From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!presby!burdvax!bmcjmp Newsgroups: net.women Title: a compliment (?) Article-I.D.: burdvax.567 Posted: Wed Feb 16 05:07:20 1983 Received: Mon Feb 21 08:33:44 1983 I am female. Back in college I had a number of male friends who were just that: friends. Not dates, lovers, or what have you, just guys I hung around with. One evening I was out with a bunch of people, and two of these male friends and I were having a candid conversation about sexual matters. At some point in this conversation one of them cracked a dirty joke. One of the other women who was with us heard us laughing and wanted to know what was so funny. The man who made the joke mumbled something about mixed company, to which the woman replied, "How come you always tell Barb those jokes, but you never tell me?" His answer was, "Well, Barb is about as much like one of the guys as you can get without being one of the guys." First let me say that this statement was not predicated on physical appearance, since this other woman and I are about equal in that department. With this in mind, how would you react to such a statement? Do you think it would be a compliment to you? To men, I ask, does whether you are talking to a man or woman make a difference in what you talk about or how you say something? Why or why not. I don't know if anybody will consider this important, but I'm tired of pressing the "n" key on the abortion debate (I argued myself out on that one back in high school). Hopefully this will generate a different topic for discussion. If not -- well, I tried. Barb Puder burdvax!bmcjmp p.s. If there's any interest, I'll let the net know how I took that statement. If I tell you now, it would probably kill a lot of discussion.