncommon
game to play, but it is one that isn't conducive to your long-term
happiness.  I think you should consider what emotional payoffs you get
from this particular version of "why don't you?--yes, but" (nomenclature
courtesy of Eric Berne) and make a rational decision whether to keep
playing or to forget the game and just go ahead and get what you want
out of life.  If you shed this particular piece of emotional baggage, I
don't think that anyone of your intelligence and abilities would find it
all that difficult to locate a suitable mate.
 
Trygve
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