From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!woods
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women
Title: Friends/Lovers
Article-I.D.: hao.458
Posted: Mon Apr  4 13:39:52 1983
Received: Tue Apr  5 03:56:43 1983


  This subject originally came up in net.women, but I think it really belongs
in net.singles, so I'm posting it to both. Further discussion (if any) should
probably take place in net.singles. 
  I think this is a *very* important problem, especially for me in particular,
but also I think for male-female relations in general. The reason it is a 
problem now is that, in the past (read: before the women's movement), most
"friendly" relationships between men and women were viewed as a prelude
to romance, and indeed, it seems to me that many people married without even
really getting to know one another very well. Nowadays, lots of people want
frienship without romance, and there is nothing wrong with this *unless*
sexual/romantic attraction develops on one side but not the other. Most
(> 99%) of such relationships *I* have seen, it has been the male (often me)
who develops sexual attraction for the female which is not returned. Warning
signs that this is happening include any sentence beginning with "I like you
but...". I am actually happy to hear from this discussion that there are women
experiencing the same frustrations. I was really beginning to think this was a
one-way street.

   Some questions for thought and/or discussion:

   1) How does one suppress sexual feeling that is not returned? (My own feeling
      is that this is not possible).

   2) Is it possible to prevent these feelings from developing in the first
      place? (Again, my feeling is no)

   3) most important -- given that 1) and 2) are impossible, is it still 
      possible to maintain a friendship given that one person has feelings 
      not returned by the other?

                        GREG
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