2002-08-19 -

Slopes and Gradients

Argh. I spent a huge chunk of time at work today fighting a weird networking problem. Everything looked fine, but things weren't working fine. Very frustrating.

I've been meaning to write something about people who try to pick and choose. One of my friends recently mentioned dating someone who refused to even be seen with her when she went certain places. It's hard to explain without violating the friend's privacy, but the entire thing rankled me.

One of the nicer things that people have actually said to me in real life is that I'm pretty much exactly who I say I am. I try pretty hard to earn that description. I also try pretty hard to like exactly the things I like and treat people exactly the way I say I will. In my head I think of this as being all the same, through and through.

I'm not perfect at it, and I don't think anybody could be. I love Julie, but I love her a little more when we're getting naked together and maybe a little less when she's just messed up her car again. But there's a limit to the gradient of an honest person's liking. You can't love a person and yet just plain reject something about them. You need to appreciate the person as a whole. Otherwise you're just lining yourself up for disappointment.

Sadly, plenty of people I know seem happy to do exactly that.

Previous entry: Restless

Next entry: Partially Build Computer