From: [email protected]
Subject: Nurse Jones on puppy obedience lessons
Date: 24 Jan 92 03:33
From Nurse Jones,
I have to admit something here. It took me a while to figure out what
a "con" was. Is 28 that old? Is Indiana *that* different? Am I out of
touch or something? The Puppydog Concept keeps pushing my buttons,
though. I knew a few puppydogs in high school. None in college. Since
then, I've only been in two situations in which a puppydog attached
himself to me. One is (still) a technician in radiology, and the other
was at a party I went to in Valdosta. I was lucky with him, though. I
only get wizfiltered e-mail from him; he doesn't know where I live.
But paranoia struck after he appeared. He scared the retroactive
living piss out of me, if you must know. I shudder to think how
stoopid I was, going to that party, and how lucky I was to come away
knowing "A" rather than this guy. At first he was just amusing. I
flamed him gently, and I suspect the shining armor brigade had a few
words with him. I got quiet later, because he just makes me tired. But
he's still there.
I don't even remember him from the party. He didn't introduce himself,
probably because Jay was there. "In the way." He has posted here, and
he connected me at the party with me here on ASB. Fortunately, he made
the connection after I left the party.
If he had thought to go out into the street in Valdosta and look at
our license plate, he would have known what county and state I live
in.
There aren't many hospitals in the county.
What if he were determined enough to actually go to all of them?
He may be that determined: his e-mails to me are as regular as
clockwork, and almost mechanically repetitive. It's like having The
Terminator on your trail. Limited programming, incredible tenacity.
Thank God his only link to me is wizvax. I'll be more careful in the
future. I worship in Steffie's general direction.
The point is, there are some nice people out there that have been
trying to get in real.touch with me. I apologize. I'm scared. I can't.
He has muddied the waters for you. Being "out" to a pit bullpuppy that
knows about my facination with bondage would be the end of me. This
guy is there every time I open my e-mail. Who knows what route he
would use to get to me if there were an alternative to wizmail several
times a week. He's just not sensitive enough to get my "go away"
message. I can just hear him telling me that he outed me to my
hyperbaptist boss for my own good. "You'll thank me when you get to
know me better..."
*shudder*
I think I prefer assholes to earnest, sincere, stupid people. At least
the assholes rest sometimes.
I just don't know. Now there are self-professsed puppydogs on the Net
that are throwing reproachful looks around because they KNOW they
would never hurt anyone and I should be ashamed of myself for being
abrupt and unfair.
But then, there are ex-puppydogs on the Net that seem to understand
the problem as well as (or better than) everyone else.
I give 'em ONE chance. The second time, I sometimes (often) resort to
rudeness. If that is preemptive bad manners, so be it.
Try and look at it this way: almost everybody is bigger than I am. I
am five-two, one hundred and eight. In high school I had a big, stupid
puppyclod that "just wanted me to give him time enough so he could
explain that he would never hurt me."
He said this to me WHILE he was hurting me, grinding my wrist bones
together in his big hamfist. He would NOT let go. He had to hold on
tight enough to hurt me in order to keep me there so he could explain
how much he didn't want to hurt me. I couldn't even kick him in the
balls, it hurt so much.
What's that I hear? A reproachful, "...but I would never do that....
I'm not like that."
What if I said, "Yes, you are. It's just a different kind of
nonconsensual intrusion." Or, to try a completely different argument,
what if I said, "How do I KNOW that you aren't like that?"
PUPPY LESSON ONE:
If I say I want to be left alone, I could have a million reasons. The
one I actually give might be a trivial and polite one, one that a
NORMAL person would respect, EVEN THOUGH TRIVIAL. Maybe it's a true
reason, OR maybe I want to find out if you're normal.
If I say, "No, I'm sorry, I have to wash my hair tonight," the correct
answer isn't, "That's okay, I think your hair is beautiful as it is.
You don't need to wash it." Or, "I think wet hair is sexy." An excuse
isn't an obstacle that you should regard as something you have to
overcome, no matter how flimsy it appears to be, no matter how strong
your motivation to overcome it is.
If someone thinks enough of you to be gentle in their refusal, the
only thing you can accomplish by disregarding their hint will be to
lower their opinion of you. Learning to recognize and respect an
excuse is a social skill. Overcoming one is not.
Guilt-tripping and manipulating your victim is in a different
category. That IS a social skill. In the same sense that torture is a
political skill. It sometimes gets you what you want, but if you are
found out, you make people want to vomit. And they won't tell you why
they are avoiding you. Disgust manifests itself through avoidance.
The puppydog can avoid this trap, and excuses are the warning signs.
Or maybe I really DO have leprosy and I really AM a serial killer
wanted for murder in twelve states and I DO have to get back to my 18
wheeler because the engine IS still running to keep the meat cold in
the refrigerated trailer. Meat from twelve states.
PUPPY LESSON TWO:
One point, for someone like me, is that it's SCARY to have someone
follow you around. They ALL insist they are harmless. Okay, so you
really ARE harmless, but Ted Bundy has muddied the waters for you, the
same way you muddy the social waters for other people. I can't TELL if
you're harmless. I BEGIN to SUSPECT you MIGHT be harmless if you act
like a normal person and leave me alone if I hint that's what I want.
You've got to understand that tenacity is absolutely not the right
approach with some people. Maybe most people; certainly people my size
who have to live by their wits, and aren't all that well armed to
begin with.
The POINT is, if you are abnormally tenacious without being
imaginative, I wonder if you are stupid. If you are abnormally
tenacious and clever about it, I wonder if you are Ted Bundy. You've
got to see this is a no- win situation.
The secret word here is abnormal. The lesson here is find another
approach. Do something else. That's what people are telling you when
they say "get a life." Instead of hitting on one woman repeatedly, hit
on many women once. That means joining clubs, taking night classes,
whatever.
But I now have a puppydog, one that attached himself to me at a party.
Given these results, it's going to be a long, long time before I come
out any more than I already have. From now on, the ONLY thought I have
about him, no matter what he does now, no matter how intensely he
feels about me, will be: thank God he's not a Ted Bundy, thank God he
was one of the stupid ones.
You may have guessed, I don't feel forgiving toward him any more. He
has brushed aside every polite fiction I have invented, and revealed
himself to be monumentally stupid. Reeeeeealy thick, dense, stupid. Do
you hear that, Harlan? STUPID! (Smack forehead with 2x4). Anyone home?
And if he could interrupt me right now he would smile forgivingly and
say, "Aw, come on. Tell me what you *really* think of me."
I just can't believe that out of a zillion sperm, he was the fastest.
-*-
So, to the NICE puppydogs out there: how do I distinguish you from
Harlan? From Ted Bundy? Without letting you close enough to grab my
wrist? Just by taking the time to listen long enough to be persuaded?
Spend hours getting to know you? Letting you get to know me well
enough to figure out where I live? Or am I entitled to make a snap
judgement/first cut based on what _I_ (perhaps wrongly, but what else
can I go by?) perceive as normal/abnormal behaviour?
PUPPY LESSON THREE:
The depth of your sincerity, the goodness of your feelings toward me,
the strength of your conviction that you are the right one for me, or
that you could be if I gave you a chance, NONE OF THAT COUNTS.
The depth of the ocean is irrelevant. I can drown in the upper five
feet and three inches.
Even if you are excruciatingly sincere, I am distrustful of a
sincerity that can grow to such depth on so little (negative)
feedback. And offended that you hope for reciprocation.
Perhaps you ARE brilliant. Perhaps you WOULD shine if I just gave you
the chance. What if I know too many wonderful people already?
Sometimes I think I know too many people, period. I just want to hide,
sometimes.
And while I'm on the subject, what REALLY burns me is the tacit
assumption that some puppydogs make about my present relationship.
Actually, that should be relationship(s). Some of you know what I'm
talking about. More on that later. Ahem. For now, what consenting
adults do in the privacy of their own home is nobody's business but
the um, three or four people involved.
What I mean is, puppydog assumes that if I would only just get to know
him well enough, I would learn that he is perfect for me; even better
than that "other person" (Jay) about whom the puppy wants to know or
hear nothing. Puppy just pretends Jay doesn't exist and puppy wants to
develop "something special" between "just us." All this AFTER I have
explained that I am very attached already, thankyou.
I mean, what if the puppydog was right, what if he really would be
better for me than Jay? So what?
Isn't it:
(a) a little insulting to assume I am waiting around for something
better to come along? That that's all it would take?
(b) a little embarrassing to the puppy to admit he thinks that way? If
that is the attitude he hopes for from me, what should I expect from
him?
(c) insulting to a multi-year relationship that I treasure to try and
brush it aside that way?
Don't they think of this stuff? How it looks to others?
So that's the end of my puppy lessons. Just feel lucky there's nothing
I can rub your nose in, Harlan.
Or maybe it's me. Do I have a special problem, just being physically
too little? Am I hypersensitive because of that?
Awwwwww hell. It's just coming up on that time of month again. I'm
tired of this post. It's depressing. I'm tired of the thread.
Actually, I'm tired of Harlan.
And if I were a cosmic lifeguard, I would blow my whistle at him.
Nurse Jones,
TWEEEEEEEEET!
Hey you!
Yeah, YOU!
(jerks thumb over shoulder)
Outta the gene pool!
NOW!
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