RE: [TCLUG:8719] Marriage (was: Found the offender)

["Schlough, Mark" <Mark.Schlough@nmb.norwest.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Joel A. Koepp [SMTP:jkoepp@atlas.socsci.umn.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, September 29, 1999 9:33 AM
> To:	'tclug-list@mn-linux.org'
> Subject:	Re: [TCLUG:8719] Marriage (was: Found the offender) 
> 
> On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Trainor, Kevin T. wrote:
> > 
> > I think it depends a lot on how well you get to know your
> > prospective date before you actually get together. I also
> > think successful marriages depend a lot more on the couple's
> > willingness to work on the relationship, no matter how ugly
> > and painfu it sometimes gets. Marriage is a process, after
> > all, not an event.
> 
> That's interesting. I would think that one would try to avoid getting to
> know someone too well online before actually meeting. The way someone
> types things on the screen can be very different from how they communicate
> in real life. I'm of the opinion that you can often learn more about
> someone in a half-hour of being together than you could in many hours of
> online chatting and swapping emails. To me it's quite fascinating how fast
> we can form our estimations of someone (rightly or wrongly, but usually
> our instincts our pretty good) in a short time of talking, measuring
> responses, noting body language, gauging intelligence, wit, composure, 
> etc. My trepidation about this online phenomenon is about the ease with
> which you can throw up a digital facade, whereas it's usually more
> difficult to fool someone in person. I don't mean to be too pessimistic,
> but I'm sure it happens. 
> 
	As a tangent to your statement above, I learned a lot about myself
and made a great friend in a pen pal during my high school years.  I began
correspondence with an Australian just after Christmas of my freshman year
of H.S.  I wrote to year diligently every other week for almost 4 years.
When I got to college I got lazy and wrote far too infrequently.

	Anyhow,  we had agreed to write to one another and not exchange
photographs until after the following summer.  It was interesting how much
we learned about what each other liked and belived.  Not having an image to
distract us from getting to know the inside person was fantastic.  

	When I finally got a chance to see her in Sydney during my Senior
year of college was peculiar and a really fun time.  I was physically
meeting someone that I knew better than anyone else (save my family).  It
was so weird how the physical aspects were new, but there was no
"nervousness" rather excitement about finally getting to meet someone that I
knew really well.  I do admit that reading someone's handwriting rather than
typing also gives some insight into getting to know a bit more about a
person.  Not handwriting analysis per se, but just looking at the
handwriting made the communication more "human" than typing.  


	Mark

> I also see good potential for having expectations after
> getting too personal online, and then being disappointed for one
> reason or another when a meeting takes place. 
> 
	If the expectations are never brought up in the conversation; yes.

> But technology is probably changing society so fast that this is more
> commonplace than I like to think. I'm probably just not hip to it. To take
> a postmodernist stance on it all: I'm OK, you're OK; if it works for you,
> great; if you don't want to have anything to do with it, equally great. :)
> Neither makes anyone a better/worse person than someone else. 
> 
> As to the rest of what you said about marriage, I'm in complete agreement.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Joel
> 
>