Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!wjh12!genrad!decvax!cca!ima!ism780!judy
From: judy@ism780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Two New Books
Message-ID: <335@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Jul-84 00:06:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780.335
Posted: Sun Jul 22 00:06:04 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Jul-84 01:12:58 EDT
Lines: 24
Nf-ID: #R:tekfdi:-1200:ism780:13000024:177600:1445
Nf-From: ism780!judy    Jul 20 18:02:00 1984

I would like to say my experience parallels the book in both the lack of
support men give, the intimacy of women who get together, and the reluctance
of men to share their emotional lives with each other.  I offer this
scenario as an example of the last.

I currently live with my boy friend(R).  I met him when dating his roommate(D).
His roommate and I remained friends since our romance was dissolved long
before this current one began.  One night, at home, several of R's friends
were over including D.  D was spending the night.  Since D started work at
7AM, his hours were far earlier than ours.  So he went to bed around 11.
Many of the men found this odd and so they decided to wake D up every 15
minutes until they broke up the party (around 2:30).

I became extremely upset by this because it was so rude.  But also
because I knew D was unable to stand up for himself.  After two hours of
this I got angry enough to start talking to the guys about it.  It turned
out that I was the only one in the room who had ever seen D cry, knew how
upset he became in situations like this, and had any understanding of D's
inability to stand up for himself.  I had dated the man for 8 weeks.  These
were his friends of 3 years!

It is my observation that male friendships tend to be competitive.  This makes
it difficult to share with each other because sharing emotions involves
sharing weaknesses.  Many men don't admit their weaknesses easily.