From: jmd@bear.com (Josh Diamond)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Hints (Was Re: What is attractive)
Date: 10 Nov 92 19:23:03 GMT
	<1992Nov9.223025.20244@b8.b8.ingr.com>
Organization: Bear, Stearns & Co. - FAST
In-reply-to: larry@b8.b8.ingr.com's message of 9 Nov 92 22:30:25 GMT


In article <1992Nov9.223025.20244@b8.b8.ingr.com> larry@b8.b8.ingr.com (Larry Billings) writes:

   In article <74081@apple.Apple.COM>, stef@Apple.COM (Stef Jones) writes:
   > larry@b8.b8.ingr.com (Larry Billings) writes:
   > 
   > >One of the first things I tell all the
   > >women I date, if it looks like things are going to go somewhere, is my 
   > >inability to "catch hints".  
   > 
   > Do you expect all instances of misunderstanding to be automatically
   > forgiven before the fact, just because you say you can't catch hints? 

   No but I would expect her to realize that I might have missed that "obvious"
   sign/hint, and either give a stronger hint or slap me upside the face and
   tell me what she wants.

To quote a friend of mine, we are not a society of mind readers...

   long term/perhaps lifetime relationship.  I explained my inability to figure
   out "hints" which she seemed to accept, but never told me what she wanted 
   me to do/not do.  I never figured it out, we broke up.  Now I think I know
   what she wanted, but I'm still only guessing.

Did you ever think of just coming out and asking her outright "what do
you want?"  -- with conviction, making it obvious that you will really
listen to the answer?  Why is it that people always make it so fuckin'
hard?  JUST ASK HER WHAT SHE WANTS!  ASK REGULARLY!  And tell her what
you want.  Remember: if she isn't willing to tell you, then you
haven't shown up for her as being open to the answer.

   > Or do your SOs refuse to forgive you even after you've offered a sincere
   > apology?

   Usually my apology is accepted, but the hurt feelings and bad times could
   have been avoided.  I'm still looking for a school on understanding women.

Remember that the basis of the word "forgive" is "to give as before".
We seem to have this societal belief that if someone apologizes they
are entitled to forgiveness.  So we apologize without feeling, and we
then forgive s/he who has apologized even when they have not
acknowledged the broken promise.  Unfortunately, most apologies are
merely a way of making our broken committments OK, without
acknowledging that we broke our word.

I prefer to acknowledge my broken committment, and only then ask
forgiveness.   I want to hear that the person to whom I made the
committment understands that I know, and accept responsibility for
breaking my word, before asking forgiveness.

Apology and forgiveness are all tied up together with the concepts of
intimacy and compassion.  We cannot apologize until we have had
compassion (literally: a sharing of emotion) for the person we have
wronged.  For instance, how can I apologize for saying something which
hurt someone without sharing the pain which they felt?

   Despite several close female friends I'm nowhere close to knowing how thier
   minds work.  I think I have a roadmap of my mind printed on my face.

In a certain sense we all, male or female, wear a roadmap of our minds
visibly -- that roadmap is our actions.  It is imposible for us to act
without our minds affecting the action.

But in another sense, we cannot ever know how anothers mind works --
we can only examine ourselves, and ask the question "how do I need
to be such that I achieve my goal?" -- especially when the goal is to
create and maintain intimacy with another human being.



Spidey!!!


				What are you pretending not to know?
--
 /\ \  / /\  Josh Diamond                                          jmd@bear.com
//\\ .. //\\ AKA Spidey!!!                        ...!ctr.columbia.edu!ursa!jmd
//\((  ))/\\
/  < `' >  \                                              Do whatever it takes.