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From: oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: The Value of Chutzpa
Message-ID: <604@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 21:17:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.604
Posted: Mon Aug 12 21:17:28 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 08:40:08 EDT
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 83
Summary: sometimes the simplest solution...

Jane Caputo writes very nicely:  I hope my partial parsing  isn't  too
vandalistic.  (Most uses of "I" below refer to the generic me.)

>	If  you  want to know what turns women on, ask them.  
	       ----------------------------------------
    "Not  so  easy.  How do I approach the woman to ask?"  But look at
the Zen in her words:  If I can reach into myself to overcome fear  of
rejection  and  tendency  to talk-without-listening, and ask sincerely
without trying to bullshit or impress her, that's most of  the  battle
right  there, no?  If the answer is "I like tall, dark, rich, handsome
and athletic, and you're short, sallow, homely, poor and a klutz;  bug
off,  creep,"  it's  not  the  answer I want, but it gives me valuable
information.
    But it's not that easy.  I may have to create the context in which
that question could be considered sincere, since no woman I know would
trust someone who popped it out of the blue.  So I guess that involves
being friends before asking for dates.  Awww...

>	I know we keep harping on that, but men in this group  keep  
>	trying to speak for us.
	       ----------------------------------------
    Well  they  might,  if they're trying to gain acceptance for THEIR
methods and heuristics, finding a means to score  more  often,  or  an
excuse  that  the woman's messed up if they don't.  In other words, if
they're selling their own egos on net.singles.  (Naah,  nobody's  that
crass.)

>	When  I  was  very  young  and  sadly  lacking in empathy, I
>	considered it sort of a social responsibility  to  put  down
>	men who considered themselves god's gift to women.
	       ----------------------------------------
    Why   "sadly?"    Some   things   have  to  be  driven  home  with
sledgehammers...

>	What  a  woman  is  attracted to has far more to do with her
>	childhood than any objective facts you could derive  through
>	cocktail  party  chatter:  the  dynamics of her relationship
>	with her father and other male images  she  absorbed  at  an
>	early age.
	       ----------------------------------------
    Not if the "chatter" investigates her  background.   Doesn't  that
come  out  when people start openly wondering how you got that way?  I
often find myself asking embarrassing questions, except the respondent
doesn't seem unhappy to be asked.  [Examples on request -- privately.]
    May  I also conclude that asking questions and showing an interest
in who you're talking to is more sensitive and more  productive  (take
that  how  you  will)  than  parading  your virtues and strutting your
stuff?  Very often, I notice men trying to talk women into bed:   They
go  on and on about themselves, babbling away as if they're justifying
their existence:  They tell her what great businessmen they  are,  how
intelligent  they  are,  how  well they play racquetball or what their
golf handicap is, how much they paid for their last  whatever.   Beats
me  how  they expect their listeners to want to associate with someone
so self-centered.

	Today when I go to a party the men  I'm  interested  in  are
	conveniently  in  a  corner,  engrossed  in  some  technical
	discussion.  
	       ----------------------------------------
    I  see  that  syndrome  at  "gatherings"  of whatever description.
(Luckily, I'm not interested in those men.)

>	(But)  if  you  want "somebody special", then the best thing
>	you can do is learn to telegraph what you really are.
    First, learn what you really are.  Big step....
>	Be open about yourself.
    NO.  Anything but that!
>	Make  sure  your  public  image  matches your private one as
>	closely as possible, ...
    Not  on  your  life!  I have enough troubles.  Anyway, the guy who
said "To thine own self be true" was Polonius, and look what  happened
to him.

>	If  you  feel  the real you is too boring to attract anyone,
>	think again.
	       ----------------------------------------
    Hey, _I've_ led the long and spectacularly boring life,  I  oughta
know.  Let's talk about you, instead :-).  [Just being oafish.  What a
convenient name...]					     Bye, all.

-- 
Oded Feingold	{decvax, harvard, mit-eddie}!mitvax!oaf	    oaf%oz@mit-mc.ARPA
MIT AI Laboratory    545 Tech Square    Cambridge, Mass. 02139    617-253-8598