From: feirtag@i5120b.nrl.navy.mil (Fred Feirtag)
Newsgroups: alt.romance
Subject: Re: fantasies
Date: 20 Aug 92 00:39:31 GMT

In article <ALTI.92Aug18143724@tanera.dcs.ed.ac.uk>, alti@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Thorsten Altenkirch) writes:
|> 
|> and she put on some lipstick with Cherry taste.
|> And I did ... nothing.
|> 

Who was it who sad, "Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest
are:  It might have been?"  I too feel the sorrow of such memories.
But if there's a way to put a positive spin on them, surely it's this:
Use these memories a motivation to avoid repeating such mistakes of
omission.

I see mistakes as falling into two categories:  mistakes of commission
and mistakes of omission.  A mistake of commission is something I did,
and I wish I hadn't.  While I hope not to make the same mistake too many
times, I'm resigned to having to keep making mistakes of commission for
the rest of my life.  It is, however, the mistakes of omission, the
things I don't do, that I have recently been aiming to reduce.  These
seem to carry a special burden of sorrow that may last a lifetime.

I can think of a few examples.  Several months ago at work, an older
woman told me that she thought I was one of very few younger men who
really knew how to treat women well.  This happened to come at a time
when I was feeling very low in that department.  A couple of days later,
I made a point to tell her how very, very much her saying that meant to
me.  I'm glad I didn't omit that "thank you."

And small things can be important, too.  It's rare for the drivers of
the local subway trains to re-open the doors for a passenger who's just
appeared from the entrance, but a while ago, one did for me.  It was at
a time when it would have been a long wait for the next train.  Since I
was getting off at the end of the line, I waited to find and thank the
driver.  I'm glad I didn't omit that "thank you," either.

Omissions are not always of positive things, either.  A while ago a
woman who had answered one of my personals ads dropped me very rudely,
saying never to phone again.  Of course I started thinking, "Oh, what
did I do wrong?  I've done something wrong."  But then I realized, I
couldn't possibly have done anything wrong--she was wrong.  Instead of
just internalizing my hurt and anger, as I've often done, I waited til
she wasn't there and called her number one more time to say to her
answering machine simply, that although I doubted that we'd ever talk
again, I wanted her to know that I felt very bad that she had been so
short with me.  I'm glad I said it.

|> 
|> looked quite cute, was wearing shorts, had very sexy legs and
|> had big tits
|> 

And this girl will never know how you, to this day, desire her.  Sad.
There was a wonderful scene in the movie _Citizen_Kane_, where an old
man describes his life long memory of a woman he remembered from his
youth.  A couple of weeks ago, an older old man recounted two such women
from his youth--to this day, the two most beautiful he'd ever seen.
I'm not sure whether women are as prone to thinking this way.
Any women still reading and care to comment?  

As far as "my sexy waitress," "my hot date," "my inquisitive student,"
and other such private memories, well, I never make those mistakes of
omission any more.  Well, almost never. :-)


                               Fred
Newsgroups: alt.romance