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From: beth@gymble.UUCP (Beth Katz)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Living with an SO
Message-ID: <303@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 31-Aug-85 19:43:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.303
Posted: Sat Aug 31 19:43:17 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Sep-85 04:26:48 EDT
References: <304@cuuxa.UUCP> <249@whuts.UUCP>
Reply-To: beth@gymble.UUCP (Beth Katz)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 39

Tom Frye writes:
>> Better to live alone first mayhaps. If you can do that, you
>> probably won't come as near being a burr under someone elses saddle.
Andy Cohill writes:
>Bingo! I had forgotten this first. At the risk of receiving some 
>nuclear powered flames, I am going to make a generalization of
>historic proportions.
>
>NEVER get involved with a person that has not lived at least a 
>year by themselves, in their won apartment, without financial
>support from other sources (like parents).

I write:
I agree wholeheartedly with both of these gentlemen.  Of course,
there will be exceptions, but I have seen three people VERY close
to me (my parents and my sister) get divorced recently.  Until
my mother moved to Colorado last January, she had never lived on
her own.  Oh, she had raised four kids (my father was away a lot
in the military), but she had never really been on her own.  I
find that she is going through a lot of the growing up and being
her own person things that I've gone through recently (and doing
quite well).  My father isn't coping quite as well, but he doing
okay.  They are like high school kids free to do their own things,
but they can afford do do some really nice things.  Boats, new houses,
new cars.  My sister was divorced after two years partly because
her husband depended on her for all his emotional and financial
needs. Neither of them had lived on their own before they married.

While living alone may make one somewhat intolerant, it also
tends to make one self-reliant.  Seeing the SO in their private
environs would tell me what to expect about their housekeeping.

Of course, there will be exceptions.  But I wouldn't want to
marry someone who hadn't lived on their own for a reasonable
amount of time (a year seems about right).  But then again, I
wouldn't marry someone I hadn't been to bed with (along with
all that implies).  
			awaiting the flames,
People are people too.			Beth Katz