From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: why *seek* (additional) relationships? (anon post for Alan Hardy)
Date: 26 Aug 92 09:26:36
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: twpierce@amhux1.amherst.edu's message of Wed, 26 Aug 1992 13:13:03 GMT

Alan Hardy writes:
>Muffy says:

>> relationship.  I'm curious about this, particularly because I have never
>> sought out people for relationships.  I discussed this with my lovers
>I've only ever heard four (now five) people express this sentiment
>before, and all four were attractive, personable women in
>male-dominated professions.  They apparently believed that one doesn't
>need to make an active effort to look for potential partners---you
>just run into them all the time.

Well, I do not think that this describes me very accurately.  I am
indeed in a male-dominated profession, but that's about it.  The primary
reason that I do not pursue partners is that I am exceedingly shy and
don't have good social skills.  In fact, I'm a pretty typical computer
person in that respect.  I *never* initiate conversations, I don't go
out alone, I sit in corners at parties because I figure that people
wouldn't really want to talk to me.  The secondary reason is that the
one time I actually made an effort to get involved with someone, the
person lost interest in about a week.  As you probably know, getting
your courage up to ask that first person out is very hard, and I just
couldn't bring myself to do it again, after it failing like that.

So, I personally *can't* seem to pursue relationships.  However, I have
thought about it and observed it and it *also* seems to be a much less
successful strategy than meeting people and seeing if you like them and
*then* considering a relationship, once it seems that both sides have
some interest.

>I suspect that that's exactly the
>world they experience. (A world which, by the way, I don't envy.  If a
>bigshot in my field says they want to talk about my research over
>dinner, I can be confidently proud in my work, rather than having the
>naggy, unhappy worry that they're really trying to get in my pants.)

You know, I have NEVER had this "worry."  I have always been taken quite
seriously by the people I work with.  I realize that it is a problem for
a lot of women, but, again, this does not describe how *I* live.  So, I
guess your number reduces back to 4.

>> Anyway, so...I'd like to hear from people who actively seek out
>> relationships, particularly when you are already in one.  It is

>Well, there's a bunch of issues here, including:

>>1. How one meets new people, including people they potentially will
>get involved with: what recreational activities you're involved with,
>how gregarious you are with strangers when waiting in lines, your
>body language, etc., etc.

Let's see.  No recreational activities alone (other than netnews...
*grin*), few with friends.  Gregarious in mind, but incapable in
reality.  In lines?  I generally have a book.  I'm not quite sure what
this has to do with *why* people pursue relationships...it seems to be
more *how*.

>>2. How conscious you are that your choices (conscious or
>unconscious) from the above affect your odds of meeting people, and
>how much you tune your choices to improve those odds.

I find, on the whole, that I meet a very interesting group of people
very slowly.  A good friend of mine could talk to *anyone*.  He would
talk to people wherever he went.  He would always run into a few people
he knew wherever we went.  He was also extremely attractive and
intelligent.  More than half of the people he knew/met were women (he
was only interested in women).  Nonetheless, he had *great* difficulty
in finding relationships.  I don't think that increasing the number of
people you meet has as much to do with forming new relationships as
meeting the *right* people.  He knew a lot of great people; I know a
few.  The ones I know, though, have more interest in *me*, specifically,
rather than just someone who's nice and intelligent and easy to talk to.

>>3. How much your distinguish between the things you do to meet
>new friends and the things you do to meet new lovers. 

No difference.

>I've found concentrating all my sexual and romantic and affectional
>interest in one person doesn't lead to happiness for me.

It doesn't seem to work for me, either...*smile*.  That's why I'm here,
eh?  However, for me, it's not that I have to have more than one, just
that I don't like being limited to one.  If I never meet anyone besides
my SO who I am interested in getting involved with, I will be happy.
However, if I do meet such a person (and I have), then I would be
unhappy if I could not pursue the relationship to whatever point we are
happy with, whether that's friends, lovers, partners, etc.

>So I'm looking for more than one.

Will just any additional person (or people) be enough, though?  I mean,
how many do you think you need?  I guess that's the main thing that
puzzles me...for me, the goal is getting close to a particular person,
and if there is no person, that's fine too.  I think I would be very
unhappy if I felt that I had to have any number of relationships (one or
more) to be happy, even if I *did* have that number.  I guess I don't
want to be dependent on other people.  Of course, I *am* happier having
people who really care about me around...*SMILE*.

Muffy

--

Muffy Barkocy | muffy@mica.berkeley.edu | wi.4636@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn