Mythologies: Three Conversations

New Mythologies: Three Conversations
What He's Really Like
What We Really Know
Who We Really Are

What He’s Really Like
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So tell me what this guy’s like.
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Her Sister laughed on the other end of the phone.
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Well, he’s an ENTP.
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An ENTP? But you’re an ENFJ! Don’t you think that might cause some problems?
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No one is perfect. I guess I thought I might just as well deal with a P as try to figure out an I.
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Hey…don’t be getting down on I’s. They like intimacy, you know. And I know you really want that in a man. I mean, it might be a little harder for them at parties, but they will really care about you.
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He will really care about me. I really like him.
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Oh, come on. You're just letting that charismatic EN thing get to you.
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Hmm…, maybe a little. Sometimes when he goes off on these self-assured tangents about what

he knows I think, I am really fascinated.
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Just don’t start thinking that what he says is really what you think.
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Hey, I might be an F, but I am a J, too. I have a lot more control than you know.
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Just because you like things to be arranged in a scheduled and orderly fashion doesn’t mean you can overcome your NF tendencies to change your mind based on the people around you.
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Like you?
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Hey, at least you know I have your best interest at heart. And you know that as an INFJ I’m not likely to lie to you.
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Are you saying he’s a liar now, too?
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No! I think you need to be careful that’s all. I’d really like to see you with another NF instead of an NT. I mean, what kind of a person has intuition but relies more on their logic than on their feelings? They might as well just post a sign that says “close minded”!
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He’s totally not closed minded…but he does think that if something can’t be proven it’s probably not true.
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See what I mean? You are really spiritual. You need an NF. And what about that P? Have you thought about that?
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I try not to. It gets a little annoying.
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Yeah, like he’s always late? And he doesn’t ever want to make plans with you?
…we do end up spending a lot of time just hanging out at his house.
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You see? You can’t argue with this stuff. You really need to get away from him.
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But I really do like him. His Eness makes him really fun. He makes all my friends laugh and they all like him.
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But he’s got to be YOUR boyfriend! Not theirs. Plus, how do you know he’s not spending time with them on the side?
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I don’t think he would do that.
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Why? Because your N tells you he won’t, or because you just believe him when he says where he’s been?
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I believe him.
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You are such an NF. You want to believe everyone is what they say they are. You’ll be sorry if you stay with this guy.
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You really think so?
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Yeah.
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Oh.
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What We Really Know
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Did you hear about Bush’s speech last night?
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Her father stood on the other side of the kitchen.
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Yes. I listened to it on my way home from the Valley yesterday.
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What did you think? The papers are all over him!
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I know. The liberal press is really misrepresenting what he said.
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You really think so? I mean, saying that we're not using torture but refusing to get behind a bill that says that the CIA can’t use torture seems like double speak to me, Dad.
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That’s because you’ve been brainwashed by the liberal university. You’re trained to think a certain way. It’s not entirely your fault, but that’s the problem. You’re trained to think that anything a conservative does has to have bad motives.
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That’s not true. Any rational person can listen to Bush and know he’s using rhetoric to make it sound like he’s just doing the work of ending terrorism but he really means that he’s doing the work of annexing the middle east for the US’s needs.
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Oh yeah, and he’s not fighting terrorism either, right?
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Oh, I think he’s fighting terrorism alright, it’s just the terrorism that he defines as terrorism, which seems to be anyone with a lot of oil, a developing nuclear program and anti-US sentiment.
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There you go again. These people are plotting to destroy our country and you want to defend them. Bush is out there helping our troops make a dent in terror and you want us to lay down and say OK terrorists, just come right in and kill us.
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That’s ridiculous, Dad! I want us to stop killing people and forcing our systems on radically different cultures, and bring our military home so they’ll stop getting killed by suicide missions.
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And just leave those people over there at the will of the mercenary army that will kill its own people for a little money?
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I don’t think it’s any of our business what they do with their government.
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Well, it’s a good thing FDR didn’t feel that way. We might be living in a Nazi state right now if he did.
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Sometimes I think that we might as well be. Look at the manipulation and lies of this administration. They dumb down the issues so much that the common person can’t have any way of knowing if they are lying or not…because their dumbed down version is a lie! Things aren’t as easy as, “we’re doing work to stop the terrorists and we need to be able to do that.”
So you really think that we need a bill that says that our CIA won’t torture people even though we aren’t torturing them?
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I think we don’t know what our secret prison camps have going on! I don’t see why a law that says that we won’t torture people would have any effect at all unless we really are torturing people.
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It’s the principle. There are already international laws about the treatment of prisoners.
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Yeah, but our camps are secret. If no one even knows where the camps are, how can anyone know that people aren’t getting tortured?
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Because the laws say we won’t torture people.
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But how do we know that what we think of as torture is what the people at those prison camps think of as torture?
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Because the treaties say what can and can’t be done.
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But keeping prisoners in the dark with bags over their heads, or only giving them food that their religion won’t allow them to eat, or making them touch each other in immodest ways, or beating them, that’s not torture? You think that’s OK?
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Yeah.
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Wow.
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Let’s not talk about this anymore.
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Yeah.
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Who We Really Are
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I don't mean to hurt you.
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He stood behind her in the bedroom.
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Why won't you just make me happy?
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I do make you happy, and you know it. That's why we're having this conversation.
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I need more.
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No you don't. You have everything. You're just not seeing it.
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I don't have everything. You won't marry me.
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You don't need me to marry you. You have me.
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I want to marry you. I want you to be my husband.
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What would you have if I married you that you don't have now?
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I would have the husband I have always thought I would have. I would be legit. I would have what my friends have. I could look my grandmother in the eye and say, yes, I'm married.
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But what would all that change? We're still the same people. Living the same way. I don't think it really has anything to do with me at all.
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Of course it has to do with you. You're the one I want to be my husband
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I don't want to be a husband. I just want to be me, and I love being with you. Why can't that be enough for you?
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It's not just me that makes up how I feel. I have parents and sisters and a grandmother. I have friends and colleagues. I want them to see how we are committed to each other. They don't see that now.
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Well, they will when we've been together for ten years.
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I don't want to wait ten years. Plus, I want my father to walk me down the isle and my family to see us make a commitment in front of everyone.
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So what you really want is a show, and other people's approval.
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That's not how I see it. It's not a show. It's me telling the whole world that I will promise to love you forever and you telling me that too.
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But I do love you and I am committed to being with you forever, why does this need to be a public spectacle?
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It's not a spectacle. It's a ceremony.
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Whatever. It won't change the way we feel about each other. Besides, everyone knows that most marriages these days end in divorce. For all you know getting married might be what breaks us up.
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But it will change the way other people feel about us.
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Why does that matter to you so much?
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It just does. And it'll also will change the way I feel about me, about my life.
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What are you talking about? I'm not going to do anything differently than I have been doing for three years.
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I know, but I'll feel different. Don't you see? I can't see you, I can't touch you, or feel you near me without imagining you being my husband. It's just too ingrained. I know it won't change the way our lives work out, but it will fulfill the picture I've always had of my life. I feel sort of empty without it.
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That just doesn't make sense! You aren't empty, and you won't be any more full if we get a contract that says we have a legal union—and it probably won't even be like the picture in your head, anyway.
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I think it will!
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Why do you need to feel al this approval so much? That's what this really comes down to. You don't need me to marry you, it might as well be someone else—it's like you just need a husband, like an object or a gift or something. You want me to say, OK, I'll be your thing.
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No, It's not like that. I don't want to possess you.
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Exactly. The problem here isn't that you don't have me, it's that you don't have this thing that your grandmother thinks you should have!
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It's more that!
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No, it really isn't!
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Stop it!
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Stop what?
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Stop making me feel so petty! Look, This is real for me. I'm tied to this need, and I can't get rid of it.
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I don't understand. You aren't tied to anything.
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Yes, I am, you just aren't seeing it. If I get a rope and physically tie myself up will you try harder to get it?
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You're crazy. You aren't tied up.
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Wait…..here, now I'm tied to this bedpost. Look. My wrist is tied. The knot is tight, just like I feel. Here…tie this one up, too.
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No! What are you doing?
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Just do it! Tie me up! That's what you're doing anyway!
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Alright…here…now both your arms are tied up.
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Good! Now you can see exactly how I feel. How I've felt for the last two years!
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You've been feeling like this for two years?
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Yes!
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But you never even mentioned it until last week!
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Well, I thought it was too soon, and I thought you'd change your mind.
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Change my mind about getting married? But you never even said that you wanted to get married.
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Of course not! You're the man. You're supposed to ask me. Now I'm afraid you never will and it makes my world feel cold.
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But you know I love you and I'm not going to leave you.
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Then marry me.
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…I don't want to do this.
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Then just tie yourself to the post, too, because you are really in a bind as well. You want to not marry me and I want to be married and you want to be with me. So just tie yourself right up here next to me and then you will look like yourself, too.
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I can only get one hand done. The other can't tie itself.
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Yeah.
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There, now I'm tied here too.
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Good. Don't leave.
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I wasn't going to.
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Stay with me.
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I don't want to be tied up.
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You are anyway.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.