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LETTERS TO STRANGERS
...WORDS I HAVE POSTED PUBLICALLY IN VARIOUS PLACES IN RESPONSE TO OTHERS WORDS...


...a friend is a stranger waiting to be met...

Physical Respects

January 22, 2000

>>>I'm going to stick my neck out and say something highly personal about
>>>myself IRL. And you can make what you wish of it, but it's the truth.
>>>If a man walked up to me and said "what's my chances?" I could tell
>>>him accurately within five minutes. A definite 'NO' could take as
>>>little as 2 seconds, though it is less pleasant to say. And I would
>>>respect someone for having the guts to ask. The asking doesnt have to
>>>be unsubtle or crude. After all there is nothing crude about sex.
>>>If I spent over two months getting to know someone and they hadn't
>>>made any sign they were interested, the friendship we'd developed
>>>would make sexual relations feel incestuous, therfore a NoNo. Though
>>>there have been exceptions.
>>
>>this is one of the reasons I've come to respect and admire you so much
>>more than I even tell you... just felt like letting you know :)
>>
>>honest love, ric
>
> thanks ric!
> I just do not feel represented by the imaginary women being generally
>alluded to in this type of thread. I may seem more or less alone on this
>NG in my attitude, but know I am not IRL. Maybe there's a culture
>difference
> ............ All I know is, I just don't mix with many women in real
>life who assign so much great value to their body that they will use it
>as a bargaining tool. Or men who expect them to. And the reason I don't
>mix with them is that they have seemingly an important dimension
>missing. I still think that women are meant to get off on sex.
>
your comments above and your concern about being booed offstage (congratulations and cheers and hope for even better touches) inspired me to look at my life (from both sides now) for I've deeply experienced both word-world without physical touches and touch-worlds without words... may my attempt to find a general understanding of my experiences be of some worth to read...

after years of living in words (personally and professionally) and in living in physical touches (personally and professionally) and crossing back and forth between the two worlds, I've come to accept that many people live in one or the other and have little understanding of the experience of the other... the lack of understanding prevents real communication... and sometimes creates conflicts as insecurities flare...

the saddest thing is so many word-people either wouldn't begin to understand - in physical reality - what you mean or worse, they'd thump a book of words (and there are many to thump) that supposedly justify the repression that leads to hypocrisy that leads to denial that leads to manipulations, confusion and conflict...

so here we are in a sanctuary of words where we can say anything we think or feel without any connection to physical touch or contact with anyone... only our imaginations bring our words off the computer screen into whatever one makes of the physical experience to mean whatever one wants the words to mean...

so many who live most of their time in the real (physical) world, experiencing the sensuality of their body and daring (and risking) sharing it with another (mostly-touch-people) might have as little concept of what mostly-word-people think or feel in lieu of actual physical sharing...

your honest directness may scare some who don't share physically very often (or have never)... people who are used to superficial cordialities that seldom or never get past surface words (no less have experiencial reference in the physical world) might find your candor alien to their experience... if insecure enough, even threatening to their limited perspective of life... ultimately you, just by sharing yourself, challenge them to ask themselves why they are so alone - and bluntly, is their defense against sexuality really right or are they missing something...

rather than tossing their books and history of self-alienation and self-imposed loneliness, they seek flaws in you or anyone who disagrees with their brown paper packing of life... and hence, you are viewed as a threat to the mostly-word person's paper fantasy life...

so what a wonderful world it would be if people were not afraid to touch and feel honestly... and what a better world it would be if people didn't condemn others for doing what they fear to do...

and this word-person now leaves this sactuary for a little while, for the touch-world calls and I enjoy both as both are part of my world... thanks for inspiring this exploration of my experiences and philosophies...

honest love, ric

"if you try to look, but you don't touch
then you won't touch, but you'll never feel
and if you don't feel, you'll never cry
and if you don't cry, then you'll never heal"
~ Harry Chapin ~

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