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From: rance@cornell.UUCP (W. Rance Cleaveland)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Friendship before/after SOship
Message-ID: <2430@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Jun-85 11:59:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: cornell.2430
Posted: Wed Jun 12 11:59:05 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Jun-85 02:36:23 EDT
References: <681@udenva.UUCP> <1560059@acf4.UUCP> <1264@houxm.UUCP> <244@azure.UUCP> <1323@hammer.UUCP>
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 30

> Why is everyone so afraid of hurting friendships with romance?
> What percentage of breakups are unfriendly?  I can't imagine
> not remaining friends with an SO after a breakup.  If you like
> a person as a friend, then add loving them as an SO, why should
> the liking-them-as-a-friend go away if they don't work out as an SO?
> 
> A lot of people on the net seem to feel this way, so can someone
> explain it?
> 
> Snoopy

Having had XSO's which have remained friends and XSO's which haven't, I
think I can explain it this way.  First of all, I don't think love is
something which you "add on" to liking someone; it is rather an inten-
sification of same, and it tends to leave you emotionally vulnerable to
the other person.  No matter what the tone of the breakup, if you are in
fact emotionally vulnerable to another person the tension caused by the
breakup can prompt you to retreat from the other person as an act of self-
preservation.  How far you retreat of course determines how your relation-
ship stands after the split; some people can retreat part-way and resume
the friendship as it stood before romance entered into the picture, while
others must retreat all the way and "blow off" the other person.  I think
that more people fit into the latter category than the former, if only 
because it's hard to remember how you felt about someone before you became
emotionally attached and therefore "safer" not to have anything to do with
them.

Quite a mess, eh?

Rance Cleaveland