Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!gummo!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houxo!alw From: alw@houxo.UUCP (A.WIEMANN) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Age Groups, Maturity, Relationships, and Such Matters Message-ID: <173@houxo.UUCP> Date: Fri, 29-Jul-83 11:47:41 EDT Article-I.D.: houxo.173 Posted: Fri Jul 29 11:47:41 1983 Date-Received: Mon, 1-Aug-83 07:13:45 EDT Lines: 22 Paul R. Borman at St. Olaf College has disinterred the ancient notion of grouping individuals according to more or less common characteristics, e.g. sex, age, race, wealth. Whereas such categorization is frequently useful when dealing with people in general it is quite useless when deal- ing with people in particular. The norm is deviation from the norm, i.e. no one person is statistically normal. My practice when meeting a person who fits a certain age, sex, etc. category is to recognize that character- istics usually attributed to persons of that category may be present in that individual and to be prepared to relate with that person accordingly. However, I attempt to suppress my own prejudices, positive and negative, and discover the person's actual personality. Consequently I have had the pleasure of knowing people several years my junior that are every bit as "mature" as others my age. Frequently we find that younger people appear to act less mature because we expect it of them. The same is often the case when relating to older people. We expect them to dodder a bit and to have unintelligent opinions and conclude that they are senile when they merely have more difficulty expressing themselves. Generalizations serve a purpose, but one should not let them govern their relationships with MOTOS or MOTSS. Alan (in his second quarter-century) Wiemann