i say "narcissism"

i think people are pretty cool here thus far... i've only had one lithium based experience, and i ended that in minutes.. heh

in one word, what do you think is the single most relevant definer within our current social structure in north american life, which leads to the demise and conflict towards interrelational failure?

the mac is already a unix machine. as well, you can run virtual machines and install xp, vista, ubuntu or whatever else you desire on the mac.

i run a pc right now with virtualization, and am going to be purchasing a macbook for the strict purpose of virtualization.

make sure that you're using at least tiger though, and its helpful if you're running the duo core processor by intel (though I do believe that all macs now come that way as standard builds).

cheers!

whooooo are youuuuuuuuu :O

well shadow, you're obviously well adjusted and self conscious enough to know the difference :) its a pleasure to make your acquaintance :)

shadow:
you totally square on nailed that one!
forgiveness, forgivness, forgivness.

and not just of the other people but of ourselves!!!!

people need to get over themselves, and maybe they'll be more accepting and compassionate toward others. if a person doesn't forgive themselves, they will not forgive others...

good call mate!

well for example : how many people have heard, "don't do that! my ex did that and I blah blah blah" i have pissed off girlfriends outright by saying? wow really? that sucks for you... well i'm not him, and its not my trigger, so you should probably spend some time working that out... because I'm not taking it on.
it's yours.
you own it.

I know fully that anyone that accomodates that in a current relationship, has just signed its death warrant....it is only a matter of time before everything that is their issue, that all occured long before you came along? is now entirely you that is the cause of it....

its a classical textbook descriptor, and well known in psychological circles.

its called enabling, and redirecting, and if a person allows a current partner to do that? they become the centric focus of the issues which the partner refuses to own.

oh wait...
i lied... i do have ex's that call me. and even a couple that have dropped over unexpectedly. I even once had an ex that only trusted me to babysit her son - though i think that was her trying to piss off my current g/f so that only happened once.
chinese proverb:
fool me once, shame on you.
fool me twice, shame on me :P

heh. i don't call my ex's. my ex's don't call me. but when we see each other in public, or at functions - to which quite simply both of us must attend - there isn't that "oh god there's my ex!" Bullsiht.

we really are ok with each other. and ultimately? I don't have to care at all if its an act for them - as I am sure it is for a couple that come to mind. I only have to care that my heart is right. My actions are reflective of that right. and that I am honest and honorable in everything that I am, and that I do.

Like I've said in another forum answer. I'm not responsible for their bitterness and anger, and I don't have to take it on. I never do, or did.

Every person is 100% responsible for their own feelings. Period.

I will always be nice. Besides, the ex's that do put on the show do so because I left them, and they perhaps have some insecurities, and/or feelings of "not good enough" as was stated in one o the comments to this thread, which isn't or was ever the case.

for me? to end a relationship is very simple. I see or am involved in situtations, and/or a situation which I cannot reconcile. I won't tell them that they have to change this or that. Instead I'll ask them what they're thinking when doing it, and if i find that the answer is a indicator to me of what will without question be a method of future functioning, which I do no wish to accept and/or reconcile. I leave them.
period.

I don't fight with people to make them "do what I want" because quite simply I know that I know that if something bothers me? It is my problem. not their problem. Because they were doing it long before they met me, and will do it long after I'm gone. it is nothing to do with me, accept in the sense of perhaps being a projection or mirror of my character which I do not like as such it bothers me.

however, in other cases, I have also asked the reasoning behind something and a partner has, "well you know? I haven't really thought about that before? huh." and they self examine and they CHOOSE of their own free will to address and/or change the event/method.

Life is work.
Relationships are work.
If you want to "change" your partner, wait till the clones come out and you can special order your partner, with complete dna manipuluation - after all if you're so selfish that you need to "change" anyone, than you will be narcissitic enough to custom make a partner, and I bet... when you do? they'll be just like you, and you'l want to kill them, because you'll be confronted with everything in yourself that you do not like, address, or acknowledge heh...

:)

uhhhh, you're already perfect? what is the problem?

if someone asked me "what would you change to make me perfect?" my answer could only be. "nothing. you decide what you want to change, and i'll be there either way"

on a side note...
i have a decent disposition because i focused on what it was about my past relationships that I loved, not what i don't like... and it is those things which I am able to carry through to the next relationships, and moreso on my aspects of me which needed changing... so i could be better...

whomever i meet, or am with, are their own responsibility... not mine in that sense of self awareness and correction. everyone has the right to fix themselves, and no one deserves to be subjected to what happened to someone else. :)

so i've been reading the forums and stuff, and I'm thinking that quite a few people online still have open sores... fresh even...

in the area of ex's and how they go about brandishing knives and swords which - in the long run - screw themselves over for meeting someone new...

and likely they'll meet someone that either is in the same situation, and/or go out with someone else that has the same attributes which they left.

ok, so maybe I've been lucky, blessed, good karma or whatever it is that people need to call good things for their own sake, but you know... i've just not had it that difficult..

i get along w/ my ex's. I don't have scars from breakups. I've been dumped. I've dumped. six of one, half dozen the other. makes no difference.

mind you i've only loved once, and i didn't go running into a relationship - i actually took a 5 year hiatus because i knew i was wounded and not in a good position to be of any benefit to anyone else.

now that i'm back in the "field" so to speak I find that I'm meeting a lot of wonderful people. Some I thought I'd date, and discovered quickly enough that nope, but hey, they're still good people so I'm fine with the friendship of it. I don't lead people on and I don't play games. I don't have the energy or interest.

So what is it about the online thing? Or for that matter people over 30? Why is it I find that most (and of course there are always exceptions, and generalizing isn't the best way to go about it..) however, the whole concept of "baggage."

whenever I read that word in a profile or read a profile that is laced with it, i wonder to myself, woah, how is that person going to even begin to have a healthy relationship when they have that jaded judgmental attitude going in?

example: I ski...

when i got to the top of the hill the first time i was "holy crap!" that is long, far and damn steep! I had one of two choices.. either be scared Sihtless on the way down, intimidated... or shrug and say well, its the only way down, so i'm going to run it.

I ran it. My second run ever were moguls, at night.
now i ski extreme and off the beaten path and don't even notice it, as it really only ever comes down to where i am and what is directly in front of me.

a word of advice to the over 30 crowd... if the wound is fresh? stay off the hill. If you're more afraid of being hurt than you are of being alone? you're bringing a live grenade into your next relationship, spending more time looking at what could go wrong, and no time on what is going right...

i think that it is impossible to put any two people together without at least 1% conflict. It is the same whether it's friends, or relationship...

yet we have more tolerance and understanding for friendships that hit sour notes then we do for relationships. Carrying the pain and baggage from relationships into the next one, and then the next one, and then sooner or later we can't see the relationship for the crap we're dragging behind us...

lighten up... seriously... there isn't anyone at all anywhere at anytime that can look back at any relationship and be honest with themselves and say, "i did nothing wrong" because then they're lying to themselves and everyone else.

no one is infalible.
everyone fails.

it is also a guarantee that you will be hurt by the next person you love, and the person you love will be hurt by you. it is the reality of human nature. it sucks, but its the truth.

see the world as it is, instead of seeing it as you need it to be...

toe jam. it is usually not a good idea to get into this topic. no idea why though...

heh, that scammer site is pretty cool! I didn't even know that site (or any like it actually) existed.
however, my rule of thumb is simple. Single profile pic and limited information. do not trust.

the prettier the girl the less likely its a real picture. gloss air brushed pictures, are after market.

there are a few other giveaways, but i'm too tired to remember them...

I believe for a man the term is "metrosexual" meaning really that later? down the road? he'll declare that he's gay... cuz well he always was gay... but he didn't want to say he was gay, even though he acted rather as such in his girly man kind of way, and the term was coined "metrosexual"

as for the manly girl? i'm going to have to research that now dammit

ok: knights....

Roman society was strictly hierarchical, with slaves (servī) at the bottom, freedmen (libertī) above them, and free-born citizens (civēs) at the top. Free citizens were themselves also divided by class. The broadest, and earliest, division was between the patricians, who could trace their ancestry to one of the 100 Patriarchs at the founding of the city, and the plebeians, who could not. This became less important in the later Republic, as some plebeian families became wealthy and entered politics, and some patrician families fell on hard times. Anyone, patrician or plebeian, who could count a consul as his ancestor was a noble (nobilis); a man who was the first of his family to hold the consulship, such as Marius or Cicero, was known as a novus homo ("new man") and ennobled his descendants. Patrician ancestry, however, still conferred considerable prestige, and many religious offices remained restricted to patricians.

A class division originally based on military service became more important. Membership of these classes was determined periodically by the Censors, according to property. The wealthiest were the Senatorial class, who dominated politics and command of the army. Next came the equestrians (equites, sometimes translated "knights"), originally those who could afford a warhorse, who formed a powerful mercantile class. Several further classes, originally based on what military equipment their members could afford, followed, with the proletarii, citizens who had no property at all, at the bottom. Before the reforms of Marius they were ineligible for military service and are often described as being just barely above freed slaves in terms of wealth and prestige.

Most of the freed slaves were able to purchase their freedom through service in the military and or different campaigns. When the roman empire expanded into the gaulic and germanic states, as well as into the briton states, the waring tribes unified as a defence against the expansive roman armies.

Once the roman armies had subdued the opposition to their expansion the method by which they kept order in those regions was through offspring conscriptions.

The eldest sons of the different chieftans of each village was taken to rome, trained as a solider of the equestrians then expected to stand in campaign for the different roman endevours. If a village or fiefdom were to rebel against rome, the equestrian sons would be slain as a penalty for rebellion against the state.

However, the sons, were also treated as heads of authority and representatives of each warring tribal region. this later formulated the royal houses of europe as the roman empire transformed from a military empire, to a religious state. Which allowed the catholic church jurisdiction over the different royal families of europe at the time of the european dissention.

Knights were appointed or "knighted" to manage the different jurisdictional area's within each kingdom, with different rankings as dukes, lords, viceroys and so forth sprang forth from the original roman class structured system.

cheers!

work out... go to the gym... join a dojo... go out and beat up a$$holes in a bar...

masturbate.. perpetually....

or deal with them i guess...
though prolly wanna do one of the above first...

congrats I think...
i'm not understanding. you're not up for games because you see some? or you don't see any and expect some? or just in general as a blanket statement?

j

little chinese nymphs will suddenly appear in your dreams, (oompa loompa like) and dance and sing while your belly churns and turns with owwww myyyyyyyy belly aches in your sleep...

when you wake up in the morning, everything will have a sepia tone haze to it, because you drank bad tea...

tea heh