From: Bathsheba.Grossman@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Bathsheba Grossman)
Subject: Re: Believe in youself, dammit!
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 21:32:27 GMT

In article <kiran.716377022@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> kiran@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Kiran Wagle) writes:
>kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>>A number of things came out of these classes.  The first is that you
>>*never* get entirely comfortable with initiating a conversation with
>>someone you don't know.  There is a good reason for this: when you do
>>so, you are putting yourself on the line to some extent (however small).
>
>I have no trouble initiating conversations with strangers.  After all,
>I don't know them and they don't know me, so what's the big deal if we
>don't get on?  Their loss, not mine, after all.

Kiran, you're weird, and furthermore I don't believe you B).  If it doesn't
start out easy, it isn't going to get that way, and sometimes, yes, it is a
big deal.  The trick is to use that fear, the same way I imagine it's used
in driving a fast car near the limit of safety: to set you on your mettle,
jack up your perception and reflexes beyond normal levels, go into overdrive.
"Making" someone, for me, is like shooting the curl or free-climbing, in
that the terror and risk enable me to read signals and produce conversation
with what seems in retrospect like supernatural awesomeness.

The awkwardness won't go away is my guess, but with a little experience,
when you feel that the subject is worth going balls-out for, it may finally
be useful.  I think this sort of 'hyperspace personality' (s2s) is a fringe
benefit of being alienated: if I were comfortable with humans it would
never happen.

<correct party behavior>
>This seems too commonsense to bother to say it.
<aggressively talking to people>
>Again, this seems so obvious that it doesn't need saying.
Feeling a little catty today are we Sr. Wagle.

>>Next time I'm giving them my phone number if I find them interesting
>>enough.  Then they can call me, or not.  Their choice, but at least...
>Ya shoulda done it this time.  Or asked for hers.  (Giving a woman
>your phone number is only effective if you live on a street where
>women call men and *gasp* even ask men out sometimes.)

Cheest, lay off already - at least a) it's all in one post this time and
b) hope may be on the way.  I think giving her your number is a
more-likely-to-succeed move, since, as Kevin notes, everyone likes to be in
control, and nearly all psychopaths are men.  But since she smokes, never
mind.

>>and brush them off.  I won't put any *real* feelings into this until I
>>sense something like that from the person I'm dealing with.  But I'll
>>learn how to fake it (if necessary), so I can entice her into developing
>>such feelings, so I can bootstrap the whole process without risking my

Oh, Kevin, this is a disgraceful thing to say.  This attitude is totally
subversive to any kind of affection or trust.  What makes you think you
deserve something you're not willing to give?  Mark my words - for
anything worth having, you'll pay, and pay, like we all do.  Yes, you're
one of us, will or nill.  But unless and until you lose this "faking it"
business, you'll attract no one but a few idiots, and get no good even of
them.

Anyway I thought you just got through telling us that you don't have any
*real* feelings.

-Sheba
i once was an innocent kit
with a collar my neck to fit
and bells tied on to it
then a maltese cat came by
with a come-hither look in his eye
i followed adown the street
the pad of his rhythmical feet			-archy and mehitabel
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