From: monaghn@garnet.berkeley.edu (Mara Monaghan)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Females have it easy!
Date: 21 Dec 92 00:39:02 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: esb1mac18.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Dec19.063345.24174@cs.ucla.edu>, gds@york.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner) writes:
> 
* In article <1grgmiINNq52@agate.berkeley.edu> monaghn@garnet.berkeley.edu (Mara Monaghan) writes:
> > steven.m.stein wrote:
> >> In other words, women may have to deal with 20 men
> >> before she is approached by one she's attracted to,
> >> whereas we could luck out after the 8th or 9th approach.

> >First a quibble about your choice of words: I think of "deal" as
> >having a negative connotation.  (My Webster's dictionary defines this
> >usage as: "to take action with regard to someone or something, ex. to
> >deal with an offender").  *I* don't use "deal" when I referring to
> >people because I don't like the cold image it projects.
> 
> Hmmm.  I have gotten the impression from some women that a guy
> expressing interest in them is somewhat of an invasive thing, at least
> in the sense that if she gave no indication of interest on her part,
> his interest is most unexpected and unwelcome.  I don't know if it is
> just me, but I tend not to feel that my "space" has been entered if
> someone's interested in me.  On the other hand, I am not approached by
> jerks and slime constantly who (may be) threatening my safety, so
> that's why I may be more open.
> 
* So if your generalization is wrong (re: weekly offers) and the women
* you "approach" are not overwhelmed with other offers, why are you
* having to approach 8 or 9 women before you "luck out" ?  (BTW, what do
* you mean by "approaching", "luck out", and "offers"? Just curious) I
* think this ties into my earlier comment about the technique being
* inappropriate for the women involved.  Are you trying get to know
* them or just pick 'em up?
> 
> I'd like to know why you chose to phrase your question in this way.
> It may be that for every 9 or 10 women that he meets, befriends, and
> is romantically interested in, only one is romantically interested in
> him.
> 
> --gregbo

Why did I phrase my question that way?  Even after
rereading his posting several times, I still wasn't
sure what he meant by  "approaching," "offers"
and "luck out" hence the BTW question. I guess
the most influential of his ambiguous terms was 
"approaching."  "Approaching" gave me the
impression of an initial meeting, perhaps a
self-introduction. "Offers" was also completely
ambiguous as to what was being offered. "Luck out"
implied that an unidentified fortuitous end result
was achieved. I wrote that sentence after I decided
that he wasn't an encyclopedia salesman :-) (hee)
Anyway, I intentially wrote it using the two opposite 
ends of "the real reason for introduction" spectrum
as to get some sort of reply out from bill the cat.

If you have been following this thread, you will
have noticed that most of women responding had
some trouble deciphering what bill the cat meant.
Is this one of those "men say it this way, women
say it that way" misunderstanding? At least part
of this misreading problem was due, to(IMHO)
his word choice in his original posting.
If he had written: "It's seems that for every
10 women I meet, befriend, and become romantically
interested in only one of them feels the same
way about me," I think that the responses
would've basically agreed with him. Oh, there
would've been some comments about the "females
have it easy" subject line and the rest
would've been about the appropriate
percentage (90%, 95%, 98% rejection etc.). 

As it is, the net.readers have had to muddle out
what bill the cat meant, with the occasional
bill the cat posting either agreeing or
disagreeing with the translation used by
a net.poster. So where does this thread go now
that we, the net.readers, know the actual meaning
of the post? I am afraid that this one must 
remove herself from the limelight. Christmas is
coming and my presence is required elsewhere.

Happy Holidays!
-Mara
Newsgroups: soc.singles