Newsgroups: soc.singles
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 11:34:22 -0400 
From: "Peter A. Simon" <ps3p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Avoiding dating married people


>> I have a second line going into my study.  I keep the ringer on the
>> phone disabled and it is hooked up to an answering machine.  >>When a
woman I am dating asks for my number, this is the one she >>gets. 
>>
>>So Michele, your paranoia is wasted.
>> 
> 
>I never claimed it was fool proof. I also don't think it is paranoia.
>There are not a lot of good reasons in my mind to refuse to give a
>home number to someone one date.
> 
>If asking for one is considered by you paranoid, so be it. I
>don't care. 
> 
>And do you also lie to women when they ask you if you are married?
> 
>I may be paranoid, but may be it is people like you who 
>create the doubting atmosphere that hurt truthful people .
> 
>I have no problems with married people dating, I just have no
>interest in dating a married man. 
> 
>Michele
> 
>P.S. Getting a phone number is also a practical idea, as it is
>the best way to advise of an unplanned change of plan.
> 
> 
>-- 
>Michele Guillet 			The Communications Research Centre 
>3701 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA, K2H 8S2	tel:613-998-2384
>Internet: michele@dgbt.doc.ca	
 

Dear Michele,

I am not married.  I responded as I did because I am sick of being
treated with suspicion by women.  I am who I am and I am up-front about
it.  I have slowly come to accept, though, through hearing the horrible
or sad stories of my women friends, that women have good reason to be
cautious in dating situations.  However, being a man, I would not date
someone twice who I would not trust with not only my phone number but
home address.

Furthermore, if a woman is SO damaged by past experiences that she feels
she needs my number to "check-up" on me, I would have to be in a very
laid-back space to afford the time and patience to develop a caring
relationship. Not that I would think her silly, or that she wasn't
emotionally justified in being scared, nor not empathize with her fully
(even as a man, I have my scars from existing in a patriarchal,
tyrannistic society), it's just that I'm open and I need in the people I
hang out with, if not openness, then at least the ability and
willingness to trust.

Life is too short to play games, and women I have met who exhibit your
attitude are, in my eyes, game players.  If you can't see past the norm,
the masses, your past experiences, who you are now, to who I am, and
what you could be in a better world that only you can create by
believing in it, believing and acting as if people can be good, then I
regretfully leave you to wallow where you are.

When I lived in Vancouver I was struck by all the single women WHO WERE
NOT AVAILABLE.  It's not that they lived happy, satisfied,
self-contained lives in their cell block-like high-rises, feeling
fulfilled in their professional capacities, believing, like the
graffitum I saw chalked on a Paris sidewalk, "Une femme besoin d'homme
comme un pisce besoin de la bicyclette."  They were just plain lonely,
trapped in some paranoid world certainly not of MY making.  It was their
loss, and I felt sorry for them.

Am I married?  ASK ME.  Am I in a significant primary relationship?  ASK
ME.  What do I want of you, if what I have already told you is not
clear?  ASK ME.  But, having asked, check up on me?  You're history.

Peter

Newsgroups: soc.singles