From: callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan)
Subject: Re: Books & MY New Year's
Organization: Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department, Baltimore, MD
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 21:00:39 GMT

pmarlowe@noncomf.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (philip marlowe) writes:

> That's illogical as all hell.
> The getting-hit-by-a-truck scenario is out of your control, practically 
>an act of god. To compare that with romance or sex or whatever is 
>ludicrous...hell, I can't even rebut your analogy because it's so off 
>base.

You call me illogical, and then you state exactly the point I was making.  
I don't understand.  

You told Hagop Janoyan, who posted intially: 

>I totally understand your opinion that "Some day, it'll 
>happen to you"-type advice is small consolation, but it's like those 
>annoying things that your parents always told you. You don't want to hear 
>it, but it's the truth.

I simply pointed out that this is not the *truth*.  For example, he might
get hit by a truck first.  That would be entirely *out of his control*,
as you point out.

The other thing is that he might do everything right and just keep striking 
out.  Just like you could keep flipping a coin and it could keep coming up
tails (with vanishing probability, assuming a fair coin).  To use an example 
from my own life, the last two times I met a woman I really liked, she just 
happened to move away before things had a chance to get going.  In both cases, 
we were getting to be good friends, and I hadn't managed to alienate her (I 
don't alienate women anymore--I think--but I have to take things very 
cautiously).

Maybe the confusion, as regards the truck, is that I was not making an
*analogy*; I was stating a *fact*.  I like analogies.  I like metaphors too.  
But my more natural mind-set is sober reflection on unembellished reality.  I 
might even agree that what you said has a "degree of truth" in sort of a vague 
fuzzy way.  However, it is not "the truth."

No, I don't believe in fate.  I don't believe that some of us are marked
at birth to be lonely throughout our lives.  However, I do believe that there
are people who, through no personal fault of behavior or attitude, live and 
die alone.  All kinds of bad things can happen to people; why not this?  I'm 
not suggesting that anyone become a defeatist.  I am suggesting that if bad 
things do happen, learn to live with them.

Sometimes I think my standards in women are too high, at least relative to 
what I have to offer.  Maybe in this way I doom myself to a life alone.  It's
entirely possible.  On the other hand, I don't really mind being alone,
so I'm willing to hold out longer than a lot of other people.

In some ways, I agree, that if Hagop Janoyan can convince himself of what you
say, he will be better equipped to meet women.  But this does not make it the 
truth.  It is a lie, or at the very least an oversimplification.  I would be a 
happier person if I could make myself believe it, but short of a frontal 
lobotomy (or that wonderful temporary substitute) nothing can cause my mind
to accept such nonsense.  I envy your ability in this regard.
--
Paul Callahan (callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu)   
..who wouldn't mind Usenet so much, 
except you have to go out for espresso,
and there's nobody shouting "Go, Daddy, Go!"