Amazing People - scientific riddles (Mar/25/2009 )
Yeah, I know it's hard that's what I'm trying to say here. We can't pigeonhole relationships esp one as complicated as friendship or love for that matter. In the end, we decide for ourselves what friendship means to us or whom do we call a friend. There'll be a lot of factors entangled here (intentions, emotions, psychologic make-up, personality, societal/cultural etc). And I guess this is where we differ from AS folk..they can't cope with all these subtleties or this delicate balance involved in human relationships.
could indeed be.
@Astilius,
AS folk can be very naive and this is one of the things that opens them up to abuse along with their loyalty and apparent difference from other people. But just because we tend to be loyal friends doesn't mean we have the skills to keep friends. An example of this is knowing how long you should go between contact with your friends. Some firneds see/talk to each other every day, some every week, some longer than that. There is no hard and fast rule and even within one friendship this time can vary. This is not an intuitive thing for us and the lack of routine is itself a problem. So, we end up either being in contact too much (appearing clingy) or too little (appearing distant). The fact that where the AS person can see they can help and follow that up (and all the other aspects of loyalty) don't actually help becuase we are blind to and are confused by a lot of what it innate in NT's.
Eum, I see, but thats hard for normal people too, there is no real rule on when to meet someone and how many times. I think this just depends on the person itself and how close he is.
The question of what a friend is is interesting because I have spent some time on this issue and there seems no clear cut answer to it. It means different things to different people. As for your last point, I think you are right. I can have a need to discuss a matter to clarify it for myself but beyond needing someone who I am comfortable with it really doesn't matter who that person is. My wife can be great here because, not wanting to sound very clinical about it, because we have a shared library of topics discussed it makes further discussions easier and more rich through inherent cross indexing of topics discussed.
yeah, its hard to define what a friend is. And it also depends on the person and his needs.
(ex. someone who really needs to vent his problems will more likely need a good friend that is able to listen etc.. while someone who has no need to vent his feelings (someone who isnt that emotional) would rather want someone to sport with or to chat with or...)
-pito-
Astilius on Apr 23 2009, 06:00 AM said:
But this all seems very selfish, the keeping of an animal to make the owner feel good seems disconnected from the animal's needs.
As for sports - I genuinely think that the emotions generated as sports are fictitous. Sure no-one actually cares about the winning or losing of a group of people that you have no real contact with. It's a diversion but surely no one really cares?”
But Astilius, half of the world are pet owners and the other half are sports fans….If you are this candid in voicing out your opinions , then no wonder you only get vibes of resentment, frustration and even anger. I’m neither but I have family and close friends who own pets and are sports fans or do both, so I can understand their sentiments. It’s interesting tho your take on keeping pets and dependency. Sure it can be selfish and it could be a need but this is part of being human and otoh, why couldn’t the owner raise their pet just for its own sake. That they can derive satisfaction by seeing that it is well taken care of, well-adjusted, content?And this mutual dependency that you have trouble with, perhaps the reason why you don’t want to be dependent on an entity is bec you can’t be depended upon in return i.e. you can’t trust yourself to be there when this entity needs you, that it wouldn't be mutual..……but I guess this is just very cheap psychology?
I would prefer this state of evenness far more than a state of constant happiness.
Data finding his cat, I understand him feeling relief but the fact that this relief comes at the cost of the worry before seems a high price to pay.
But I would have a different way of looking at this…the fact that I found my cat alive and unharmed is worth all the stress and worry that I suffered before. I’d find this analogous to the birth of a child i.e., the happiness the parents feel at that moment of birth is worth all the pain and suffering they endured during labor or even way before. Would you have traded this brief stint of happiness for a constant state of evenness?
-casandra-