From: webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber)
Subject: Re: People are People (Re: ISO Bi-Fem and Girlfriend)
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 03:21:01 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.135213.8652@latcs1.lat.oz.au> woodhous@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Joe P Woodhouse) writes:
>webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber) writes:
>>dmason@plg.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Mason) writes:
>>As one of the people already
>>in this thread I feel you've misrepresented my opinions, so I'm going
>>to reply here.
>
>   Bob, possibly I'm guilty of this too, so thanks for trying to clarify
>things...
>
>>I think that if you read her postings carefully, Muffy says that in
>>some way people finding her attractive on first meeting actively
>>turns her off.
>
>   I think Muffy is really the only one qualified to talk about what
>she *meant* to say...but my reading of what she said what closer to
>what Dave said rather than Bob's interpretation above.

You're quite right.  As they say, "Post in haste, repent at leisure."
I started off with an issue with Dave Mason (with whom I believe
I've lurkingly agreed on other topics) and ended up losing my judgement
sufficiently to post a fals interpretation of Muffy's posting that
was as redundant as it was inaccurate.

What I had meant to say, and should have limited myself to saying,
was that I felt I was being classed with a group of men whose
existence and behaviour I am aware of, but from whom (I think) I differ
in some important respects.

>   [hastily] Not that that says anything about me, Dave & Bob other than
>that we read the same post somewhat differently...

No, it says that I am capable of being a real idiot.  Muffy, if I'm
not engraved permanently in your killfile, I am sorry that I
misrepresented what you said, and also sorry to have taken so long
to speak up and admit it.

That said, it seems like there are men who are attracted only by
particular aspects of people they meet, and have not interest
in people beyond those aspects.  I do believe they exist, and have
met them.  I have also met women who seemed to fit this bill of
description, and also both men and women who exploit their attractive
aspects for financial gain.

I think that the single-attractant types are the most common victims
of the exploitative types, but like most things human the same
behaviour surfaces from time to time in people who usually know
better.  I don't think anyone could really say, at this point,
how prevelant either style is in any given part of society; presumably
prostitutes and their customers commonly have these attitudes.

>>I don't see where you get this, or only see it vaguely.  Speaking
>>for myself, I can be attracted to people very quickly after meeting
>>them or even on seeing them.  That's attraction in the most general
>>sense, though, and most often ends up with me trying to get to
>>know the person behind the attractiveness.
>
>   Ah ha! Now we're cooking!
>
>   Yep, pretty much where I stand, too. (See, Bob? Not a flame at all 8->).

Joe, there may be one or two other people I expect a flame from less...

>Although I think I word it differently, I don't think of the person and
>their attractiveness as separate issues - but discussing the role physical
>attraction plays in my attraction to people is something that would take
>a few posts on its own... 8->

Not so much separate issues, just what's obvious from a distance and
what's not.  As I think I said elsewhere, it could be a gesture or
a gait or a laugh, but something makes a person suddenly a focus
of attention and attraction.  Sometimes nothing much, and it's only
a small change, a step across an indefinable line...
>
...
>Joe.
>
>  / Joe Woodhouse        / I'm just a sweet bisexual...   / Hello, there.
> / Latrobe University   /    (think - Rocky Horror)      / Threesomes are fun.
>/ Melbourne, Australia / Music. Magic. Mathematics. Me. / I like cats! (miaow!)

Bob


-- 
Bob Webber, webber@world.std.com ===========================================
==========================================================  Laurie Anderson:
Our plan is to drop odd objects onto your country from the air.  And some
of these objects will be useful, and some of them will just be odd.