Damned Nut

[bcholmes]

When I was at WisCon last May, the ultra cool and sexy Ian Hagemann talked about "nut and bolt" issues in relationships. He said: "say you have a bolt. And say you have a nut. If they're threaded to the same gauge, they actually fit together. If not, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the nut to go around saying 'that godamned bolt. How dare it be threaded that way?' or for the bolt to say, 'that stupid nut. What is its problem?'"

I thought that this was a nifty metaphor. Has anyone actually succeeded in thinking that way?

Comments

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

if this is a metaphor that he applies to all relationships, then this is sadly yet another reason why i should never get involved with the ultra cool and sexy ian hagemann.

Can you elaborate on that? Do you think it's too simplistic a metaphor?

I can, for example, imagine situations where I might want to say "It's not that X and I are too different from each other -- it's that X was a complete asshole about such-and-such." (The example I'm thinking about as I write this isn't actually a recent relationship, surprisingly).

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

yeah, too simplistic.

i am not as much of a cultural relativist as i used to be. some things that people do are just as good as the ways that i do them, but not suited for me. some things that people do are freaky and wrong and need to be kept far far away from me so i don't get hurt.