Ode To A Blue Moon
You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than from a lifetime of conversation - PlatoGood morning Saturday,
So here we are, as Bob Seger might sing – especially here we are separated by The Internet. We’re not even as close as on the telephone. That has me wondering this weekend exactly what it means for us to get to know each other here. I mean any one of you, not just the right woman, for me. How do we get to know each other; and what does that actually mean: “get to know someone” on a dating website? (This could be a very long post but I only have about 500 words so I’ll be brief.)
What is our first interaction? We have our profiles. I like to think I know who I am and what are my needs from a relationship. I have also given considerable thought to what I can contribute towards a relationship beyond lifting the toilet seat. I know what I think is important and have some idea of what my partner should also think is important because a life trapped in Monty Python’s Argument Sketch is not what I will sign on for. I know my weaknesses, those areas I look to a relationship for strength, and I know my strengths, those qualities I posses I can contribute to someone else in a relationship that strengthens my partner. So my profile expresses the two halves of the whole.
Let’s gloss over the stipulation about being a whole person in a relationship and settle on temet nosce being more salient and important here, subsuming being ready for an adult relationship is a given. I have never met a “whole person” who was not some form of a narcissistic dilletante. I am disinterested in sharing a relationship with a perfect dillentante.
But after advertising ourselves on our profile, what else exists? The blogs are good at attracting like-minded persons to us – if the like-minded persons read blogs. But 500 word snippets of discussion are just the sort of conversation Plato refers to. I do not plan to spend my lifetime on a dating website like it’s Hotel California. Conversations here also involve some fiction as anyone who has ever attended a business mixer can attest. There are just some things a conversation will never reveal and may actively cover up – hardly the kind of immediacy Plato recognizes in play.
How do we get to the play that Plato praises for learning about other persons? He’s certainly not recommending time wasters like Angry Birds or Farmville. I have taken one poorly executed quiz that was hardly thought provoking. Frankly, I am hesitant to take another knowing it reflects upon my profile. It would better serve my purpose to attach my Myers-Briggs assessment or reference my David McClelland Theory of Needs score on my profile than to haphazardly take amateur tests I, at least, find lack validity. These do not bridge a gap or build common ground, and my laughing at them produces the sound of one-hand clapping: useless upon uselessness.
These blogs are the closest to the immediacy of play we have for engaging one another here. I just hope the person meant for me reads the blogs and stops at mine. Maybe I will write something thought provoking that one-time, engaging her enough to actively reach out to me like I used to do in the night sky whenever I saw a super-sized moon.
I am sure there is a self-depreciating pun in that last sentence….
Comments (4)
I was very bored last night so did about all the personality quizzes as some of it was actually kind of amusing.....like Elvis being my spiritual guide. Can I undo it...I wonder.
Welcome to my blog.
When I was younger, I am referring to before I was 11, we kids used to all hang out together. I find that my strongest relationships hearken back to that time period. Later, as I was involved in an evangelizing church, we used to date within a group. No one dated one-on-one. In both of these settings, one could stand back and observe the person who brung ya. And there was no pressure. Once my family moved away from my boyhood neighbourhood and I started to question the gene pool from my church, I was dating women one-on-one and I can imagine I was not what they expected in a date.
What expectation, you may ask? Imagine the expectation from my inviting a young woman my age to a chaste sleepover at my apartment in order to extend the time of a 12-hour date. I have no reason to lie about that, or any idea how many other people went on such whole daylong dates. It was very frustrating for me until I understood getting to know me had a different meaning. I grew up in the time when I had a Pet Rock to see.
My professional experience tends to support my bias that a one-on-one interview is no substitute for observing someone in a group.
And those tests just reflect the person who created them rather than the person who made responds to them.
Thank you for your comment.
The last three years, I have been in career transition mode after a 20+year career that dumbed-down my vocabulary (and my mother tongue has had no challenge living in a foreign-language country these last 12 years). My blog here is an attempt to discipline my writing and polish my vocabulary. This is where I do my own language exercises. So some words I use here will be a re-discovery for me, as well, after being out of practice so long with my language for so long. You are hardly alone!
So welcome and do not take my pretentious vocabulary as meaning anything more than my own pretentiousness. ;-)
I read your blog post, by the way. I quite agree with much of your own keen observations! You were quite clear, and I look forward to reading more from you.
Well, as you can see from my response to ekself, I have experienced two very different definitions of socialization, and I have a preference to the former over the latter. I can socialize with people without uttering a coherent word as I have proven in Poland (since I do not speak Polish). Nothing beats a willing listener and a co-operative spirit in a shared interest to commune.
Anyone interested in a relationship with me needs to share my philosophical emphasis on active listening in communication or I will drive them crazy. My style does not get on with drones, robots, the beligerent and the defensive.
Hemingway is an excellent model for revisions and clarity. There is no doubt in my mind. But I am going to venture into Faulkner territory once in a while – especially in describing elements of my personal philosophy and in general wool gathering.
Thank you for the compliment. You have a very popular blog I notice so I consider it an accolade to have you among my first readers.