Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    
    I don't know if anyone can be sure of any human relationships ;-)
    I mean, I know my cats will always love me if I keep feeding them
    leftover turkey and fish.
    
    I don't know of any measurement/criteria/test we can use to
    "grade" relationships. Too bad, isn't it? 
    
    I notice that if everything is peachy at home, I am a better
    human being (like I'm curtious, cheerful, productive, etc).
    If things are bad, well, stay away. (I curse at everybody
    on the road, I nit-pick, etc). So, I think my state of
    mind is a good indicator of my relationships. 
    
    
    
    Eva.

    Because it hasn't been very long since the breakup, and your judgment
    isn't really clear, and you get that heart-soaring feeling to replace
    the heart-soring feeling.  
    
    In the past, I had grown attached to someone (whether it was love or
    lust I do not know) shortly after a breakup because I didn't want to
    HURT.  The new romance dulled the hurt, even though I wasn't through
    mourning.  I didn't want to feel the pain.  I wanted joy.  I wanted
    desperately to be wanted.  I wanted to be loved and needed.  I wanted
    these things so badly I could taste them, and so fulfilled them with a
    new relationship.
    
    My current take is to mourn thoroughly, recover a strong sense of self,
    and then see what happens, rather than going out shopping for a new
    relationship, or even allowing a current friendship to take on new and
    deeper meaning.  If I'm not thoroughly healed (with the help of
    friends, of course), I will not make a strong and even partner.
    
    "on the rebound", to my mind, means "I'm not ready yet".  I keep
    wondering how people know when they're ready.  I've asked them.  They
    say "you just know".  
    
    -Jody
    

    Well.  If this person is worth keeping, then he will understand if you
    need some time and space for recovering.  Explain that to him, and
    take it slow and easy.
    
    I got my wife on one of her rebounds twenty years ago.  Sometimes it's 
    good and sometimes it isn't.  I feel lucky I was there to help her 
    recover.  Fate was good to me.
    
    					- Vick

	I think you're on the rebound if you're behaving differently than
	you "normally" do: going out with people you wouldn't usually be
	interested in, doing "things" with these people you wouldn't 
	normally do, etc.  Being on the rebound from a previous relationship
	is totally normal and I don't think it does any harm as long as you
	*recognize* that you're not in a very stable state.

	Sue

	Correct or not, .3 is quite gender presumptuous.

	Carla

I don't think you can know for sure, although if you're getting involved with 
someone less for who _they_ are than because you want a relationship with 
someone - or are afraid to be alone - then, you're almost certainly "on the 
rebound".

Needing time to talk or heal is not the same as being on the rebound.  If
your method of dealing with the situation is to repress all the old feelings
of hurt, etc. up front and try to get past all that, they can resurface years
later when you feel safer - and then you'll need to talk and heal, but
otherwise be far from a "rebound" state.

    Sharon

    
    I'd say that if you think you might be "on the rebound," go slow.  I
    think it's fine to enjoy the exciting feelings of newness and physical
    attraction, but try to avoid making big decisions or going at a pace
    that feels too fast.  The fact that you raised the question here makes
    me think that something feels not quite right to you.  Listen to that
    voice.  One of the most frustrating things in the world to me is the
    fact that when I look back on almost every painful situation or
    relationship I've been in... I *can* remember that I did hear a
    cautionary voice deep inside myself, and I ignored or rationalized it
    away.  Here's hoping that you can let yourself hear what you already
    know is the right thing for you.  In meantime, I hope you can be gentle 
    with yourself and have some fun!
    
    Justine                                         

    re.5 >Correct or not, .3 is quite gender presumptuous.
    
        I took it as writing from his point of view, not being in
    the least bit presumptuous.
        It's going to get pretty bad in here if we *must* have the
    "IMHO" after every little thing we say.
        
    
    
    
                                  L.J.

    re: .8  thank you.  I was a little bit baffled by the author of .5
    feeling the need to comment.  The advice is clearly gender-symmetric.
    Or at least I thought it was.
    
    					- Vick

    I guess I feel the same about the 'gender' presumptious comment.
    I think I know where Carla is coming from, or I hope I do, but
    there was nothing as a married women with children, that I found
    negative about .3, perhaps not a way of talking that some women
    would be comfortable with, but indeed the loving expression
    of someone who met their mate 20 years ago, on the rebound, and
    is happy about it. Just beause the person assumed the sexes
    of the people were male and female, it isn't fair to slam them.
    
    Politely saying that the same thing happens between women and women
    and men and men, is perfectly reasonable to me, if the languae
    bothered you.
    
    Not all of us 'hets' are used to gender inclusive language, nor
    are all hets fully comfortable with mss relationships.
    
    Most of us learn better when we are taught without being 'yelled at'.
    Making a remark that assumes relationships are male female, isn't
    homophobic, it is culturally linked and has a lot of social
    conditioning tied to it.
    
    I get a lot further and people learn more, when I politely tell people
    (for example) that calling my kids or other blacks 'colored' or
    calling women 'girls' is a problem for many people, than if I jump
    on them for casual remarks.
    
    Bonnie

    
    The advice should work regardless of the gender of either party.  I
    assumed party one was female because this is the womannotes conference,
    in the same way I would have assumed it was a male if it had been
    entered in the mennotes conference.  Perhaps neither assumption would
    be valid, but neither was it sexist in origin.  The assumption that the
    second party was of the opposite sex from the first was indeed
    culturally conditioned.  I apologize if anyone was offended.  I am not
    homophobic.  I'm an ex-flower-child from the Vietnam era (I spent a whole 
    summer in Berkeley :^) with far fewer than average hang-ups about gender, 
    race, sexual orientation, or anything else.  I THINK I'm one of the
    good guys.  But I'm clearly not always PC in my speech :^).
    
    						- Vick
     

	Sorry, I must have been in a bad mood when I wrote that.

	Carla

Frankly, Ihad exactly the same reaction as Carla, and I *wasn't* in a bad
mood.

D!

    Carla, you might have been in a "bad mood", but you also may have been
    justified. Through this conference, I have tried to be gender-neutral
    in what I say. I'm not always successful, but most the time I do stop
    and think about it or catch myself and rewrite or re-say(?) what I'm
    talking about. That is thanks to this conference. If I'm at the think
    about it stage, maybe soon I'll be at the not having to think about it
    stage. It does take time and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) the
    replier in .3 is a fairly new member of our community. Give the person
    time and maybe they too, will adjust their mindset. While I saw nothing
    wrong in .3 and it's language, I can see how it might be deemed as
    mildly offending to some in here. I'm sure you Carla, didn't intend to
    "SLAM" the person for it and just meant to let your own feelings be
    known. At least I hope that was the case and I pretty sure I know you
    enough  to know you wouldn't deliberately come down on someone real
    hard unless they were being obnoxious or deliberately abusive. I don't
    think this person was doing that and I feel you were just letting your
    own feelings to the surface. 
    Goddess, take a couple of weeks off from here and I get to rambling
    again.
    
    PJ

    It's ok Vick. I liked your note.  I didnt 'see' all the undercurrents.
    I am glad I didn't see them.  Sometimes it is hard in this conference
    to write straight from the heart without all the disclaimers and so on.
    I just asked a question that was bothering me at the time.  I got
    some good answers, some of which I replied to personally.
    
    I guess I am just not very complicated after all.
    
    :)

    What is the kind you feeling does a person "on the rebound" feels for
    you. I mean when someone start a relationship with you and asks for
    your help on recovering from a hurt of heart.
    Do you think that this person is already feeling some kind of love for
    you ? Won't you feel yourself hurt knowing that you  are a kind of aid
    when you know you falling in love and want to be loved ?
    

    �in re .16
    
    If you know a person is 'on the rebound' then you have the chance
    to hug them and help them get over a bad time, and you have the
    chance to be 'nicer' and to not do the things that the other
    person did.  It is very very difficult to love someone who is
    still in love with and hurting over someone else. If a person 
    choses this sort of relationship, they have to be prepared to
    have a lot of patience and not have a lot of expectations of
    the 'other'. i.e. your loved one is not going to give you
    much emotional support when you are needy.
    
    Bonnie

I didn't see anything so negative about Carla's comment. She made
an observation, just one. And she certainly wasn't "yelling."

Kathy

P.S. I thought "hets" was a no-no.

    When I first saw Carla's comment I simply didn't understand it
    (again cultural conditioning).  Once I understood it, I apologized and 
    tried to explain.  I never thought Carla was yelling.  (Did anyone say 
    she was yelling?)  So let's get on with life.  
    
    					- Vick (appropriately sensitized)

    Edited at the (absent) author's request.
    
    						Ann B.
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Note 768.20                  Can you know for sure?                     20 of 20
CPDW::HIGGINS                                        17 lines  19-APR-1991 11:29
                             -< one never knows >-
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    I'll put my two cents worth in...  Last summer I was really hurt over
    a relationship that I had been in for several months.  When the 
    relationship was over for good (around August), I had no intentions
    of getting into another relationship at all... but, surprisingly,
    I did meet someone right after that and have been dating him ever
    since.  I remember thinking at first I must be on the rebound... and
    maybe I was.  But, for me it has worked out.   I do not know if 
    a person can know for sure.  I think, for me, if I actively seek out 
    a new relationship right after ending a relationship I usually 
    have a feeling that may trying to escape the hurt/pain.
    
    - S