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   >> "an informative reply to mogel's 'a guide to modern love on the  <<
   >>  information superhighway' from dto #5 without any stupid inside <<
   >> jokes -- and this has no quotes by guido sanchez!"              <<

                        a dialog by -> jamesy & murmur

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Jamesy:  Ok, Truth.

Murmur:  Where does infatuation end and love begin?

Jamesy:  you can't fucking ask that!  it doesn't make any sense!  that's
         not how you play truth and dare, you're supposed to ask personal 
         questions.

Murmur:  When did your relationship with Rachel advance beyond mere
         infatuation?  NO WAIT, not WHEN, HOW?

Jamesy: Don't you just wanna know where we had sex the first time?  oh 
        well, nevermind.  I think the main thing you need to understand
        about infatuation is that it quickly disappears.  I mean, a new
        toy is only new for so long.  Eventually, you need to either throw
        it in a box with your old toys, or find reason to keep it out on
        the desk next to your laptop and pictures of kathy ireland.  when
        you're with someone for long enough, the excitement of being
        around them is really gone.  it's not a bad thing, per se, that's
        just how things work.  but you need to take the relationship
        further, otherwise it feels stale and begins to whither like your
        flaccid grandmother.

        it's very important that relationships have a strong bond of 
        friendship.  if you don't enjoy just being with the person, it's
        going to be hard to get past infatuation.  you eventually need to
        get to a point where you enjoy doing anything with the person, not
        just screwing around.  although that's important, it's also
        important to simply enjoy the time with them.

        now, HOW it happened is a much harder question to answer.  my
        relationship with rachel matured after time.  it wasn't easy; we
        had a lot of problems in the beginning.  but we learned to trust
        each other just for the sake of trusting each other.  well, i
        should rephrase that; SHE learned to trust me.  i always trusted
        her, because she never did anything to break that trust.  i,
        did, though, because i was an evil bastard back then.  but, after
        being with someone for a while and looking back and realising how
        important of a part of your life they are, that is when you get
        past infatuation.  reflection, i guess.  honest reflection,
        though. if you're not honest with yourself, it can become another
        form of infatuation.
        
        did i just devalidate everything i just said?  I can't tell.

Murmur:  That was, uh, scintillating.  Seriously, though, I think the  
         most meaningful comment was the last -- if infatuation really is
         a temporary thing, something that can't last, then once you take
         a look back and actually consider what's going on, you've got to
         recognize that the infatuation is being replaced by something
         else.  What that something else is, though, might not be what you
         think.

Jamesy:  it might be a giant void, sucking at your inner being.  i hate 
         it when that happens.  and apparently, it's happened 11 times in
         the computer underground.  but, yes, i know what you mean.
         Infatuation can only last as long as you don't take the time out
         to reflect on what you're doing.  However, as i stressed before,
         you can mindfuck yourself when you reflect.  "this is so perfect
         for me!" might be a nightmare for the other person.  you have to
         be honest with yourself and what you have in front of you.  TRUTH
         OR DARE, MURMUR?

Murmur:  uh, yeah!  er, truth.

Jamesy:  Have you ever had an experience where you felt love developed
         very quickly?

Murmur:  What do you mean by "very quickly"?

Jamesy:  Like, within a very short period of time.

Murmur:  A week?  A month?  A year?

Jamesy:  You can define "a very short period of time" for YOURSELF, 
         ASSFACE.

Murmur:  uhhh, okay.  hmmm.  well, it's not like i can speak from all that
         much in the way of personal experience.  i guess i'd have to say
         yes -- but only conditionally -- because i can really only claim
         to have seriously been in love once.  i think we sort of knew
         each other for about a month and a half or so, then we started
         like, talking for about a month, and then we dated for three and
         a half months.  these are, mind you, two people that haven't ever 
         had a "significant other" before.  by the time we broke up, i was
         in love.  i don't even question that.  and i guess that that
         might seem like a short period of time -- overall, it was really
         only about three to four months, i suppose, that it took me to
         come to this conclusion -- but i don't really know if that's a
         "very short period of time" or not.  and since it was the first
         time, and since i was younger and stupider, i was really kind of
         in this stupid secondary dimension where i thought nothing could
         go wrong -- but i was nonetheless, from my vantage point in that
         dimension, very much in love.  i was willing to let develop
         quickly.  i wanted love to develop quickly.  i had the romantic
         image that when you date you date on the expectation that it will
         be dating for life.  and if the rest of your life begins today --
         then i wanna be in love for the rest of it.  if that makes sense.
         uh, does that answer the question?

Jamesy:  Sure.  Do you think there's a difference between this fast and
         furious love you speak of and, say, the love a couple that have
         been married for 25 years have?  how does love evolve?  is it a
         flower, waiting to bloom, or a mutual stock that hits an
         unexpected boom?  

Murmur:  as i explained to that girlfriend, basically, people have these
         buckets of love in their heads.  these buckets are limitless;
         once you reach a certain level, you've reached love, and love
         just continues to grow and grow and grow.  or it can recede.  is
         there a difference between "fast and furious" love and the love
         of 25 years?  sure.  but at its very core, it's the same basic
         concept.  love, of course, will be different from person to
         person, so it's difficult, quite arduous indeed, to attempt a
         generalization.

         how does love evolve?  love is like a stock market, i guess, as
         ridiculous as it sounds.  well, i don't know.  you said that
         infatuation carries with it a time limit; but i don't think
         that's necessarily true, really, when i stop and think about it.
         i truly believe that a couple can remain infatuated with one
         another for years and years and years, well beyond the point of
         having fallen in love, exactly.  there are things that can damage
         love and there are things that can boost it -- people through
         "demonstrating" their love can really deeply impact their
         partner, or, people can do things like, say, kill their partner's
         father, and things like that may tend to undermine the love.

         love really can be played out like a business in a lot of ways --
         but to me that may only be truly bad if you're talking about
         someone that would treat his or her business with anything less
         than a sincere amount of care for what they're doing.  treating
         love like a cigarette company and treating love like a record
         store, therefore, are two different things.  i think the one is
         sad, and the other can really be a good thing.  please pardon the
         rather absurd analogies.

         sometimes no matter how much love you put into a business -- no
         matter what you invest, time or money wise -- it collapses on
         you.  it's the same thing with relationships.  how many people
         are there that really wish they could have been happy with their
         spouse/fiancee/etc. but realized that there was just something
         missing, something they needed to find in someone else?  there
         are so many different potential elements of love -- there's trust
         and there's respect, but then there are things like romance too
         -- just like there are a lot of potential factors in a business.
         the main thing is that you can't be mechanical when approaching
         either one.  it's not about number crunching, it's about
         hunches, it's about aesthetics -- i'm not sure what you might
         call that when it comes to a business, but i think that might be
         the romance factor in a relationship.

         there's also the problem of owning a mom and pop hardware store
         and then having menards pop up next door -- but, uh.. yeah.

Jamesy: Infatuation certainly has a time limit in the framework of a 
        _relationship_.  that's what i was speaking of.  of course, if
        you're not actually seeing someone, simply obsessed with them, you
        may very well end up obsessed with them all your life if you are
        never given the chance to do anything with them.  but that usually
        doesn't happen, because the person being obsessed over is usually
        smart enough to totally ignore the obsessive one and get far, far
        away from them.

Murmur:  wait!  that's not what i'm talking about!  what about the concept
         of having a "twinkle in your eye"?  isn't there a dose of
         infatuation in love?  or what would you call that?

Jamesy:  i don't think you can be infuated with someone you understand.
         if you understand the person, if you truly know them, there isn't
         something so mystical about them that is so alluring.

Murmur:  then what would you CALL the allure?  

Jamesy:  i wouldn't.  when you love someone, you don't have a twinkle in
         your eye, unless you have floaters, and then you should probably
         see your doctor about high blood pressure.  love is a continual
         flow of emotion and feeling between two people.  if you see that
         as a "twinkle in the eye," maybe that's the physical
         representation of that concept that you envision.

Murmur:  "physical representation".  well.  hrm.  okay.  so, then, JAMES
          HETFIELD OF MILK & TEA, TRUTH OR DARE?

Jamesy:  Dare!!!

Murmur:  damn you!!  okay.  uhm..  yeah!  i dare you to SELL ME YOUR
         GIRLFRIEND!

Jamesy:  what happens if you don't do a dare?  do you remember?

Murmur:  uhh.. you lose.

Jamesy:  okay!  i lose!

Murmur:  er, okay.  i win!

Jamesy:  TRUTH OR DARE, MURMUR?  BEST TWO OUT OF THREE!

Murmur:  you bastard.  fine.  truth.

Jamesy: name the capitol of the czech republic.

Murmur:  you spelled "capital" wrong.  and it's Prague.  truth or dare?

Jamesy:  TROOF!

Murmur:  let's go back to "physical representation".  how important a role
         does physicality play in your relationship?  and from as
         objective a position as you can stand, why do you think this is
         good or bad?

Jamesy:  in terms of a relationship, physicality is essential.  it's part
         of the whole process.  whether we like it or not, our little
         programs in our heads dictate the way we feel about potential
         mates.  and sexuality is a sure-fire way of expressing these
         feelings.  what would be the difference between a friendship and
         a relationship without physicality?  there wouldn't be any.  sex
         is what makes relationships a go-go.
        
         i don't want to put a value judgement on whether or not sex is 
         "good" or "bad."  i've had very positive physical experiences as
         of late, so of course i'm going to say it's "good."  but most
         people aren't as lucky as i am.  it can be a very stressful
         thing.  but, like any other part of a relationship, communication
         is the key.  once you're honest to each other and open, it'll
         all work out.  in this context, an open and honest one, sexuality
         is wonderful.

Murmur:  the question wasn't so much "is sex good or bad?" but rather more
         one of how it relates to other facets of the relationship.  for
         many, the relationship begins with a kiss -- and sexuality is
         used as benchmarking for the progress of the relationship.  of
         course, some people just bang the first night out, more or less
         disvalidating that concept.  so, uhm, yeah, this isn't going
         anywhere.

         oh, hell, i'll come up with something later.  go on.

Jamesy:  sexuality is important because it is a non-verbal form of 
         communication.  there are so many ways to address the way you
         feel about someone through sexuality.  granted, you may not be
         able to say, "are you hungry? let's go to steak and shake!" but,
         in terms of feelings, it's a reliable way to show you care about
         someone else.  of course, you have to know what you're doing,
         and that's why you need to purchase my newest self-help novel,
         "zibble-zen and the art of body massage."

Murmur:  but of course.  "chapter five:  how to make jungle noises."

Jamesy:  truth or dare, murmur?

Murmur:  truth!@#@!@#

Jamesy:  tell us about your first sexual encounter, and how it paved the way
         for your six (count em, six) links on the sexchart?

Murmur:  "paved the way"?  grrreat.  define "first sexual encounter" for me
         so i know where to begin, then.

Jamesy:  the first time you got your nudies wet with another's saliva!

Murmur:  uh, i was in the wrong house in the wrong city in the wrong state
         with the wrong person at the wrong time.  didn't seem like it
         then, granted, but, well, that's often how things work -- you
         just don't know what hole you've gotten yourself into.

Jamesy: luckily, i can't say the same for me.  i find myself continually
        in a state of euphoria about this wonderful incarnation of the
        next buddha i am currently with.  but anyway.  does the fact that
        your first sexual experience was in a fairly flawed relationship
        make you hesitate from being sexual again?  do you view it in any
        different light because of past pain?

Murmur:  since i think i can better answer the question better from a 
         broader perspective, i'll do that.  do i hesitate from being
         sexual again?  yes and no.  it comes and goes in cycles.  there
         are a couple of ways i suppose i'd put it -- no, if i had it all
         to do over again, i wouldn't do that the exact same way, that was
         really fucked up.  but at the same time, i've been involved in
         pretty meaningless brief flings -- they never materialized into
         the aforementioned (as pixy might put it) cum guzzling -- and
         i've come away with mixed perceptions of that.  i guess there's a 
         few things at work here.  the most successful relationship i've
         been in to date, that first one, was also the least sexually
         inclined.  and the best way i can put my current stance is that i
         have my own limits right now but they're not all that limited.
         at the same time, however, that doesn't mean i'm out looking for
         all available hand jobs.  

         i think that being involved in some sexual sense with too many
         people can really cheapen things when you get involved with
         someone that you're actually really serious about and not just
         really horny about, yes.  prior to the unfortunate transpirings
         of last spring (the wrong state scenario and so on) i was 
         involved in this brief little fling that just this week the other
         person involved just flatly informed me was really a case of me
         being horny more than anything else.  and she was right.  and i
         really can't explain myself, and i really don't think i need to.
         i don't think i've done anything bad or wrong in that sense.
         i've done things i regret, but not on moral grounds.  i regret 
         them sort of in the same way i would regret having spent a dollar
         on a lottery ticket, or losing money at the kentucky derby.  that
         kind of cheapens what i'm saying but it's not like i feel bad in
         the same way i would if, say, i'd hit you with a car and you
         couldn't walk anymore.  does that make sense?

         while at one end of the spectrum i wish i had a lot of stuff back
         because i think it would make me purer or more righteous for any
         woman present and/or future, i have to accept that if not for my
         past experiences, i wouldn't be here.  fact is that the best
         relationship i had failed because i was inable to maintain it,
         mostly because i had no experience with what i was doing and got
         all stupid in the head.

Jamesy:  so, your basic word of advice to people is, "don't get all stupid
         in the head?"  how would you define that in more specific terms?

Murmur:  well, that sounds kind of silly in and of itself.  let me put it
         in vaguely more meaningful terms.

         okay, see, there's sex.  and sex can take place with someone you
         really really love or sex can take place with a two bit whore
         from decatur.  now, you said that sexuality, physicality, is an
         important aspect of a relationship.  well, i suppose i'm not
         enough of a gigolo to speak for it very well myself, but i can
         very clearly see using sex for sheer _physical_ gratification
         taking away very strongly from the employment of sex as a means
         of physical and _emotional_ gratification.  screwing around with
         someone when all that matters to you is your cock is fine and
         dandy in and of itself, i suppose; but i don't think you can
         really very seriously do that and then go back and apply a whole
         lot of emotional meaning to it when it's become such an
         uber-physical act for you.

         the problem is that i've brought myself to over-generalize so
         much at this point that i don't entirely believe what i'm saying
         in my own context.  let me try to put things as they are for me.
         i've done a lot of stuff i'm not _proud_ of -- but it's not like
         you're supposed to take pride in it, necessarily.  nonetheless,
         there are a lot of encounters i look back upon with far more
         positive inclinations than negative, and then there are those
         most specifically to the contrary.

         sex for the hell of it, just general making out for the hell of
         it, to me seems like a really fucked up concept.  and i speak
         somewhat from experience on that.  i'm not talking about things
         like going to a party and without really specifically meaning to
         picking a chick up with a spatula -- because that's youth and
         frolic.  i'm talking about things like going over to see a whore,
         someone you don't really like all that much, 'cause there's not
         much else to do.  things like that really cheapen encounters
         you're going to have with people you really like and grow to
         care about -- if done repeatedly.  

         from where i'm standing right now, the only way i can really put
         it is that i'm not uptight about "doing more" most of the time,
         yet i'm quite content with whatever may happen.  i sometimes tend
         to feel bad when i want more out of a situation than whoever i'm
         with, and i can't even entirely begin to explain that, but even
         while i say that -- there's no replacement for actually being
         with someone you really, really, really think is wonderful,
         someone who when you're done doing whatever you're doing you're
         more than willing to jump up and get into a good-natured argument
         or debate or scrabble game or whatever.  none of liz phair's
         "fuck and run" for me, if you will.  at least, that's the
         current mindset, and it's been known to change in the past.

Jamesy:  I can't believe we're talking about love and relationships to the
         tune of interstellar overdrive, but that's ok.  here's my
         explanation.  yes, you're completely correct.  but there is a
         difference in the communication involved in a flip-and-fuck with
         someone and the communication involved with being with someone
         you care a lot about.  one is a lot of groping and the other is
         much more sensual.  although blind groping is relevant in 
         meaningful relationships as well, that is not the way to 
         communicate the way you feel about someone else to them.  

Murmur:  well, one would hope that someone you care a lot about you don't
         just go blind groping about for after.  something like that.

         uh, who's turn?  oh, yeah.  JAMES HETFIELD OF OBL

         oh christ, truth or dare?

Jamesy:  DARE

Murmur:  bastard.  i dare you to... DRINK THIS PITCHER OF HOT AND VERY
         BUBBLING LAVA!

Jamesy:  okay!!!  <drinks lava>  AAHAGHGGHGHGH!GGGH!GH@#%^@@%$  <dies>

Murmur:  oh dear.

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  * (c) HoE publications. HoE #109 - written by jamesy & murmur - 6/11/97 *