From: DeadHead@cup.portal.com (Bruce M Ong)
Newsgroups: ba.singles
Subject: Re: Cars and Other Fun Stuff (wasRe: Turning 30!!)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 13:46:06 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: ba
  <grismore-080193111108@macb055.mv.us.adobe.com>
  <1993Jan10.232743.401@netcom.com>

Desiree wrote:
>In an article Doug Grismore writes:
>
>[comments relative to advertising's influence (or non) on society
>deleted]
>
>>  Being single and being alone are two different things, though, (at
>>least for me...) and it's this difference that seems to make *all* the
>>difference in this discussion (should it go somewhere beyond the challenge
>>to *have* a conversation...)
>
>	Exactly.  Which brings about a question.  How many people out there
>are happy being alone?  Just being alone. Doing things by yourself?
>
	Depends on my mood and the day's events, etc. I restaurant- and club-
hopped my way through friday and saturday and on sunday afternoon I just
locked myself in my apt and listened to Mahler and Rachmaninoff and Strauss. 
I like it when being alone is a reward that I give myself so that I can 
retreat back into my little spiritual sanctuary (music, reading, writing
to penpals, rowing, cooking,etc); however, I dont think i can be happy being 
alone all the time; that will drive me crazy. I think I am happy being alone 
when I choose to be alone.  There are times that I absolutely want social 
contact and that's why spontaneous friends are cool. [Hmmm. maybe that's why
I moved from south bay to San Francisco].  I know people who tell me
that they'd be absolutely delighted to live in Montana on a ranch just by
themselves. Well, I am not there yet. Maybe in 10 more years of time....

>	The way I see it is if somebody is happy being alone, then they
>don't have a problem with being single either.  Thus, they are not
>influenced one way or another by the advertising media.  
>
	I think happiness in being alone is somewhat of a situational 
happiness. I wrote earlier about the  issue related to the feeling of 
'completeness' in one's life. And I still would stick to my guns and say
that the desire to find the 'other half' of your being so that you can
have a complementary (not complimentary) co-existence together is inborn,
and the media amplifies that desire.

	Sure. I think that  there are people who are *absolutely* happy
at all times on their own. The story of the Buddha and his experience sitting
under the Bo Tree offers such an example -- he was so happy about his
attainment of the absolute happiness under the Bo Tree by himself that he 
originally did not want to return back to humanity and tell the rest of the
people what he had seen and achieved, and it was only after the Gods implored
him to return back to humanity did he do so. But - that's very rare, to achieve
the constant happiness alone. I know I am not there. And if you are there,
I am happy for you...


>	Looking from a different angle at this.  The media really does
>a bangup job on portraying an "ideal woman" image.  I say that if
>somebody is content with their image as a woman, they are not
>suspectible to this ideal image.  

	I think we are all trying to achieve an 'ideal' image of ourselves;
and once we are there, we are happy. However, each one of us has a different
expectation of what we should be. There are people whose goals in life are
set very low (by my own standards) and there are people whose goals in life
are set very high. There are slackers who are perfectly happy doing nothing
but hanging out in cafes all day, making enough $ to pay the rent. And there
are ambitious people who are driven by a challenge to themselves to find out
just how much they can do with their own lives. I belong to the latter and
I have trouble with slacking... I know we are discussing 'image' here
but the image I am talking about is not just external - but rather both.

	[Yes, your suspicion is true. I do like nietzsche's superman 
philosophy -- that man has to overcome himself in order to become better, but
I digress...]


>Myself, I can appreciate aspects of
>the "ideal" from an artistic viewpoint, fashion viewpoint etc., but I
>don't rush out to buy the clothing that the woman is wearing, in order
>to make myself into the ideal.  I don't diet to achieve a death-camp

	The weird thing is that the person will have to fit the clothes --
not just size-wise. A lot of women would wear the latest fashion but they
just cant carry it off -- they look rather silly. Was at cafe du nord sat
night and in there was this table around which sat about 10 brunettes all 
in their little coco chanel black dresses -- they had the red lipstick, white 
make up (painted face white?), cigarette in hand, etc. and each one of them 
looked absolutely stunning because they just had that attitude or something to
carry it off. But too often i have seen people wearing gorgeous dresses that
look totally 'odd' on them.

	[oops. digression again. but fashion and arts are so much more fun
to talk about]

	[stuff deleted for brevity]
>>  Driving around in a
>>stylish convertible with someone that (insert societal faction here) finds
>>incredibly attractive would garner more attention from (insert members of
>>said societal faction) and if that was what you were into, then that would
>>be even *MORE* fun.
>
>	If you are into that, I suppose so.  But to me, driving around is
>not a "see and be seen" gig.  I like to drive around because I enjoy
>it -- or I enjoy driving the car -- the car itself amuses me, or whatever.
>But not because I've got an incredible looking houseboy strapped in
>next to me that the babes on the street are going to start dripping over.
>

	maybe not a house boy but how about a Goth Boy? ;-)

	I like miatas because it reminds me of a historical period. It's
'retro' -- i like art deco and all that retro stuff (if i had the money
I would decorate my apt art deco style). A miata would be the ultimate 
deco/retro toy. I can just see it now: red miata, topless, Edith Piaf on
the cd player singing <<La vie en rose>>, driving down highway 1 near
Big Sur... that'd be like jumping back in time. (except the cd player is
somewhat of an anachronism)

>Desiree

--
/bruce 		"HONK if you are an Edith Piaf fan!"
Newsgroups: ba.singles