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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 123 responses total. |
orinoco
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response 25 of 123:
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Mar 25 16:52 UTC 2002 |
Re #23: I think that can't be right. I think closeness shows up in different
ways in stereotypical male friendships than in stereotypical female ones.
There have been times when I rarely talked about my personal life to some of
my closest friends (ironically, all of them were women, but the point
remains...), because we knew each other well enough to go on intuition and
subtext. There have been times when I've poured out my heart to perfect
strangers precisely because they didn't know me very well -- I _had_ to say
all that stuff or else I wouldn't be understood at all. I think it's totally
possible to have superficial "feminine" friendships in which all the talk
about emotions doesn't lead to any real trust or understanding, and it's
possible to have deep "masculine" friendships in which all the talk about --
I dunno, carburators or something -- does.
Of course, I could just be objecting to the stereotype in #23 because I don't
tend to enjoy "masculine" friendships very much. I suppose the fact that I
get along much better with women on average does say something.
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jep
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response 26 of 123:
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Mar 25 17:47 UTC 2002 |
I'm another who tends to have one close friend, or none at all. It's
really hurt me recently, since I have a divorce in progress, and of
course my wife was the one person I was close to. I'm introverted
enough that finding a replacement close friend is not going to be easy.
It's been my tendency to go through life meeting people, getting along
with them fine for a while, but letting them drop out of my life from
lack of contact.
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morwen
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response 27 of 123:
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Mar 25 19:06 UTC 2002 |
My husband is my best friend, too, John. I know for a fact I would be
functionally dead if he turned around and told me he wanted a
divorce. He has said he felt similarly, so, rather than discuss
divorce whenever we have a fight, we are more inclined to try to work
it out.
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lynne
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response 28 of 123:
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Mar 25 20:03 UTC 2002 |
I have trouble keeping up with more than five or six close friends at a time.
I've been pleasantly surprised, however, at meeting up with old friends that
I haven't seen in a year or more and finding that we still connect really
well. None of us have time to do much more than email a couple times a year
and visit much more occasionally than that, and we're happier not trying to
follow the Miss Manners model--we talk when we have time, and it's great to
see each other when we can. I still count them as good friends, though--
how can you not when I can call Anu in LA and bawl for an hour about how
screwed up my life is, when I haven't talked toher in six months?
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slynne
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response 29 of 123:
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Mar 25 20:29 UTC 2002 |
Yeah, the people I consider my best friends are the people who I dont
need to see all the time in order to maintain the friendship. I can
think of over 15 people who I know I can call if something bad happens
and they will listen and be there for me. I am not in constant touch
with all of them because of various things. Some have moved out of
state, a couple of them have had kids and are busy with their families,
three of them are in grad school and also working full time so they
dont have a whole lot of time for socializing, etc, etc.
These are also the people I can invite over to my house and we can just
start talking about stuff in the really comfortable easy way that old
friends have. *shrug* In fact, sometimes the conversation is easier
because we havent seen each other in a while. we have more stories.
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jaklumen
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response 30 of 123:
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Mar 26 08:13 UTC 2002 |
I'll agree that friendships made strong and solid don't really dry
up. It's that way with a very close friend of mine.
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polygon
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response 31 of 123:
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Mar 26 19:08 UTC 2002 |
I like being with people, but I don't usually have very close friends.
Instead, the continuum from "good friend" to "acquaintance" is dotted so
densely with specific cases that I have a hard time saying where the
boundary is.
There was a fascinating article in Slate last October -- see it at
http://slate.msn.com/?id=117035 -- which is relevant here. The author was
surprised that he didn't know anyone who died on September 11, and
wondered about the odds. Among other things, he found that, according to
various studies, the average American has a "personal social network" of
290 people he or she "knows". The sidebar says:
Our working definition of 'A knows B' means that A knows B by sight
or name; that A can contact B in person by telephone or by mail; and
that A has had contact with B in the past two years.
I'm pretty sure that my "personal social network" by that definition is
larger than that, but I haven't counted it. I got to know most of them
through politics, folk music and dancing, Grex and M-Net, the synagogue
and the Jewish Community Center, the science fiction community aka
Stilyagi and conventions, the local history and historic preservation
community, my workplace, and my web site. Most of my interaction with
people outside immediate family is in group settings, e.g., meetings,
parties, concerts, fundraisers, group dinners, etc.
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gull
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response 32 of 123:
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Mar 26 23:24 UTC 2002 |
"You hate people!"
'But I love gatherings. Isn't that ironic?'
(_Clerks_)
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janc
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response 33 of 123:
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Mar 27 19:28 UTC 2002 |
I'm not sure I could put my acquaintances and pretty good friends on a
linear scale. Each friendship is different. You share different
things in different ways.
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polygon
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response 34 of 123:
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Mar 27 20:30 UTC 2002 |
Re 33. Admittedly an oversimplification. You'd need an n-dimensional
space to even approach the complexity of real life.
Still, that doesn't mean it's invalid to say that I know A better than B,
or that A knows me better than B does, or that I spend more time with A
than with B. Those kinds of inequalities do tend to run in the same
direction, so that even if I have a mad crush on B, it is accurate to say
that A is a closer friend than B.
In one of the Tolkein books, Bilbo Baggins observes that people are often
insulted when reduced to mathematical constructs, for example, the guests
at his birthday party are taken aback when he mentions that there are one
gross (144) of them. But math is just a language that some of us speak or
think in as part of groping to understand the world around us.
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oval
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response 35 of 123:
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Mar 27 20:37 UTC 2002 |
i am NOT ((1-m^2)(x^2+y^2)+2m^2cx+a^2-m^2c^2)^2=4a^2(x^2+y^2)!!!!
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rcurl
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response 36 of 123:
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Mar 27 21:24 UTC 2002 |
Still, what does that look like?
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void
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response 37 of 123:
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Mar 27 22:00 UTC 2002 |
I have no friends at all. In fact, when I leave my apartment I have to
put a paper bag over my head so no one will know it's me. Then I go
meet other people with paper bags over their heads and we tell each
other fake names and drink coffee and pretend we don't know each other.
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edina
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response 38 of 123:
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Mar 27 22:31 UTC 2002 |
Is that why [Dwore that bag when you stayed with me? I was wondering . . .
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tsty
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response 39 of 123:
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Mar 27 22:56 UTC 2002 |
re #35 .. why 4 factorial commands
or does that make a better "NOT" mess, like bigger knots.
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oval
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response 40 of 123:
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Mar 27 23:26 UTC 2002 |
re#39: why not?
2nd line: is that a joke or something?
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gull
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response 41 of 123:
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Mar 29 13:56 UTC 2002 |
Re #37: Sounds like a good physical approximation of IRC, except
without all the bad spelling.
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oval
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response 42 of 123:
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Mar 29 17:57 UTC 2002 |
#39: oh i thought you were keesan
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tsty
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response 43 of 123:
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Mar 30 05:47 UTC 2002 |
if oval were to copyedit VeryCarefully, i honestly believe that the
formula printed needs an alteration
as for knots/nots ... four factorials actualy mighyt work!
regarding #37:
only in your dreams!
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bhagee
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response 44 of 123:
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Mar 30 15:18 UTC 2002 |
i think this world would be nowhere without friends.
be it fem r masc.
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oval
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response 45 of 123:
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Mar 30 21:14 UTC 2002 |
i went to art school. my math studies were titled "Math and the Imagination".
seriously.
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tpryan
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response 46 of 123:
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Mar 31 19:28 UTC 2002 |
Through the science fiction conventions, I have gathered a lot
of friends and acquaintances. I am surprised how some from far away
act more like close friends1 after very little contact while local
acquaintances are just that after years of regular contact.
One case, where I was travelling down to Floriday, and made
contact with someone I knew at con in Atlanta, Georgia and said I
was coming thru and would be neat if we could meet for dinner. In
return I instead got invited to stay at their place overnight, on
a weeknight, with dinner and breakfast and plenty of conversation.
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morwen
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response 47 of 123:
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Apr 1 01:26 UTC 2002 |
Beware. The second we start enjoying ourselves in here, Jamie will
decide to come and prove himself a turd by attempting to prove we are
all ignorant plebes. Personally, I think he is trying to out Paul our
Paul Kershaw.
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jazz
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response 48 of 123:
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Apr 1 03:37 UTC 2002 |
Paul doesn't do that, though.
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jaklumen
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response 49 of 123:
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Apr 1 06:33 UTC 2002 |
do what? I don't catch what you mean.
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