Rebound or Restart

How do you know if you're ready for a new relationship, after the finish of an old one.  I guess that's it isn't it? 'after the finish of the old one' but that may be different times for the two ex-es.  Even for your own part, how do you know you're not 'on the rebound'? 

I think we each have an obligation not to stuff other people around.  It's rude to give someone the impression you're looking long-term, when really you just want some short term pain-relief.  That's using using another person.  Selfish and human it may be but it's wrong becuase it just creates a cycle of more hurt.

I once read, "The best cure for a woman is another woman" Most likely true, but kind of rough on the unwitting newcomer.  If they fall in love with you, you have their heart in your hands.  There's no point saying you don't want to be responsible for another's feelings.  That's a cop out.  We have to take responsibility for out actions in this world .  So-called free spirits take heed.

So you need to be ready in yourself, at least ready enough.  You owe it to the new lover.  Trouble is, at least for me, falling in love means deeply, deeply, deeply.  How can feelings like that really ever end?  Is it OK if they don't?  Can you love again without physically cutting that part of your heart out - as I feel would be necessary.

When I fell in love the second time I found I could love again, but I never thought I would be able to given how I was feeling at the end of the first true love.  I truly thought I would die.  As you may have guessed, I've gone through that again, with the difference being the knowledge that I survived the first time.  But it was still horrible, and so we come back to the point of this post.  Should I move on now?

The feeling of being loved is just so wonderful, perhaps it's like childbirth*. Love is nature's pain relief. So we forget.  The real thing to be careful about is being emotionally dependent.

* Yes I'm a guy, invoking a comparison of the pain of childbirth.  Should we forbid childless females from talking about it as well?  I'm actually in awe of how severe the pain was, and how quickly it disappeared afterwards when mum held baby in her arms.  That's how powerful love can be.

Multi-stream chatting - cool but it does your head in

This is one for the impatient chat room users.  You can't wait for the reply to your post, and meantime you think of another cool witticism, so you type that in before you get a reply to the first one. 

I first noticed this happening on NetCentral in the 90's - probably the best chat site ever.  Good old 'Nettie'.  People were maintaining separate conversations on all sorts of really interesting subjects (this was in the 30-somethings room) and most chatters dipped into multiple conversations.  That seemed frantic at first, but the logic of it wasn't particularly strange.  Then I noticed multiple people - and even pairs - were having multiple conversations at the same time.  Woah! Head spin!

Kaleb: Hey Shoshonnie!
K: Whatcha doing?
Shoshonnie: Hi Kaleb, how did that trip go?
K: Ow, 12 hours on the bike. Bum hurts.
S: Oh nothing much, cleaning up after lunch with Mathew-Shane - a curry.
S: His too :)
K: haha

I really like this kind of conversation, and I've often wondered how it would go in real time.  Of course, it's driven by the delay due to typing.  You'd have to force people to wait a few minutes before replying.  They'd have to remember the different streams and maybe the noise would create an impossible distraction.  Fun to try maybe?

Think I'll try it in my English class by getting small groups to communicate with short, handwritten notes.  A chat room like Nettie would work well, wish I could find another one as fun, lively, witty, ernest, and full of such kind people.

RSVP Protocol - playing the field

You may remember when the word "item" came to mean the recognition of two people as a couple by their mutual friends, and the realisation that each was "with someone" (perhaps as yet unspecified, but definitely a someone) among non-mutual friends and family. So basically this means they were "off the market" at least for now.

How does this idea work on RSVP? I feel a bit dirty accepting kisses left, right and centre while being in email contact with someone. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but that $10 stamp represents a commitment dammit! Or, in business terms, at least an investment.

I'd like to coin a new phrase "pre-item" to indicate this predicament. This would mean that while it may not be a mutually agreed status, at least you want to keep your own conscience clear while not putting other interested parties off permanently.

Here are some ideas for KISS reply messages while you consider yourself a pre-item:

KISS reply. Thanks for the kiss. I'm flattered by your interest and I like your profile. I'm a pre-item with someone just now but if it doesn't work out, I'll let you know.

or:

KISS reply. Thank you for kissing us today. Your kisses are important to us and you have been placed in a queue. You will receive a kiss in reply as soon as we are out of item or pre-item status, or if we choose to play the field a bit. Please hold, or send a 'hmmph' if you wish to return to the switch and try someone else.

or perhaps:

KISS reply. Wow! This is a smorgasboard, would you like a threesome?

I'm sure other people can lend their suggestions here. :)

RSVP Kisses Messages and Replies

This may seem a bit arrogant as I've been on RSVP around 10 minutes (Actually I was on in the 90's but does that really count? I'm sooo much wiser now.) but maybe I'm just a square peg in a round hole wherever I dip my toes.

Anyway I'm a bit frustrated by the limited choice of canned messages for RSVP Kisses. This is the only free form of casual messaging available on RSVP. Else you fork out $10 for a stamp so you can email someone for a month. So you can see that Kisses are pretty important and likely to be your medium of communication with almost everyone except a choice few.

So why are the choices so few and why do they, for the most part, just miss what you actually want to say? (Yes yes I know it's a business and they want you to buy stamps, blah blah. Look it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.)

I'll add examples and ideas here as we go along, but here are some early ones:

You get contacted,

KISS Hi I'm interested, could you please add your photo?

You think they're a good sort so you want to say,

Thanks for the kiss, I'm trying not to look like a sneaker creep and add my photo asap, but the RSVP nazis are taking three days to approve it.

In fact nearest available message is,

I'm buying some stamps. Expect my email soon.

which is pretty lame when they can see you obviously have stamps because you are an RSViP member.

You try your hand at sending a Kiss, bolstering your shaky nerves in so doing. You want to say,

KISS, Hi there. I like your profile, shall we try some emails?

The closest available is,

Your profile caught my eye so I thought I'd be brave and say hi!

which is fine albeit a bit wussy.
The reply comes back,

I'm flattered by the attention and appreciate the kiss, but I don't want to take things further right now. I wish you all the best in your search.

which is quite nice (see my post "Rejection"), but the problem now is I want to say, something like

Hey, that's cool, best of luck to you too.

but in fact there is no way to reply to her message reply, so now I feel like I want her to know it's OK so I also don't feel bad but I can't. Some people may think this trivial but signing off is a key aspect of communication between people.



...

This post is still under construction. It's brewing...
However feel free to contribute.

Rejection

Just got my first rejection on RSVP.

A while ago I was learning about small business and read a book called "Rejection - I love it!" I still don't really get it. I mean I know that it's a learning experience and all. Quite similar to when I tell my English language students, "Don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's how you learn. Mistakes are good!".

I get the learning angle on rejection. But to say that you love it is just silly. Rejection hurts. But I did notice with this RSVP rejection just now that it didn't hurt as much as I feared it might. I think it was because I could see the person had checked my profile, taken a few minutes and replied to my "kiss" pretty much straight away. Whether it was true or not, I got the feeling that I had at least received a bit of a go. Yes, I'd like to know what the issue was, but at least the reply was prompt and kind.

Anyway, I'm still breathing.

Silent thinking

It's been a while since I've had time to really think.  I think a lot normally, but my thoughts go round in circles when there are distractions and noise about.  Trying to resolve issues, deal with boring paperwork, reflect on yourself and your own goals - all these require silent thinking.  So I find myself thinking about better places to think.  Hmmm...

Soulmates - how many are there?

I was thinking about love, and how on one level finding your true love is such a frightening game of chance.  Really you don't want to think too much about the mathematical probability of finding your perfect match.  Especially so in our busy, work-centric, modern lifestyles where many people spend more time with colleagues than with family and friends.

So I'd have to presume that either most of us settle for second best (or perhaps good enough), or (more kindly) that we are more adaptable in love than our romanticised view of ourselves holds.

One of my students said recently that most people fall (very deeply) in love only twice in their lives.  I hope that's not true and there's one more out there for me.

Photos - where am I?

Just finding it tricky tracking down decent photos of me.  Scouring my friends FB pages seems the only way.  I just don't have very many of myself.

RSVP

Just started out on RSVP (www.rsvp.com.au) and noticed that the system was quite restrictive there.  I understand totally why it is so, but I felt I needed a bit more freedom so I quickly set up this blog - separated from my other web presences - so people seeking a little more info about me could do so without feeling uncomfortably close.

Welcome...

Thoughts

Thought: Details, details ... hmph!

Previous thoughts: Confidence is an illusion we can aspire to. (abridged version - still not quite right)