Ziggy Montana said:
"Happier outcomes" meaning friendships or love affairs durable enough to qualify as "meaningful", for lack of a better gauge. I won't dispute over your pessimism, which is reasonable. Yet my perplexity stems from the peremptory tone of your post, therefore I have this question: what makes it that you possess such unwarranted power to preclude any contradiction?
JustBob:
You hit the dampener on the head - sorry - the head with the dampener.
Ziggy,
Apart from what some may think, I do not pretend to have the mopoly of wisdom on hobbying. I never did, I never will. Nobody has it, not even SPs.
What strikes me as odd is that we focus on the exceptions and not the rule. Can it happen? Of course it can but it is extremely rare, so rare that it is not worth discussing. Moreover, we do not know how it ends up, which is very important.
The deluded continue to put their blinders on, seeing only what they want to see. I keep reading stuff that is mind-boggling. "She holds me as a dear friend" or "she told me I am different" or "of course you're not the same."
Come on, let's get real. I have seen one SP off the clock and she played me well, even paying for me one time. Another one told me to call her any time to talk. Am I special or can it be that she wants me as a regular?
Did I get "burnt"? Yes but not in the way you think. I just needed some cold water on my face. In life you learn every time you get "burnt."
I highly doubt that anything remotely meaningful ever transpires from these superficial relationships. If you believe such an outcome is highly probable, you're doomed from the start.
GG