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From: carson@homxa.UUCP (P.CARSTENSEN)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: 40/20 Club
Message-ID: <603@homxa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Jan-85 17:47:12 EST
Article-I.D.: homxa.603
Posted: Tue Jan  8 17:47:12 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Jan-85 05:29:30 EST
References: <181@tekred.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 55

I've been carrying around in my briefcase the "about Men" column
from the NY Times Sunday Magazine of 16 Dec, meaning to post parts
of it, and it seems relevant here:

It's written by Mark Kramer, who was divorced 2 yrs. ago, when his
wife announced "Gues what, sweetie?".... He writes of the time
immediately after:

"I finished writing a book that fall. Writing sustained me. The book
seems blacker than I'd make it if I had to finish it again.
   I followed the patterns predicted in the grief-and-mourning manual
I read on a visit to my mother's bookshop. I rehearsed the trauma until
I became bored by my own fury. I extinguished fury, internalized the 
good relics, healed and grew cheerful again. I experienced these emotional
states on schedule, like some beaver building a dam. I ceased believing
in free will. Time is relentless, but also merciful, airbrushing harsh
events. After 2 yrs. I can, as the book suggested, write up an
inventory of the brighter side:
*Found out the wonderful loyalty of friends
*Had entrancing romantic interlude, part of cure, that would not
have had otherwise
*Learned am tough and can take it
*Refreshed sense of independence and adventure."

He continues, that while he has more or less adjusted to being single,
he finds he really doesn't like it. (following passage relates to
one or other of "love" or "in love", not sure shich)

"Yet the gain rarely seems worth the loss. Being one of a pair alters
everyday life luxuriously. I liked joking in the supermarket, holding
hands unthinking on the dull drive to Boston, bothering to sprinkle
paprika on the breakfast omelets. Most of all, I liked being known --
having the harrowing work of getting-to-know done. I liked sharing an
emotional and narrative history."

Now he's dating and sometimes "seeing" someone -- "and that's quite
tender, as euphemisms go, singling out one's new love for special
vision." Which is hard since "there are vulnerabilities to edge in
upon. Even the giddiest chat may negotiate the structural stuff
of real relationships: independence, trustworthiness, specialness,
intimacy. It's hard enough to traverse this ground with someone who
has given and taken with you for years. But it's wearing, and thrilling,
to do it willfully with the occasional likable near-stranger."....
"In spite of knowing that one's prospective next eternal companion
is in the same fix, one has to keep alert. What attracts people to
each other seems to coincide only by luck with what keeps them
together for the long haul. Combining the two happens flukily"...
He continues with a personal ad he saw, and concludes "Although I
might trade off sanity for advanced Scrabble skills,....Love probably
can't be advertised for, but it surely happens, has happened ro me
before.  And I wish it would again next week."

(Sorry this sort of dragged out, probly not what Doug needs to hear
right now, but....)
Patty