Crush

The Internet exposes us to some surprising experiences. In the last few days I got an anonymous comment on my blog. The commentator says they propositioned me a decade ago and I never noticed or responded. Well!

There I was sitting alone at home and suddenly was confronted with this awesome experience I never had (a decade ago and in a parellel universe). To tell the truth there were housemates at home and I did summon one to show off to - "How hot was I back at the turn of the century?"

Life is full of the things we do and the echo of things we have never done. Here was one I was never aware of. Somebody however had remembered this missed opportunity. And I can identify with them because I have felt this way too.

In my personal lexicon I distinguish between a crush and a fancy. I suspect it is a rather artificial distinction that serves to limit my behaviour but I will describe it nonetheless.

A fancy is an attraction that I may want to explore in some circumstances but am otherwise content to let lie dormant as part of a friendship. It can be fun to ponder but otherwise I will just sit back and admire.

A crush is different - it seems important and fills much of my thinking. I feel a compulsion to do or say something but this clashes with inhibitions that curb action.

My last experience of the classic secret crush never acted on was five years ago. The most I managed to do was ask the subject to a movie and phrased it as if it was just an act of friendship (she politely declined). Within a few weeks the crush was forcibly pulverized by another friend jumping me!

Must we ambush someone and brazenly entice them into bed in order to get closer? It seems that if you desire a wall-flower (such as I was) that is what you need to do. In the realm of expressing and exploring attraction I have been a part of the problem. My reserved manner has fostered both overtures shrouded as gestures of friendship (so as to ensure a safe response) and blatant clubbing and dragging back to the cave moves (which ensure I pay attention and have to think quick).

The former case allows the target to be oblivious and as a result rewarding experiences may never happen. The latter may work but is frustrating for all involved - the proactive one has to do all the work and the responsive one may feel as if they lack volition in the face of things just happening all of a sudden.

Happily in my more recent life I have gotten better at following inclinations and curbing inhibitions. As a result more of my experiences have been characterized by an interaction of equals in which it is difficult to say exactly who started what. This has been liberating but communication can still be a challenge. I wonder what the happy medium is between blatent moves and sly hints.

There can be an atmosphere in which it is okay to say "hey you are interesting - take that any way you wish" and likewise okay to say "that is flattering but I prefer things as they are."

The trick is knowing that among friends there is a commitment to consider what sort of behaviour works best for one another and modify communication accordingly. Nothing is so scary once you can do that. And if so then talking in the here-and-now becomes more attractive than anonymous comments displaced in space and time.

Polity

Polity is to politics what economy is to economics. We are all part of both but nobody uses the word polity while economy is thrown into conversations willy-nilly. It says to me that our society puts much more importance on your contribution to the latter than the former. In contrast I have always felt that a civic life is one of the strings in my personal bow that makes my life comprehensive (along with all those other things like working and personal life). However I have also let that string get slack in recent times.

I did over-do the whole party politics things with the Australian Democrats (which I have put behind me). I let it consume too much of me to the detriment of the other strings-of-life. I now have an aversion to too much politics. However I still try to do my bit because this stuff matters. I barely pay attention to current issues and that can be embarrassing. But then I do say in assorted online profiles that I am into political history. It works for me - by the time something is history you can get a fuller picture of the whole thing rather than all the moment-to-moment stuff that overburdens media today.

I get involved in occassional lobbying or activism. I will admit that I have a long Facebook 'flist' partly so that my odd linking to something political gets a wider coverage than it may otherwise get. I will go to a rally sometimes. I am hoping to become a regular attendee at a monthly Amnesty International (AI) letter-writing brunch over a cafe in Clifton Hill. This is all stuff I can manage much more than the old craziness.

And I am happy to impart to others what I understand from both past study and experience. I love the way I have an automated online politics test that informs users of political ideology while I sleep. I'm also happy to vent my frustrations in a creative way with another online project.

I have an imaginary spoof political party called Me First! It started as a way for me to express frustrations at the way things are in a minor political party. It has since gone onto become a more general way of satirizing or just having fun with political issues and concepts. And because it is a joke I can get away with saying all sorts of things. Most of it I admit is ludicrous but sometimes - just sometimes - I do think some of the things I put there. I will let you decide which is which.