From a conversation the other day...

"A friend asked how I defined the difference between dating and 'friends with benifits', or more specificly the relationship i have with [C]. She commented that [C} and I's hanging out a lot, and sleeping together was pretty much how she defined dating. My response, while not necessarily complete or perfect, does a good job I believe of defining the difference.

"The difference between dating and umfriends for me is that in dating there is an eye towards the future, where as umfriends simply exists in the now."

In other words, with dating you are looking towards and planning for the future together. However in an umfriends or 'friends with benifits' (or just friendship w/o the sex part, ass this can aply just as well there) the relationship between the two people exists pretty much only in the now, without planning for the future of the friendship.

Questions? Comments?"

First in a (possibly) ongoing series

"What is Goth? For some it seems an easy question, for others they spend theoir time woondering if they are managing to remain properly goth. I an effort to help this second group we present the following list of items and ask people to rate how goth they are.

[Poll #23116]

PLease be prepared to defend you answers. Or better yet, make a case for somethign and try and convince everyone to change their answer. Be creative, think differently (there's one for next time, are Macs goth?).

What I am not.

"And now for the other side. These are things that are not me. I'm going to try and keep this from being simply the opposites of the other list, but some of those may creep in if I feel something needs explaining. The standard disclaimers from the other one apply here. So without further ado, I'm not:

• Religious: I am utterly and completely non-religious. I'm no an athiest, as that requires it's own sort of faith. I simply don not have religion in my life, and don't feel the need for it at all. I call myself a 'Relaxed Agnostic" as that is the closest thing I've managed to find to how I feel. I also just do not understand religion in any real way. I understand that people see it as a source of comfort and security and as being part of someting bigger. But I can't really understand any of that. I most especially can't understand the handing over a large part of how you think and act to the control of some group on blind faith (this obviously applies mainly to the big organized religions).
  
  
• Popular/Normal: I don't think/act like the majority of people in the country, and I really don't want to. I don't care about if my clothes/car/hair/etc. are "in" or "cool". This particular point has been hammered home recently living and SCSU and realizingthat I have nothing to talk about with just about everyone else here as what is important to them vs me have nothing in common.
  
  
• Hugely into Music: Ok, this is going to take a bit more explaining. I Like music, I have bands and ppl I like, I listen to music much of the time. However I don't need music, and don't define my life by it. Many of my friends seem to have music as one of the big huge important thing in their life (be it making, listening to, performing, etc.). I just can't managing to have it be that muych of a focus in my life.
  
  
• Particularly Kinky: Ok yes I do in fact do stuff that would be considered kinky. However I dont particularly need too do/have those things when having sex. In fact the majority of the time I have what would be considered 'vanilla' sex. I'm also really not into BDSM and it's variants. I can't have my wrists restrained, I totally freak out; and floggers/etc. hold basicly no intereste for me.
  

Again this is not to be considered complete, nor a defining list of characteristics. Some of these I think about a lot, others (like religion) I honestly devote almost no time to thinking about. Once again, comments, questions, suggestions are more than welcome."