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Old 12-15-2006, 12:23 PM   #56
da2el.ni4na
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 32
United_States
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Re: Crush on a Yudansha!

I felt compelled to write on this thread because a) I felt that the degree of risk isn't being very acknowledged (although I did see various people posting, "I've done it. It was messy...") and b) the reason for and potential consequences of the risk aren't being discussed. However I will say I am thinking more specifically of cases involving new students and dojo members who have been around long enough to feel they are part of the dojo, maybe a year or more.

Probably everyone considers themselves to be rational and capable of objectivity. The thing is, when we slip into irrationality or subjectivity, *we don't notice*. When a new person joins the dojo, they face the job of assimilating all of the implicit, unsaid aspects of the individual dojo culture as well as all of the explicit aspects. For new people the impact of an encouraging word or gentle hand is *greater* than it is for someone who has settled down. This may sound condescending, but a new person may not have the most accurate picture of how much he/she is feeling insecure and in what ways he/she is responding to reinforcements, good and bad, positive and negative. (I am not saying that anybody develops perfect self-insight or that developed people live a risk-free existence.) If a dojo member sees a starry-eyed beginner and feels good or proud of him/herself, that is natural *but* the person with more experience, by virtue of having settled in more, has the onus of noticing that that starry-eyed-ness may be specific to the stage that one or both parties are currently in, and that the new person is the more vulnerable one, the one with less power. To say that the new person is his/her own person and that everything is equal is to ignore some significant details.

As for potential consequences, how will they pratice together if they're in a relationship? What happens if they break up? What happens when one has an unpleasant experience with another dojo member? Do they care if others around them are affected. including "feeling icky"? At times that we have our wits about us we may be able to say we'll to whatever is rational, mature, etc. but when we are in the midst of something the we have not foreseen nor prepared for (i.e. you can foresee a storm but whether you're properly prepared is different), it's a different story.