Random thought on suddenly noticing people...

[Notepad]

Have you ever just not even really noticed a person, only to one day out of the blue notice that person for no real reason, and think: Wow, that person's actually rather interesting or attractive?

What's with that? You can go on with your day, and from nowhere this stranger's act of kindness, or nice words, or a combo of the two, suddenly makes you take notice and see that this person you merely walked by or sat near really is a cool person.

Yes, it happened to me recently. It's the strangest thing, because I never really paid attention to this person at all before. Now, I'll have to try to strike up a conversation next time I see her in class.

-Notepad, who's perplexed at how funny things can be sometimes

 

[DÛke]

I've had those moments, but usually not about people, but about time, life, moments, ideas...

Like sometimes...it would be raining outside, and I could see it outside my window, and hear it. Seemingly nothing special. But then my mind would melt into the moment and I begin to notice the weather in a more intense sense, like it had a meaning beyond itself. I can never put it into words, what these meanings are, if anything, but when they occur it's like time stops...and suddenly the simplest and most ordinary and everyday things take on a new grand and universal scale and meaning.

Moments of extended time and focused space...

 

[Notepad]

Sort of like the American Beauty thing with the trash bag, eh? Except not a floating bag, but just everyday stuff?

Yeah, I recall having those moments, too. Rarely, though. Just out of nowhere -BAM!- you suddenly see something under a whole new facet...or perhaps, its that we view things too often under one facet, and those random moments of intensity are merely seeing multiple facets of it, or whole new ones we never thought of seeing before.

Though, that's more along the lines of clarvoyance and stuff, I'd figure. What I was mentioning was somewhat similar, but much more "Hey, I never noticed Person X. Suddenly, she does something that got me to pay attention to her, and wow, she just might just be cool."

Then again, that just might be the whole "view in another facet" thing. Rather than being another faceless person in the crowd, a person becomes...a person. Interesting.

Ah, strange how stuff works.

 

[Killer Joe]

But not so much I notice the attractiveness of people, but the 'potential' that people have. Working in an educational environment I am trained to see this in young people but I often see it in my fellow professionals. Actually, I don't try any harder than I already do to find out more about them because when I do meet someone for the first time I ask the usual questions:
~Family
~Occupation
~Recreation
~Money

But later, after maybe I haven't talked to them in awhile, I, all of a sudden, realized what good person they are or the potential they have.

It's SPOOK-yyyyyy

 

[train]

Been there and done that... it happens all the time here on campus...

Notepad - Sef - you're in classes?...

 

[orgg]

I know it happened to me, once. I had struck up a friendship with this girl. Not a very attractive girl, face-wise, but she had a great personality.

...then, months later, I noticed she had a nice posterior...

Heh. Funny thing, life.
Funny thing me, too... I'm still trying to get a date with her, and that happened many years ago...

 

[Notepad]

Ah, good to know the random noticing of moments and/or people isn't such a rare thing. Hopefully, it just might mean someone cool to talk to during class, since they tend to be friggen BORING!

train- Yeah, classes. As in, enrolled in college again to get some transfer courses out of the way cheap before I go somewhere expensive. Oh yeah, and to pick up on all the hot 20-something babes. j/k

orgg- Somehow, with a name like that, we could all tell you were a booty man.

 

[train]

you should easily have dates with her if you stuck up a friendship... my definition of dating is:

Doing Anything That Includes Not Getting... Serious

 

[Notepad]

???

One step at a time, train. Heh! Didn't say I wanted a nice shag. But yeah, she's pretty.

Just found it odd that here was what seemed like another brick in the wall, that might just turn out to be a friend, or at least, a cool person to chat with in class.

Though now that you mention shagaliciousness...

 

[DÛke]

Dating.

So...20th Century.

My definition of dating is:

Doing Anything That Includes Not Getting... Serious.

Wow, we almost agree for once. But to keep up with tradition, I know we agree about it for 100% opposite reasons.

And speaking about dating friends, I never was able to do it and have lost friends over it (they liked me "that way" and I didn't); it just feels odd for me, for some reason, to build a foundation that leads into friendship and then jump into dating with the possibility of a long term relationship, which to me requires an entirely different foundation and beginnings. I know...I know...it's actually mature and healthy to have friendship as a foundation to increase the possiblities of the relationship's success; it's just not for me. I look at you under a certain light and it'd be hard trying to look at you under another...

 

[Nightstalkers]

That's how I meet my girlfriends.

 

[Notepad]

How Night Stalker S? On a foundation of money, lust, a nice shiney pole, and hopefully without the need for a heavy-duty mop and large bucket?

Oh wait, sorry, that's no way to talk about one's girlfriend! And what of the naked pool frogs!?!?!

 

[train]

though dating and what defines a date is not clear-cut socially... if you just go out to a movie with friends, it's a date... if you view a date as something between two individuals only - then if you go to a movie and it is just you two and you are just friends - then it is still a date...

a date doesn't have to be romantic - it is the time spent with that person (hopefully their true self comes out) that makes it a date... even amongst friends... there were plenty of dates I went on the nothing stemmed from... did I even think of more than that happening ever - not really... it was just something I enjoyed doing with someone... something to develop a relationship beyond the seeing them at school only...

As for dating friends - been there, done that, sometimes something happened, sometimes it didn't... but it didn't destroy any friendships if we were truly friends...

I guess it all depends on the level of friendship attained with that person...

Sadly - the shallowness in people is most evident with our eyes closed...

 

[DÛke]

Sadly - the shallowness in people is most evident with our eyes closed...

Hence why for me dating friends and loving them "that way" is impossible for me.

To me finding someone special to love requires that person to have a level of development so far beyond that of a friend; from a friend my demands are a lot less, and adherence to the ideals that I envision is not as critical as that of a lover. A person who becomes my friend is blessed in that he or she knows they will never be expected to live up to my ideals of a romantic relationship (though I am romantic with my friends as well), but at least I don't expect what I do expect from a heartmate.

Likewise, a person I fall deeply in love with I can never look at as a friend in the ordinary sense, because my expectations become, well, according to my ex's, my expectations become so pure and ideal that it is such a fine line between making me completely happy and, at the other end, completely unhappy.

I don't fall in love easily at all, and that pissed off a good number of people, who of course accused me of being cold, unfeeling, and indifferent, when really, I know who has what it takes to only be a friend and I know who has that "spark" to be more, with me at least.

I'm seeing a whole new side to ya train.

 

[train]

(I guess I'd better cover that side up then huh?... )

It sounds like you would allow a friend to "develop" into more in a sense that you wouldn't expect it from them, but if they give it to you freely then it would be okay (if both of you had that interest...)

Isn't it whether or not both sides come together... not just one working towards the other...?

"when you fall, what you are falling upon comes up to meet you"

 

[Nightstalkers]

Very much true Duke, but I like to think of it as mutual social outings myself.

 

[Notepad]

train, under your definition, does it still count as a date if she's tied up in the payload, and you're going nutso behind the steering wheel shooting every traffic sign you see, with a shotgun, while constantly yelling out the back window, "You're next if you keep screaming!" Does it?

...because, you know, I don't do that....*cough*anymore*cough* But you know, I have some *cough*friends*cough* I was concerned about.