Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MiriamsSon who wrote (23620)	7/16/1998 2:59:00 AM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

MiriamsSon, you seem to have come to the right place, if you are a man who fully expresses your feelings. Most men feel pretty uncomfortable doing so. I took a lot of psych in college, and had a lot of therapy, and live in the human potential capitol of the western world, so I am pretty comfortable with expressing mine, and I think it is healthy. So I am glad you stopped by! The problem as I see it is that the social norms in America do not encourage expressing real feelings unless there is already an enormously intimate relationship. There is a radio advertisement out here in San Francisco where a young woman is sort of babbling on, and suddenly she stops and says, "Oh, am I over-sharing?" I think that people who are retarded, mentally ill, or have been through a lot of programs like EST, Esalen, and several others that we have out here all talk at least faintly of psychobabble. While this works when there is a whole group of them, it alienates people who are not so comfortable in this milieu. A person who did not know you would be trying to figure out what kind of problem you had. Honesty can seem very childlike and strange. I guess what I am saying is that to most people you meet, if you are really honest, the other person is trying to decide whether you are a little off in some way, and if so, exactly which way! While I understand and support inner child work, I will never forget the time my poor husband went off willingly to an inner child workshop I had enrolled him in, and was expected to crawl all over on his hands and knees, role playing or something. Really, it is funny now, but he was not amused at the time, felt very weird, and left. In relationships, I think it is better to start slowly and naturally, and let things unfold gradually. Have a lot of playful fun, and don't be too intense!! There is nothing scarier to most people than someone who wants to be fully honest. It is just not in our social contract, and you may be frightening away a perfectly lovely person who would just like to go much more slowly. Did that help at all? You can be honest with me if it didn't. Understanding each other with just words on an electronic page and no other clues is sometimes difficult.