The Stress Doc gives readers center stage and directs an illuminating spotlight at their responses...And they deliver some thought-provoking and heartfelt ideas and reflections especially on the need for, yet inherent risk in, the often elusive search for real cyber connection.

Readers Respond to a Romantasy

No doubt about it, The allegory of "Miss Sun and Mr. Moon" touched some deep chords and sensitive nerves. (Email stressdoc@aol.com if you missed either or both segments of this two-parter.) The promise and pitfalls of online romance and virtual relationship seems to capture Charles Dickens' dramatic opening to his classic, A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times It was the season of light; it was the season of darkness, It was the spring of hope; it was the winter of despair.

Many have added passion and friendship to their lives; numbers have been burned. And some have experienced both. What is real? What is illusion?

Here's a small sample of your positions and opinions. The first emailer gets into the a psychological aspect of the story, reflecting on the need for "soular fusion" in a numbing world. Reader #2 embraces the story's inherent charm. However, the next two respond to the ideal-love-online theme. Two notes - one succinct, the other free associative - have serious doubts about transferring virtual romance into a real relationship. (For my original thinking on this issue, drop me a line for a Valentine Day's classic.) And, yet, we must end on an ideal notes, pleas to keep romantasy alive. Remember, hope if not hype, springs eternal!

From: AGa3378975

Wonderful - marvelous, funny, funny, funny. Read the whole article and yes these "soular fusions" are happening all around us and adding a dimension to our mundane lives. And yes therapists do indeed suffer all the burnout from internalizing the storm and strife in other's lives. We aren't supposed to, we're taught and warned not to, why then do we struggle and need to explore such options as "soular fusion." Intuitive article, as usual. Please keep inspiring those of us in the trenches who believe we still have something positive to contribute as we quickly pass through the spectrum of life.

From: DayCareAnn

Mark that is by far the best piece you have written......funny, sweet, innovative and just plain GOOD!

Am sending out to the family and friends list and would like to use it on the web page as a sample of your writing........If you can keep this up I predict you will be RICH as well as being famous!

Absolutely Deliteful! Congratulations to you!

Still smiling.....Ann

From: SHUSHANA4U

Creating a sensual and spiritual connection through cyberspace is not the problem ... sustaining it is!!

Thanks for sharing ...

From: Alflover

Thanks for including me in your Special Edition mailing! Did you write that?! Wow, it's neat, on so many levels! Any touch of autobiography here, eh? No, don't say it, it's none of my beezwax. You are a real Writer! Man, I wish I had talent like that. I thought up a fairy tale about a girl with a magic mirror that some mean people gave her to make her feel ugly. She didn't realize that it was a funhouse mirror, not an accurate reflection and she didn't HAVE to carry it around with her (a real revalation!). But I doubt I could write it well. (Editor's note: I encouraged Alflover and she has now written her story.) Your story is interesting, it can be thought of as seeing the evolution of all human interaction via the physical-less Internet, or of an individual striving to find his and her soulmates. The trouble with the Internet relationship is that it could never be really consumated on a physical level and remain satisfactory. On the Internet, everyone is their best self, everyone is witty and charming and looks like Cary Grant or Audrey Hepburn. Eventually, corporeal reality reveals flaws in the organism, so the Ideal that is sought evaporates and the Real remains.

There is no faraway galaxy that can be eloped to, so the effort at total conjunction is forever doomed, just as being totally perfect for one day is also doomed, just by virtue of being human and thus flawed. As long as the relationship remains unbounded by time and space, as on the Internet, it can retain it's excitement and vitality because the REAL is excluded. Better to remain a muse than become a mudhen. That is what happens when a romantic achieves the acquisition of what he thinks is his ideal, and the disenchantment is disheartening. This is the voice of experience here. That is the curse of the romantic poet, that the ideal is to remain forever unrealized.

For example, I once was my husband's Dulcinea and he my Don Quixote, though I thought myself Aldonza. We were both romantic poet-types who used these terms for each other. Now I feel the search for a new Dulcinea is on again, and I have returned to feeling like Aldonza.

As long as we were just penpals (the pre-cyber equivalent of the Internet) we could be each other's ideals. I have a sizeable amount of the moody-poet- romantic in myself, which might account for some of my own dissatisfaction now that Mr.Moon's search is on again. So I at least console myself with the knowledge that I was at least ONCE someone's ideal (in his words, "a dream come true"), and strive to be my best self in real life as well as online. Maybe it's a search that goes on in everyone...You will perhaps recall that Quixote's relationship with Dulcinea was a result of the Chivalric ideal, and that it was not one sullied with physical consummation. It was an IDEAL, one not expected to be actually acted on in real life. The hero may have even pined for the wife of another, but it was to remain an unrealized dream. It was not SUPPOSED to be acted upon because that robbed it of it's Mythic status. Well, what do you think of my analysis? Overblown, verbose, stupid, pretentious? It was all kind of stream-of-consciousness. Do you believe that I actually think like this in the morning sometimes when I get up? And then I put my drawers on inside-out? I'm not capable of rational thought at 5 am, but irrational, apparently so!

From: COOKER JO

Hi there Mark!

Well!!! Now you've outdone yourself!!! Loved the story! You have a most fertile imagination!--or you're on something!!???? Just kidding!

Please find a way for the cyber pair to make their "sensual & spiritual connection!" I also love the word "Romantasy"---great word!!

Good work, my friend! Jo

From: MissPastel

Dear Mr.....hmmm...Dr.? Dear Dr. Stress Doc {Soooo many D's} I just wanted to tell you how I just loveeeeeeee your Miss Sun and Mr. Moon story....yes...."A Romantasy." ( Ahhhh, will Miss Sun and Mr. Moon ever, er, like get together??????) ~?t <wink wink> Will the heat of Miss Sun melt the darkness forever from Mr. Moon's heart? My Goodness, now I know why most women enjoy soaps! Yes.....(Oh, I don't) But, yes, I must say this one does most certainly intrigue me. Hmm, ever think of writing two episodes in one day? Like to hurry it up some....the suspense is KILLING ME! Well, I'm fined and tuned.....he he he....so Mr. Narrator..."Onnnnnnnn with the show!!!!!" Love it! Love it!

Thank you all for such rich feedback. And, as always...Practice Safe Stress!

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