From: mlloyd@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Lloyd)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Eric apologises (was Re: whatever . . .)
Date: 10 Sep 92 19:15:02 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

Hmm. I sent Eric a note, prompted by the friction generating around
his responses to Ellen, Ciaran and Sara.  He replied, apologetically,
and as you can see below, asked me to post his note.  I feel a little
strange doing that (posting mail), but he asked me to.  Share and enjoy!
Unfortunately, he didn't quote chunks of my letter to him.  If anyone
is desperately interested, I think I have it somewhere.  Bascially, I
suggested he had mis-caught the etiquette of soc.bi by not reading
enough of it prior to posting, and that I wasn't at all surprised that
he had provoked negative responses, given the tone of his article.

Mike
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Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 10:56:45 PDT
From: "Eric C. S. Dynamic" <ecsd@com.tfs>
To: mlloyd@uk.ac.ed.castle
Subject: I stand revealed

(Subject: I stand revealed)
as a near idiot, I guess. I don't know how to pronounce "Ciaran", except
as "Sharon", and for some reason I implicitly assumed he was a female.
That being so, the response tied into some big themes I'm trying to get
clear about. I know I exactly want to accumulate wisdom and perspective
before I make assertions, and this evening's round shows I'm still in a
bad way around reactive anger. I determined I'd got Ellen's intentions wrong,
and sent her an apology. With the other two, this is a syndrome I've been
aware of, to let the other person assume the form of an archetypal thing
I want to kill, and try to kill it, only to find they weren't holding the
position I thought and I had needlessly damaged feelings. It's dysfunctional,
but at the moment I still know that "it is quicker than I am"; for now until
I learn how to get ahead of it, I have to cut my losses by noting that even
if I was dead wrong in recognizing the situation, I still had my fight with
the archetype. I have to find a balance between doing, saying and engaging
with nothing, and pulling out all the stops.

You are right about the venue. I locked into it because I thought it was a
place where I could work these things out. Apparently the mistake with the
little sliver of Ellen's note had me thinking the topic was active in soc.bi.

I'm not bisexual that I know. For a while I was willing to characterize myself
so because I'm open to same-sex sex. Now I think it's probably not true
because my emotional desires center around women, and when I ask what sort
of man I would be a lover with, I can't think of any male I know who'd work
out. Meanwhile, I'm not much interested in hearing about hot-tub escapades
in Edinburgh, so I will get out of it.

I guess if I want to _reconcile_ my male and female sides, _reconciliation_
is better sought in soc.women, soc.feminism and soc.men. I also have more
spewing to do (frightening to know it in advance, eh?), so hot things in
those categories, and alt.flame, better venues.

As regards having been rude, I am sorry, as of as you depict it, walking into
a storefront selling beer and demanding dry stores in a loud voice does not
make anyone happy. On the other hand, I also know something curiously occult;
people I touch were to be touched. The engagement teaches on both sides, even
if the 'lesson' regards entirely different issues. Ciaran and Sara reacted
to an initial infringement in a negative way, and what they received in
return was negativity. I entered making a mistake of presumption, but I was
met with same. I, in my finite wisdom, escalated.

Here you are, and you did what they might have thought to do: explain what
was going on, without presuming that my intentions were set-negative. (Concept
of slack.) I am grateful to you, and you have reminded me once again I still
need a great deal of tempering, and this has happened with no gnashing of teeth
whatever. So Dale Carnegie strikes again.

Clueless is right. I'll never call someone named Ciaran a 'she' again.
Well, I have the exchange on paper, ready to excerpt from when I really
am in the context I think I am.

I'll save this to post later. This will stand as my apology. But if I
may ask you a favor, that you could post this there for me, because it'll
be a while before I'll be back on the net. I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again.

-ecsd
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-- 
Mike Lloyd                         | B0/1 h- f- t w- c g+ k(+) s m- e? 
Retro-hippy, music nut, bi and     | "The Trouble with Normal is it
owner of a one-track mind:         |  Always Gets Worse" - Bruce Cockburn
   "thesis .. thesis .. thesis"    |    (-:   F**k Your Gender!  :-)
Newsgroups: soc.bi