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From: nonh@utzoo.UUCP (Chris Robertson)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Comments for Jeff
Message-ID: <4849@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Dec-84 01:04:18 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4849
Posted: Sun Dec 30 01:04:18 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Dec-84 01:04:18 EST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 56

Jeff writes:

>... I'm likely to mess up relationships.  I did,
>royally, this fall; though that was partially because I was not fully honest
>in the earlier stages, because I did not at all want the woman to have to
>experience rejection -- since she would hurt, and also since she would proceed
>to reject me; so when I finally was honest and indicated that I really did not
>want to be involved, I hurt her a lot worse than I should have.  I probably
>could not have done a better job of hurting her if I'd deliberately set out
>to do so.  How can I accept a self that does things like that?

You are not alone in doing this sort of thing, Jeff -- fear of hurting
someone keeps many people doing/saying things they really don't mean in
a relationship (and I don't mean trivial stuff like letting your SO
think you just love her/his collection of polished fribbits, when you
think they're ridiculous...).

But there's good news -- as you gain more experience, you stop doing this
sort of thing.  You learn to evaluate situations for potentially hurtful
things, and are able to make judgements about what's going to hurt more --
honesty now, or painful disillusionment later.  You also learn how to phrase
these things without being horribly embarrassed about it, so that "I'd
prefer not to get too involved right now" or its equivalent doesn't
have to find its way around the foot in your mouth.

Consider your own experience in this -- you now know that you should indicate
non-interest *soon* if you yourself are sure.  You are making progress.

In a different article, Jeff writes about a bunch of people with whom he
has very little in common:

>...  Until I can be truly
>warm and loving and accepting to such people, with whom by nature I have no
>desire to associate, I am not being the loving person I am supposed to be,
>and thus I am a first-class failure at being a Christian, which is the
>central thing in my life.

It's been quite a while since I read the relevant bits of the Bible, Jeff,
but I don't recall Jesus saying you have to love people *en masse*!  Jesus
said you ought to love your *neighbour* -- I always interpreted that
as *individual people*.  If I recall correctly, He found crowds of folks
clamouring at him noticeably unlikeable ("Heal yourselves!").

The point I'm trying to make is that it's no good damning yourself because
you can't do the impossible.  Why don't you consider instead whether
you could contemplate reacting to one of these guys *as an individual*
in a warm and accepting manner?  You also seem to be casting them as
stereotypes (AAACCCKKKK!!!! not stereotypes again!) -- and how lovable
are most of *those*?  Don't stack the deck against yourself!

So quit using a very ordinary human reaction to beat yourself over the
head with, and concentrate on *real* problems!  Such as *not* hanging
on grimly to your rotten self-image at all costs, because it's the only
one you have -- whip up your courage, man, and discard it.

--chris