Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pucc-h Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!houxz!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:aeq From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: pedestalization Message-ID: <778@pucc-h> Date: Tue, 19-Jun-84 10:17:31 EDT Article-I.D.: pucc-h.778 Posted: Tue Jun 19 10:17:31 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jun-84 06:28:53 EDT References: <2082@mit-vax.UUCP> Organization: Purdue University Computing Center Lines: 50 From Joy @ MIT : > Jeffie, Jeffie, Jeffie..... "Jeffie"???? I've once been called "Sarge" (despite my escaping the draft when Nixon killed it 8 days after I turned 18), but never "Jeffie". Am I really that immature? (I know, the answer to that is obvious....) > Heck, I know I'm not perfect. > But I think enough of myself to know that I'm not pond slime either.... The trouble is, sometimes I can feel pretty good about myself; but then I watch how I behave under stress, and how angry and unoriginally foul-mouthed I get, and I realize there's still a LOT wrong with me. Much as I asked in a previous article (to which I haven't read the followups yet), how can a woman who is -- I like the word "undamaged" -- understand me? > I am not sure, as Sophie suggests, that all those who pedestalize don't > ever want to change their self-image. I've met some who genuinely do and > some who don't. I hope you are one of the former, Jeff. Pooh has a > very good point: did you ever think that some woman might be looking at > you and dwelling only upon her not-so-attractive traits? Inasmuch as I've spent a lot of time in the last several years working on improving the person I am (some of this has been chronicled here), I'd say I am one of the former. Actually, there may well be one or two (or more?) women of my acquaintance who are doing exactly as you say. I think a lot of my problem comes down to this: Having spent my early years in an age when the traditional nuclear family was considered the norm and the ideal, I tend to assume that a person who was raised in a nice family with very loving parents and didn't make a lot of interstate (or even inter-school) moves (thus had the opportunity to establish long-term friendships), and who thus has turned out to be a nice, pleasant, loving person [her,him]self, cannot understand the depths of darkness within me, and would thus find me rather repulsive (you wouldn't care to know some of the horribly sadistic & masochistic fantasies I've had, for instance). I've only begun to get away from the worst of me, and I haven't gotten very far toward becoming the best possible me; I'm one of the least loving persons I know. Anyway: 1. Is there such a thing as an "undamaged" person, i.e. one who made it through childhood without getting mangled? 2. If so, could such a person possibly learn to understand and love one who has been as sick as I, and who is still so far from full recovery? -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|decvax|harpo|ihnp4|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq "...got to find my corner of the sky."