From: machala@spdc.ti.com (King Mosher)
Subject: Re: Is this love, or just a dead heart??
Organization: Texas Instruments
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:12:45 GMT

kath@pico.dr.att.com (54626-LeeK(DR1971)210) writes:

>In article <83937@ut-emx.uucp>, llama@pooh.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine) writes:
>|> kovarik@martha.utcc.utk.edu (StMeechTheThwacked) wrote:
>|> 
>|> : Maybe the engines really only "warm up" that first time you fall in
>|> : love?  When you don't know what to expect?  Now you know or believe or
>|> : expect things may not last, so you prepare yourself for the worst by
>|> : convincing yourself that the whole thing isn't that important. Or you
>|> : think you know what to expect.  Maybe I am just a little too cynical.
>|> 
>|> i dunno. my first "love," the guy i married, was increidbly low-key. i
>|> had a fairly torrid affair right before i moved here, but that was
>|> followed by a series of really quiet involvements. then i started
>|> dating the guy i tend to think of as my major ex, and it was like i'd
>|> never quite understood the concept before. lotsa smarm, lotsa
>|> burbling, lots of euphoria.
>|> 
>|> after that breakup, i thought i'd definitely burned out whatever part
>|> of my brain produces that. i dated half-heartedly and even fell in
>|> "love" again, but it was like a business transaction: calm,
>|> controlled, reasonable.
>|> 
>|> now i'm back to the incredible ecstatic rush again. and even though
>|> things are settling into a sort of "reality intrudes and we learn to
>|> deal with each other as real people" phase, that excitement and joy
>|> and wonder at our luck is still there.
>|> 
>|> so maybe sometimes as you get older you get more prosiac, and with the
>|> ex, i'd known him for ages before the chemistry was there, but
>|> sometimes it still happens all at once.
>|> 
>|> --
>|> sine | deb
>|> or, of course, i'm a mutant.
>|> (and, btw, it was definitely worth the wait.)

>hi,
>	new reader here, following the course of this particular item.
>	hmmm, i'm kind of curious as to how long you've been with this
>	latest person (maybe it's just the blindness of love right now
>	keeping you in the excitement & joy mode, and when you regain
>	your vision you'll lose the euphoria)

>	Also, when the original writer was talking about this it brought
>	to mind the men i've known who felt this "engine warming" stuff
>	ecstasy is all well and good, but sometimes destructive
>		a man carving my initials in his chest, a man
>		leaving ridiculously expensive gifts on my door
>		step every day...
>	these things tend to make me wonder if it's me they want or the
>	thrill they are somehow receiving in feeling this much emotion
>	as though they're more addicted to passion than in love with a
>	person.  sometimes a quieter sense of emotion is alot more able
>	to survive the realities of life, of love, of time...


>	ps:  i returned the gifts.

>		kath

This is quite depressing to hear that you say "...they're (referring to men) 
are more addicted to passion...". In most of my relationships with women it 
has been exactly
the opposite. Me, being cool-headed and reasonable at the start and the woman
being quite in a state of ecstacy. If I were to plot the interest in the
relationship over time it would look something like this.


    i |   www           m-man                        
    n |  w   www        w-woman                          
    t |  w      www                     mmmmmmmm   --- lasting relationship     
    e |  w         wwww      mmmmmmmmmmm               level
    r | w            mmwmmmmm                         
    e | w      mmmmmm   wwwww                            
    s |w   mmm               wwwww                          
    t |w mmm                      wwwww                    
      |m                               wwwwwwwww           
      ---------------------------------------
                   time

after about the first month and they have hit the "lasting relationship level"
I get a proposal either for marriage or to live together.
me, being cautious (having had one _terrible_ marriage), refuse. (I suppose
this classifies me as a "non-commitment" type of guy but this is far from
the truth. It just takes me longer to understand a person. A person must
_earn_ my trust. I don't give it freely. and anyone who does is just 
asking for it). They get pissed off or write me off. If the relationship
does continue, by the time _I_ hit the lasting relationship level, they are
ready to call it quits. Story of my life. 
I guess I need to quit being sexist and say that this can happen either way.   

--
              Beer - It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Chuck Machala - Semiconductor Process and Design Center - Texas Instruments