From: feirtag@i5120b.nrl.navy.mil (Fred Feirtag)
Newsgroups: alt.romance
Subject: Re: How does this happen?
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:22:42 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.214156.17595@javelin.sim.es.com>, pashdown@javelin.sim.es.com (Pete Ashdown) writes:
|> pfleming@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Patrick E Fleming) writes:
|> 
|> >So what in the hell makes people feel so damned undeserving of love?  Why can't
|> >some people allow themselves to feel loved?  Why can't some people indulge 
|> >themselves in the right to be imperfect and still be loved anyhow?
|> 
|> Because, in a sense, it is boring.  No challenges, no moral stimulation, and
|> usually no intellectual stimulation.  Lovey dovey is fun for about a week, but
|> then you have to think about the rest of your life.

      [some lines of good advice about valuing oneself deleted]

|> upset as well.  However, EVERY time I slam down the phone or SLAM the car door
|> I find her calling me back a few hours later, walking up my doorstep, or just
|> somehow meeting me in an apologetic state. . . .

Pete--

      Please do let us know how this progresses.  Based on my
experiences, I am not optimistic, but I hope I am wrong.

      I had a girlfriend who, at one point, didn't want to continue
our relationship, because there was not enough "Drama" in it.  She
particularly liked late night (or early a.m.--to be more accurate)
phone calls.  I was concerned about this (and a few other things
too) from early on, but I thought there were a lot of good things
about her, too.  I figured that it was easy to be a little more
dramatic FOR A WHILE, and that she would eventually settle into
a more stable routine.  Silly me.  When will I ever learn that
people don't change--at least not much, not quickly, and not if
they don't themselves want to?  So if you can't change people, then
it really doesn't matter why "people feel so ..." or why they "can't
allow themselves ..."

      Life gives us all a mixed set of circumstances.  Some of us
do a good job of "accentuating the positive and minimizing the
negative."  At the other end of the spectrum, some of us seem to
do just the reverse.  So I see two very different dimensions:
one is activity and the other is attitude:


                         Positive Attitude
                                 +
                                /|\
                                 |
                  Serenity       |      Excitement
                                 |
                                 |
 Low Activity <------------------+-------------------> High Activity
                                 |
                                 |
                  Boredom        |       Turmoil
                                 |
                                \|/
                                 +
                         Negative Attitude


Some people expect these two dimensions to be dependent upon each
other.  I won't claim there's no connection, but I don't think
there's much.  Take the activity which a relationship is bound to
provide and call it excitement.  If the pace slows down, call it
serenity.  Just don't let your partner drag you in the negative
direction.  Life is too short to deal with "phone slamming"
turmoil.  Easier said than done.  Right? 8-)

-- 

Fred Feirtag                    |
Naval Research Lab, Code 5120   | "It's got to be a cover:
Washington, DC  20375           |    No one's life could be this boring."
feirtag@wave.nrl.navy.mil       |            --Susan (Madonna)
(202) 404 - 8502                |
Newsgroups: alt.romance