I'm just sayin'...

"So he was just some convenient person? Out of all the people you get along with it could have been any one of them instead? Wow. I feel sorry for both of you."

I had two boyfriends in different years tell me that, or sort of that. They were both thoughtful people. That you fell for someone and vice versa, when you both needed to.
(I remember arguing).

Well, in all fairness, most of the guests are my age (50s) so that was not an issue. My daughter didn't bring her daughters (wanted to enjoy herself) and my niece didn't even bring her kids to town (wanted to enjoy herself), and that was it for people who had young kids. There might have been others I wasn't aware of, but nobody else even suggested any kids come.

People my age look at the invitation to see who's invited. If the kids' names are not on it, they're not invited. And neither is the rest of their family. What's to prevent people from inviting their sisters, brothers, cousins, etc? The invitation is to people whose names are on it and their partners. Period.

She was presumptuous in inviting her daughter to the dinner and manipulative in extending the deal. Dinner was at 6:30, dancing started at 9:00 - the first set would have been over at 10:00 + ---- too late for a 3 yr old at a blues bar, for crying out loud. Get a sitter, for heaven's sake. Don't want to do that? -- then don't come. The invitation was not issued to her kid and I don't feel I should have to justify that.

And Chai - yes, I thought about that after.

Weird.

Seriously, I can't even imagine deciding someone was "convenient" enough for me to spend my life with. I dated a lot and had several serious romances but Mr. B was special.

I'm thinking that convenience thing is probably why there are so many divorces.

boomer, sometimes you really don't listen.

you've used the word convenience, and now act like I said it.

was I supposed to respond to your accusation?

really?

people fall in love and get married.
if they didn't fall in love with that person, the odds are overwhelming they would have fallen in love with someone else.

with 3.5 billion people, there's more than one pair of shoes that fit.

with 3.5 billion people, none of us stand above the rest.

I agree, Boomer, really weird, unbelievably weird. But, way way way too common a deal.

I think that too many don't actually fall in love, they fall in love with falling in love and getting married.

Of course they are.

Do you not understand the difference between thinking something is true and it actually being true?

Most people I know would kill for their children even if they would never kill for themselves. That's how our species survives.

Look, I went 46 years without being a parent -- on purpose. I understand that you think you get it. But you seriously don't get it.

Oh! There's that thing again.... about thinking something is true when it simply isn't.

I'm not sure I disagree with either of them. I had probably in both instances made some disparaging remark, which promted theirs.

I am a lucky broad who had in my life a few people I loved for their minds and bodies. I still think those people were special to me.

However, the guy I loved when he was nineteen, and the one when I was thirty, and the one when I was thirty four, varied, and probably my varying had something to do with that.

Ok, off subject, re specialness of kids. But, kids are people too.

Well you said that your husband wasn't special. If he wasn't special he was merely convenient.

Good lord. I suppose anyone under 50 has no manners these days, either.

And stay off your lawn.

Hey, Drewdad, what's your problem? I'm only speaking for my generation. That's how we were brought up. We were also brought up to write thank you notes, but I rarely get one from the younger set. Of course younger people have manners, but I have no idea what prompts some people to think their kids are invited to these events. I've never encountered that with my generation, that's all.

Get that monkey off your back, bubba.

Maybe this talk about assigning the term "special" is a red herring. It does not automatically follow that no one is special if everyone is special. Saying that everyone is special is saying that everyone deserves respect.

Since when does not special = merely convenient?

oxygen is not particulary special, it's all over the place. The planet is lousy with oxygen.

I wouldn't say oxygen is a mere convenience.


Boomer, if Mr. B. or Wally, or anyone else's love of their life had been killed the day before we met them, or even just decided not to go to the same place you were, and we never knew they existed in the first place. Almost every single one of us would right now be with someone else, and just about as happy or unhappy, overall.

If a couple hadn't had sex at a particular time, their child would not exist, but in all likelihood another one would, or not.

Looking at how many children are mistreated, I would say it would have been a very good thing if many people hadn't had the opportunity to copulate at a particular moment.

I've been wondering from the start how long it was going to take you to drag out the "I didn't want to be a mother for X number of years, but now that I am, I see how empty my life was. You just can't understand"

Let me know when you find Jesus, so you can tell us all how empty your life was before hooking up with him.

hmmph....I think I just found another worship connection.

Nonsense . . . you're making the word special meaningless. Webster's online dicitonary gives the following as the number one definition of special:

Distinguished by some unusual quality; especially: being in some way superior <our special blend>

(I was unable to highlight text and copy, so you can use the link to look for their other definitions of special.)

Unless and until you can demonstrate that absolutely everyone possesses an unusual quality (which means more than six billion iterations of such proof), your claim that everyone is special is unsubstantiated. It truly is the case that if everyone is alleged to be superior, then no one is superior.

Special does not mean deserving of respect. Nor do i buy the claim that everyone is deserving of respect. But even if everyone were, that doesn't mean that everyone is special. You're making the word special meaningless.

since both of those things are silly, you haven't really moved your point forward

It is very likely resonable to say that for all loving parents, their children are special to them. That doesn't mean that they are superior or out of the ordinary in comparison to the entire population of children. I think much of the rancorous reaction in this thread is from parents who take offense at the notion that their children are not special. They are not universally special, they are only special to those who know and love them. It does not diminish or denigrate anyone's child to point out that not all children are special.

then why did you bring "convenient" into the discussion?

This is oxymoronic poor reasoning,
born of subjective wishful thinking.





David

For the purpose of this discussion, then, how do we define "special"?
Without an agreed-upon definition, this discussion is doomed to go round
and round.

Do you have a problem with the definition from Webster's online dictionary?