91095812   
   From: drachirREVERSEEACHPARTTOREPLY@yawannek.gro.ku   
      
   Andrea Shepard  wrote:   
   > For myself, I'd say I'm not completely blind to non-verbal signals,   
   > but wouldn't rate myself as especially good at reading them.  More to   
   > the point, I'm never very confident in my interpretations of them, and   
   > my natural bias to assume people couldn't possibly be interested in me   
   > tends to have the last word.  As I mentioned in my earlier post to   
   > this thread, I've never been able to make the first move with a new   
   > person for that reason.   
      
   Someone must, or nothing happens.  It is said (variously attributed to   
   Proust, Collette, or the French in general) that in every kiss there is   
   one who kisses and one who is kissed.   
      
   > Add to that all the messiness that can occur in the real world: people   
   > consuming recreational psychoactives to reduce the anxiety about   
   > taking risks, feeling conflicted or uncertain about what they want,   
   > sleeping with someone and then regretting it, being afraid to say no   
   > to someone, being willing to ask just one more time, just in case, and   
   > all along feeling the pressure to not sit on the fence too long for   
   > fear of letting rare opportunities slip away.  You end up with most   
   > people muddling through somehow, a few pretty unsuccessful at it all   
   > and lonely, a few really dangerous ones who truly don't care about   
   > consent and are willing to force or manipulate people, a few who mean   
   > well but are prone to really pathological interpretations of other   
   > people's signals - erotomanic delusions and the like, and, yeah,   
   > probably just a few horrible misunderstandings where one person   
   > doesn't consent but the other genuinely believes they do.   
      
   All of these things can happen, but a spectrum ranging from muddling   
   through to catastrophic failure leaves out all of the possibilities that   
   ever make the game worth the candle.   
      
   --   
   Richard Kennaway   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)