bimmler (02/15/83)
Well, Enid Brown, with friends like you.... No wonder "CW" is suicidal! He comes to you with a severe personal problem he would like to discuss and you blast it across the network into the prying gaze of thousands of nosey hacks (after first broadcasting it down the dormitory halls). Although you claim to love him, your interests are purely selfish: YOUR life will be worsened by his death; YOU feel enraged that he might kill himself; YOU needed his continued company; YOU are going to curse his memory if all your M&M's aren't eaten. What a fine friend! Ever wonder how HE might feel about things? And who needs this maudlin, bathetic drivel, anyway? Think I care about how easily you cry? And if you love him that much, why are you marrying somebody else (a boy, no less)?
gh (02/15/83)
In defense of Enid Brown against the accursed rabbit!bimmler: Preventing a suicide by invoking arguments of what it would do to the survivors is perfectly reasonable. After all, the conventional wisdom is that many/most suicides are in effect acts directed against the survivors: "Look what you drove me to; I hope this makes you miserable for the rest of your life". Making a person feel loved and wanted is important! As readers of this group should know, being dead doesn't hurt (even if dying does). What hurts is not being dead. To prevent a suicide, that's what you have to try to change, and the strategy used for that must depend on the individual. I don't know if Enid did the best thing or not, but she was there, she knew CW, so we have to trust her judgment. It all makes me want to run right out and join the Samaritans. Graeme Hirst, Brown University Computer Science
iy47ab (02/18/83)
I am going to make a sincere effort not to flame at rabbit!bimmler, if only because I'd like to try to be polite (why?). It is surely understood that love can be extended to many, in different ways, not just to the person you are "in love" with! And also; the problem with someone who is suicidal is basically that they *don't* care about themself (actually, that they think no one else does). This is not all of it; don't get me wrong; but it is important. By saying "*I* need you, *I* will miss you," you encourage the person to think about other people and to move away from themself for just a moment. If they truly care about you and about being a good person (and suicides almost invariably do) this will move them to stop and consider for a moment; and it's that moment that must be used to talk them out of it. Suicides are people, they are not mutants. Love is not selfish, but sometimes its language must be. This is one of those times. being as reasonable as I can... arwen