Forwarded anonymous posting

[Steve Dyer]

Again, thanks to Steve for posting this. Some of you will recall
a couple postings and several replies about my friendship that
seemed to be going nowhere, my angry straight friend who was very
much out of touch with me. The consensus of responders was that
I should prepare myself for the worst, he had probably rejected me
and that would be that. Well, about a week ago, I sent a postcard
that said I assumed there was a (to him) good enough reason, but
after all those very nice things that had happened over the course
of coming on four years, it was somehow *too* eccentric for me to
fathom why this sudden 3-month hiatus should occur. I sent the card.
That *same* day as I sat at my table reading net news, the phone
rings, Hello this is Stu. I replied Well, I have to say I'm glad to
hear your voice, but you can't possibly have received the card I
sent you this afternoon, so I'm *very* surprised; did you want to
get together and have a good jabber? Yes, he did, and we did, and
it was (he thought) with cause that he'd kept apart for a time, and
he had taken a long time to realize that even though he didn't
understand *all* his own motivations, still he wanted to see me
and spend some time together. Well, I said, I think it works a lot
better for me if the oscillations of near/far that are necessary
to balance *any* relationship don't get *too* wide, because I
think a friendship that is anything more than casual results in
some mutually agreed upon responsibilities, the kind of support
that only a real, three-dimensional presence can supply. When and
how often, and what it is, all that's negotiable, as it were, but
*some* presence one can depend on is a minimum. This was agreed
to as acceptable. We worked through the specific problem without
too much grief, and things seem OK again. If I live to be 100,
I'll never understand men--they are sometimes too weird!
I guess the lesson is (I'm conditioned to think there is
*always* a lesson): take the long view especially if it counts
(or at least you think it does); you never really know about
some things, no matter how hard you try. Thanks again for the
support, encouragement, and understanding I got from netland
during this very odd interlude. --Paul (an altered ego, I
assure you).

--
Steve Dyer
dy...@harvard.HARVARD.EDU
{linus,wanginst,bbnccv,harvard,ima,ihnp4}!spdcc!dyer