From: greg@pomona.claremont.edu (Tigger)
Subject: Re: LOVE sucks. No question about it.
Organization: Pomona College
Date: 7 Apr 92 16:06:41 PDT

In article <1992Apr7.174021.12605@ultra.com>, stcroix@ultra.com (Bill St. Croix) writes:
>
> Whenever you open yourself up for anything, you risk being hurt.  When you
> have a job interview, you are very vunerable.  They could ask you a question
> and you not know the answer of have a *good* answer.  But do you stop looking
> for a job???

If not getting the job caused me so much pain that I contemplated ending
my life, yes I probably would stop looking for a job.

> And when you have such a negative view about something, it is impossible
> to be rational about it.  It seems that you fear even allowing yourself
> to *hear* that some people are happy with a woman.  Is it that unthinkable
> to you that a man and woman can be happy together??

No, not at all.  I have seen a few real till-death-do-us-part marriages.
But they seem to be few and far between.  I have no problems hearing
that some people are happy with a woman.  More power to them, and I
sincerely wish them luck.  To be honest with you, part of me is even
jealous.  But my experience is that the odds are it won't last, and I
definately don't envy the pain that is probably coming.  And yes, I
do believe it is "probably" rather than "possibly."  That is my experience.
It's a benefit/risk analysis, if you want to put it in such cold terms,
and at this point in my life, I just don't see that it is a favorable
one.

> With an attitude of "Love Sucks", I doubt that you'll find a woman that
> would want to be with you.

I'm sure you're right.  And on top of that, I don't trust women at all
on an emotional level right now.  So even if I found some poor masochistic
woman who was willing to deal with me, I wouldn't be able to trust her
enough for love to develop on my end.  I'm well aware of all this, and
I freely admit it.  That's the main reason that the only "hunting" I've
done lately has been in meat-market bars.  I'm not going to waste my
time or hers looking for anything more anywhere else.

> You need to let go of those past people and realize that you learned
> a great deal about what you want from the next person that comes into your
> life.  As long as you keep making constant comparisions (some comparisions
> are bound to come up), you aren't going to get anywhere.  Noone likes
> to be compared to someone else, especially on a romantic level.  It would
> be like your SO telling you that of all the lovers s/he had, you were in
> the middle range...it would be embarrassing and it would be hard to face
> that person again.

This is an old lesson, but no less true for its age.  Fortunately I
learned it a long time ago.  Right now I may well be viewing most of
the female half of the species through lenses colored by experience
with only a handfull or two, but that's not exactly a comparison of
the sort you're talking about.  And at any rate, I'm not trying to
get close to any women on an emotional level right now, so who cares
what kind of comparisons I might be making?

> Well, until you get rid of that negative thinking, you will continue to
> fail at love.  I guess you might as well join a monastery or something.

I've considered it, but mountaintops in Tibet are just too damn cold.

> I used to have an attitude like Greg's.  I got shit on pretty heavily, but
> I decided to put my new found *knowledge* to work for me.  I was able to
> find someone who had the same values as I do and will treat me the same as
> I treat her.  In 11 days, she will be my wife!

Congratulations, and I wish you the best of luck.  I hope things work
out better for you than for most.

|  Greg Orman                               greg@pomona.claremont.edu  |
|                      Live to ride, Ride to live                      |
|          Man's Best Friends:  a Harley, a Baretta and a Gund         |
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