Let's look at the rules of the game, shall we?
1. Every new person you meet/date/sleep with you have to run your
rap on afresh, and then spend mucho time either maintaining or trying
to get rid of it, which let's face it, wastes a great amount of time
from your already-finite life span.
2. Every new person you meet/date/sleep with is one more person who
you have the chance of accidentally pissing off. Believe it or not,
a number of these people are neurotic enough to not leave you alone
if things do not work out, psychotic enough to scream "date rape"
when there was none, and psychopathic enough to come back with a
weapon of mass destruction and do significant damage to you.
3. Every new person you meet/date/sleep with is one more piece of
emotional baggage you'll have to carry around for the rest of your life.
4. The more people there are, the more difficult it gets to remember
what you said to whom and when. Hence, writing your own ticket to
loneliness and despair.
If those are the rules of the game, then I'm the first one to sign up to quit.
With one person:
1. All time spent is time invested in a single person, who can then
take all that stuff -- call it love -- and send it back to you.
2. There's only a single person on this planet you have to keep happy.
3. Carrying a single duffle bag is FAR easier than several, a dozen,
scores, or hundreds....
4. You know EXACTLY what you said, to that one person, because everything
you said was to that one person.
In short, the rules should be:
1. Never, ever sleep with anyone unless that person is THE ONE.
Heck, don't even kiss a person until you know that person is THE ONE.
Why risk getting yourself more baggage?
2. Don't even waste time with someone once they've revealed themselves
not to be THE ONE.
3. Once you find THE ONE, put your heart and your mind and your soul
into THE ONE. Because love is not a constant; it must be continually
augmented or it will fade away...
That's a game this homey CAN play. The only one, in fact. The key, of
course, is to know what you're looking for. Most people don't even give
the matter thought. Which means though they may win in their game, they
lose in my game.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
Young people should be out complicating their lives. Will give them
something to talk to their therapist.
-- Suzanne Zamora