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