From: martinc@grover.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: More on guys who aren't dating Ed Wright
Date: 30 Sep 92 01:08:21 GMT
	<MARTINC.92Sep28105441@grover.cs.unc.edu>
	<ewright.717737097@convex.convex.com>
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.717737097@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

   [Note: The articles in this thread are, in my opinion, getting just
   too damn long.  For this reason, I am cutting out large sections of
   the text to which I am replying.  Charlie, if it pleases you to rant
   about how I've edited out some sentence that you believe to be your
   crucial, decisive, and irrefutable point, feel free to rant way.]

   In <MARTINC.92Sep28105441@grover.cs.unc.edu> martinc@grover.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin) writes:

   >... while complaining that the World Series doesn't get the viewership
   >it used to, that even the Cosby show beats it, etc.  

   "Even" the Cosby Show?  Yes, "even" the highest rated show in series
   television managed to beat it *once*.

This can be settled with numbers and can't be settled without numbers.
I'll get numbers.

   >What's "better"?  Martial artists certainly claim that they're better
   >able to defend themselves -- and/or choose not to fight -- than others.

   Martial artists will say they are better able to defend themselves, 
   but they do not make the same claims of overall general superiority
   that athletes do. ....

   Contrast this attitude to the smug arrogance of Arnold Schwarzennger,
   the official head of the US fitness program.  Or the self-righteous,
   nose-in-the-air superiority of Nancy Colucci's post.  Or your quotations
   from the DUMB Book of Diet and Fitness about how exercise improves a
   person's outlook on life, increases creativity and intelligence, improves
   your sex life, etc., etc.

Ah.  We're back to "is that your medical opinion, Dr. Wright?"  You've
neither the expertise nor the data to have an opinion.  You've proven it
time and again.

   >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.

   God, I think you actually believe that rot.  "Mind improvement points."
   You sound like a 12-year-old kid who has just discovered Dungeons and
   Dragons.  However, let me quote what one Charlie Martin said in another
   post when I accused him of saying that exercisers were superior not only
   physically, but intellectually, morally, and spiritually as well.

   >Funny, I don't remember saying that.  Does anyone else remember me
   >saying that?  It can't be misquotation, can it?  I mean, could it
   >possibly? 

   Do you actually enjoy setting yourself up to look like a fool?  I
   mean, can it possibly be?

Once again you're having a little trouble with close reading.  I'm tired
of quoting in chunks to show where, but if you read closely you'll
discover that you've rather reslanted what I said -- at best.

   >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.

   At last you have said something that makes sense.  However, *moderate*
   fitness does not require any special exercise program -- just walking
   the dog is enough -- so that's plainly not what we're discussing here.

And once again, we slide away from the point.  A "moderate exercise
program" that includes walking the dog briskly for 30 minutes three
times a week is all that the DUMC -- aren't you rather tired of the
childish DUMB thing yet -- is all that the DUMC book recommends.  It's
considerably more than many people get.  It's also the central point in
my argument that -- since you ahve said that you do that much exercise
-- you must be moderately fit.  Not unfit, as you style yourself.

   >   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.  

   I don't really expect that sort of perfection in another person.  I
   think I was being a bit unclear there.  I was talking more about my
   standards for myself, and what I consider to be my ideal.  I realize
   that I'm not likely to find anyone who exactly matches that ideal (at
   least, not again, but that's another story).  

Hold on a second.  "Not again"?  You mean that you've had a relationship
of this (more or less idealized) sort once, and you've broken up?

The light begins to dawn.

Again, this is inferrence (look it up) but ... first of all, I hope
you'll brace yourself and take seriously for the nonce that I *really*
and *truly* sympathize with how much that hurts.  Honest.  (That's some
of where I am myself right now.)   But then, secondly -- have you
considered the possibility that the reason you have trouble seeing
yourself in another relationship is that you've not completely resolved
your feelings about the last one?

   I am willing to consider
   someone who has a slight interest in sports.  But if it was a major 
   interest -- something that she really wanted to share with the man
   she loved, that's different.  What I really meant by that last sentence 
   was, why should I look for someone who likes to spend her free time 
   playing/watching/talking sports and wouldn't be completely
   satisfied with a man who didn't?  

One thing that seems to keep coming through in what you write is some
very "all or nothing" boolean thinking.  Somehow, this appears to draw
the distinction between someone who only has a very slight interest in
sports and someone who won't be completely satisfied with a man who
doesn't like sports a lot.

But isn't there some room for compromise?  If you found (Edwina -
epsilon), someone who otherwise fit your criteria but had season tickets
to the Cowboys games, would she be unsuitable?  Would you be unwilling
to consider someone who even would like you to go to games with her, if
she otherwise was a good match?

Again, if so, it seems self-defeating: in pretty much any relationship,
there are going to be little mismatches.

   >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."

   Yes, I use the word to mean different things in different contexts.  That's
   because other people use the word to mean different things.  Deal with it.

   Usually I mean reasonably fit.  I'm afraid this term does "oscillate,"
   Charlie, because different people have different ideas of what they
   consider reasonable.  I'm sure, however, that more people would say
   you fall into that category than would say that I do.

Well, "reasonably fit" also has a medical meaning that is "reasonably"
well-defined, and unless you've different habits than I remember from
your last posts, I doubt we're very different.  If you've kept up
walking this summer, you may be ahead of me.  (Never get asthma.  Or
even hay fever.)

   >   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?

   No, I mean "limited."  C.P. Snow's initial thesis was that there are
   two cultures, the humanities and the sciences, and people are generally
   educated (and interested) in one or the other.  In "The Two Cultures 
   Revisited" to say that there were, in fact, many people in the sciences
   who had interests in and kowledge of the humanities, but few people whose
   interests ran the other way:  You'll find many physicists who are interested
   in poetry, but few poets who are interested in physics.

But expecting someone to have an undergrad science degree in order to
demonstrate their interest in that other culture seems a bit extreme,
don't you think?  I don't think weither of us has an English degree, but
that doesn't mean we can't be interested in poetry.  (No matter how much
the credentialists in universities would like to think so.)

   >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.

   If you read my reply to your first posting, you might have gotten
   some clue that was not the case.  Unfortunately, you seem to base
   yur impressions more often on things I didn't write than on things
   I did.

If so, it's the pot calling the kettle black.

   >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. 

   It's not necessary, I already believe that.  I believe I can improve the
   odds by a factor of 10 quite easily and a factor of 100 with some effort.
   Beyond that, I'm not quite so sure.

Arguable.  Hmmm.  This area is a poor sample -- more PhDs per capita
than anywhere else in the world, the Chamber of Commerce says -- but it
seems to me that of 100,000 people in Durham, about 17,000 work in
knowledge-intensive areas (medicine, law, science, engineering.) about
35 percent are in the right age range.  That seems to reduce the
equivalent group here to about 6000 people.  Proportionately, that
should be 60,000 people in Dallas and the odds are 80/60,000... okay,
two orders of magnitude, I'll buy that.  

   >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?

   Charlie, I'm starting to suspect you enjoy "playing dumb," but this
   takes the cake.  Okay, if you really want me to baby-talk you through
   this...

Ever hear of "Socratic method"?  I know what *I* think -- I want to see
what you think.

   First of all, there's the matter of sex.  If I were to have sex on a
   regular basis with all my friends, I'm afraid it would wear me out
   rather quickly.  For my own health and safety, I think it's best that
   I stick with one woman for this.

It's another line of argument entirely, but given "safe sex" the odds
aren't too bad.  However, I'll buy the argument by exhaustion.

   Then there's children.  It would be a major imposition on my friends to
   ask them all to bear and raise my children.  Especially my male friends.
   I'm also not sure I could afford the child support.  

Any of your male friends who bear children will be able to pay for their
own child support through media fees.

   Then there are all the things I wish I had someone to talk to about
   but don't.  The things I haven't been able to find any friends with
   an interst in.  The reason why I am willing to compromise less in a
   selecting a wife than a friend is simple.  I can have as many friends
   as I want, so I don't have to get everything I'm looking for from
   only one friend.  However, in the United States, at least, it's only
   possible to have one wife.

All smart-ass remarks aside, there is a whole *helluva* lot of
perfectionism implicit here: the idea that your wife will have an
interest in all the things in which your friends aren't interested.  The
idea that once you've got your One True Love that you will be completely
satisfied by her, rather than needing to have other friends.

   >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.

   Perhaps.  But if I settle for a woman who doesn't offer what I'm 
   looking for and end up lonely anyway, what have I gained?  At least
   while I'm single I can keep looking.

If you define what you're looking for so closely that *no one* could
possibly satisfy you -- which is the impression you keep giving me and
others -- then you're gonna end up lonely anyway.  I think you *are*
ending up lonely because of it.

Why is it better to be miserable and perfect?

   >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?

   Well, you were the one who *insisted* that I play this sophomoric
   game of yours.  I believe the rules now require that the next sophomoric
   statement be, "Oh, yeah?  You told me to get my head examined first."  But
   I'm really tired of your silly little game, so all I'll say is, grow up. 

Ed, I'm in therapy.  If I suggest to you that therapy might help, it's
because I've found it very useful.  "Check into a psychiatric hospital
and get your head examined" has a very different connotation.

A lot of people who can't tell the difference have real fear that the
psychiatrists will tell them they really *are* crazy.  Or that they'll
reveal Secrets.

   >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.

   I presented it as a refutation of your argument that most people are
   not interested in sports.  There was more than one argument on the
   stack at the time.  Unfortunately, your brain seems capable of
   holding only one argument on its stack.  At least, you like to give
   that impression, so that you can concoct phony misquotations to cover
   your genuine misquotations.  (Which you now refuse to apologize for,
   despite your promise to do so.)

Ed, maybe my stack depth is too small -- I've only got an IQ of 170,
it's entirely possible you're smarter than me -- but so far it looks to
me like every time i've challenged this, you've replied with "was SO".
If it was a misquotation, you should be able to show where it is.  Do
so.

OI've had no trouble quoting your misquotations.

   >   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.  

   I believe it was Little Jimmy Dutton who first identified you as the
   antichrist.  Please give credit where credit is due.  

   >In any case, the logic of what you're saying escapes me: 

   Well, fancy that...

   >Either they like your appearance, dislike your appearance, or don't care.

   Horse feathers.  You're conflating two separate parameters.

Hell, Ed, it's your sentence.

   On a marketing survey, these questions would look like this:

   1) What do you think of the product's appearance?
     a) Like strongly
     b) Like somewhat
     c) Neither like nor dislike
     d) Dislike somewhat
     e) Dislike strongly
     f) Don't know
   2) How strongly would the product's appearance affect
   your decision to purchase or not purchase it?
     a) Strongly influence
     b) Moderately influence
     c) Slightly influence
     d) Not influence at all
     e) Don't know

   As I have said over and over, what I care about is a woman's
   answer to question #2.  I do not care about her answer to question
   #1, despite your mistatements to the contrary.

Okay, let's take this example then:  You want someone who would answer
(c) or (d) to #2.  (Or perhaps you insist on (d) only.)  But "like" and
"dislike" in context must *certainly* be interpreted to connote --
notice the word I chose, Ed -- connote whether or not their actions
would be influenced.  If they would be uninfluenced, they "don't care." 

At the very least, my interpretation is a legitimate one.

   >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.  

   I was originally pissed off because the wolf pack in soc.singles
   was telling people they *shouldn't* date someone who they
   didn't find physically attractive.  (Some people even justified
   this by saying that turning down someone they didn't find physically
   attractive was for the good of the person being turned down.)

I think you slipped up on the connotations again.  I don't think anyone
said -- or intended to say, at least -- that it was *wrong* to date
someone who they didn't find attractive.  Just that it was legitimate
for them to choose attractive people over unattractive people of
appearance was important to them.

There are even reasons to argue that people ought to consider dating
unattractive people -- Dawn and her sweetie being a prime example.  If
*she'd* refused to date him because he was funny looking, she'd have
missed out big time.

But then, those arguments apply to you and your feelings about people
who don't have the right resume too.

   >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.

   I was speaking about my *own* lifestyle, which you chose to attack.
   I'm not into running other people's lives.  I've got a fulltime job
   running my own.  I don't care what the hell you do with your life as
   long as you don't try telling me how to live mine.  You crossed that
   line as soon as you pulled out the DUMB Book of Diet and Fitness.

Well, I don't know.  If you said "I don't care to exercise and I don't
believe any of that medical data" I'd have said "the more fool you
then".  I might have tried to convince you otherwise, but I don't give a
damn if you die young.  It's your choice, just like someone who smokes
cigarettes.

But I certainly read what you said -- and I think by far the majority of
others here read what you said -- as rather stronger: the assertion that
people who *do* exercise for whatever reason are wastrels, not really
intellectual, etc.  Not just *different* but *bad*.

   >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.  

   Or it could be choice C -- not what my post "seemed to say" but what
   it actually *did* say.  That I do know [do not?] meet many women who
   share the same *interests*.  However, you love to set up these little
   dichotomies that are constructed so that they prove your argument
   either way.  Sorry, I'm not going to bite.

You've already bitten, Ed.  That's the problem.  All I can read is what
I read.  I can't know what you *really* mean.  And what I read says that
you don't meet women who share *all* your interests and you can't
imagine spending your life with a woman who doesn't completely fit your
template.  That reads to me as "not worthy of your love."  But if we
go back to what you wrote word for word, it leads to the same hang-up:
you can't find anyone who completely shares your interests, and you
can't spend your life with someone who doesn't completely share your
interests.   The same old hopeless dilemma: there is no one who fits
your needs, and there is no way to compromise.  That leads to a lonely
Ed. 

   >Why are you sensitive about your mother, Ed?

   I'm not.  For what it's worth, you were right the second time.  My
   mother did think I was skinny.  However, you're changing the subject.
   The old Charlie Martin 1-2 punch: first you accuse me of changing the
   subject to avoid your questions, then you change the subject to avoid
   mine.  So, how about an answer, Charlie?  Since you were making up facts
   you could not possibly know, why didn't you at least make up a consistent
   set of facts?

Go back and check out the sentence: there were a number of
possibilities, each separated by "or".  A list of hypothetical
possibilities.  Now, I admit I didn't include in that list any direct
oppositions, but I don't think anyone literate in English would have
trouble interpreting the sentence.  Would it have been less consistent,
or more consistent, if I'd have said "Mom said you were too skinny, or
too fat,..."?  Choose the ones that fit; since one choice was "or
something" there is certainly at least one that could fit.

But, frankly, I don't believe you misunderstood the sentence in the
slightest. 

   >   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.

   >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.

   Most of those explanations don't explain why she later refused my phone
   calls.  And the others are so silly I can't believe even you believe
   them.  Or are you going to pull out the DUMB Book of Physical Fitness
   and quote me statistics on the number of women who have bladder attacks
   when they see gorgeous men?

No, I'm going to syuggest that a self-confident mature man would have
said "fuck her, then" and gotten on with life.  You *don't* appear to be
getting on with life.  It's been -- how many months? -- since the first
postings and you stilll seem to be stuck on the same old problem.  Hell,
even the same old arguments.

   >   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.

   I do not consider physical attractive or physical fitness to be an
   admirable characteristic.  If you read the things I wrote, you might
   have noticed that I mentioned that, oh, 50 or 60 times.  How many more
   times do I have to repeat it before I reach comprehension level?

Do you then consider them un-admirable?  I know what you *wrote*, Ed --
but it doesn't seem to stand up to scrutiny.

   As far as the opposite sex is concerned, well, if someone turns
   me down, I don't assume that proves I'm worthless or inferior.
   I am not responsible for other people's taste.  This is called
   self-esteem, Charlie.  It is the exact opposite of your twisted
   version which involves constantly blaming oneself for failing to
   live up to other people's judgement.

   Besides, I never wanted to be a "ladies man."  As long as I find
   one lady before I die, I will have succeeded completely.

   >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?

   This is based on the assumption that I would be happier with a
   serving girl/topless dancer who does not provide the things I
   am looking for than I am now.  I am not convinced that is the
   case.

But, Ed, you've demonstrated mathematically -- to your own satisfaction
if not mine -- that what you are looking for is LITERALLY a million to
one shot.  I think that your standards aren't just high -- my standards
are damned high -- but impossibly high.  And that you can't conceive of
any compromise that might lead to a happier life.

So do you want to be 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.
Newsgroups: soc.singles