Comments on: to remember or to forget? on babies and beer goggles

By: diziler

diziler — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 01:18:14 +0000

what about those of us who can remember every agonizing detail?
eidetic…
its a bitch

By: portrait artist

portrait artist — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:47:20 +0000

I�m not sure though if the word �coutship� will apply to all people regardless of this race. I once tried online dating and there was this guy who asked me if I can be his girlfriend. I told him to do a little courting � verb form of courtship � first. Imagine him leaving in panic because he thought I was sending him to court for some reasons. I guess let�s start things out by defining what courtship means.

By: Birthday Gifts

Birthday Gifts — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:13:01 +0000

This was a very interesting article. I personally think the modern form of ‘dating’ doesn’t work, even though I admit the older form of ‘courting’ had limits placed on it that were certainly not necessary.
I, personally, believe in courtship as far as a heart decision goes (in other words, I date only because I’m interested in getting married, and seeing if I am ‘compatible’ with a particular girl.) I also don’t start dating until I know her very well as a friend (if possible) because that gives me a good idea to know whether I would LIKE to pursue a relationship with her or not.
Of course, this ideal requires for her to have the same seriousness about dating. Not so difficult, though, if you go for the right kind of girl (He he.)
And lastly, my dating is a LOT easier because I don’t believe in sex before marriage. This actually makes the relationship more fun, easier, and able to grow and develop more naturally.
My 2c!

By: Birthday Gifts

Birthday Gifts — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:26:27 +0000

By: newkon

newkon — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 08:00:06 +0000

CLARITY, precious, precious CLARITY, wherefore art thou in Love?
Give me communication any day, I’d rather have mental sex than physical anyway, though ideally both would be nice, I am terribly wonderfully defined by my tendency towards intense psycholagny.

By: Mesila

Mesila — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 23:59:30 +0000

Coinky-dink, major.

Ideally, we’d all be good at communicating the state of our relationships with others, but the truth is that we suck at reflexivity. Then again, do we really want precise communicative efficacy? Sometimes, the fuzzy line is more desirable. What if you don’t know what you want?

HELL YES I want precise communicative efficacy, ESPECIALLY after the vaguest “was it a relationship or even a matter of slight sexual attraction at all or was his motive [...endless list of possibilities...]” experience in my adult life, which I finally sighed and put the brakes on this morn, mournfully, since despite this I liked the guy and he liked me, that was obvious, what was NOT was WHAT HE WANTED. We’re talking about someone who wouldn’t even tell me “I don’t know what I want”, ok? There’s absolutely nothing good about grey fuzz, because that gives me bupkis in the way of behavioural clues. How the hell was I supposed to act? Thinking he was shy – even though in the beginning he STARTED this mess – I made a bold move and then things went poofty. I think he dropped REALLY vague hints I’d not the ability to pick up, or maybe my brain purposefully-by-accident didn’t receive their meaning.

By: Joseph Kugelmass

Joseph Kugelmass — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:16:11 +0000

I agree with Irina that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is tackling this head-on, which is why it’s funny that an “anti-memory pill” should be in development so shortly after the film’s release.

Footnotes:

* Both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard described forgetting as a necessary art of freedom. An art, a deliberate practice, not even something that can be entrusted to the smooth muscles of the unconscious.

* Probably some of the fear of dating has to do with the narcissistic/”Taoist” model of dating, which is totally synchronous with MySpace etc: you aren’t supposed to be actively “looking,” and you aren’t supposed to show any sign of desperation — but the end result is just an idiotic pretense of invulnerability, combined with (for example) online profiles that are obviously pleading for attention.

* My friend Tom, with whom I agree on this matter, thinks that most couples who don’t have a semi-mythical story about how they first met (or at least how they first “became interested” or “knew it was right”) don’t last.

By: broc

broc — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 20:32:24 +0000

what about those of us who can remember every agonizing detail?
eidetic…
its a bitch

By: Alethea

Alethea — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:27:37 +0000

An attention choice. That was right on, Bertil.
Just wanted to point out that biologically, we are wired to “forget” or at least, to adapt our memories and move on. All our experiences are wired in there, to some extent, but we don’t have to pay *attention* to them – and that’s a mechanism of protection.
I had a remotely connected post on this theme here:
http://humans.scienceboard.net/archives/2007/02/02/245/
A very interesting discussion. Thanks!

By: Niall Larkin

Niall Larkin — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:26:25 +0000

Hi danah,
I agree. Forgetting is important. Without it we’d be lost. In order to build social applications that do not suck (ie that are not autisitic in nature) we will have to engineer in the insight that forgetting has personal and social importance.

Also, this issue of the abilty and habit of forgetting is related to our ability to be aware and not aware at the same time. Which is part of the ‘sociable blind eye’ that I wrote about while riffing on Building Social Applications after reading Stowe Boyd’s recent talk at LIFT: http://www.niall-larkin.com/blog/?p=7