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From: tjc@hrcca.UUCP (Thomas J. Chapin)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Love before or after attraction?
Message-ID: <207@hrcca.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-Oct-86 19:37:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: hrcca.207
Posted: Sun Oct  5 19:37:33 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Oct-86 03:41:55 EDT
References: <363@oracle.fluke.UUCP>
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Organization: AT&T Resource Management, HRCC - Lisle, Il
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> ur-cvsvax!gary writes:
>        >a) what is it that happens most often to people (male and female). 
>           
> 	  I personally have only experienced falling in love first and then 
> 	  being sexually attracted to that person.  

Hmm, terminology...  For me, sexual attraction and, let's say,
infatuation cannot be separated as first and next.  Falling in love is a
mutual, and not necessarily an immediate process.

>       
> 	  On the other hand, I have been physically and sexually attracted to
> 	  a few individuals and have gone as far as becoming close friends but,
> 	  so far they have never developed into "love".

My experience has been that friendship and sexuality are not very
closely connected, in fact the opposite.  If a friendship is going to
move to love, the sexuality and the rest were there from the beginning,
but put aside for whatever reasons.

> 
>        >2) Many women, especially on the net, seem to claim that
>        >superficial looks are not that important to them. Its the inner man
>        >that counts more (whereas the converse often seems to be true of
>        >men). If women are more often attracted to the "inner man" what is
>        >it about him that they're looking for? 

Sigh... once again, in my own experiences, there are two sorts of women
who look at the inner man rather than looks.  Those who have the ideal
but don't carry it out in reality, and those who do.  Those who do carry
it out are long married and can be expected to stay that way for longer
than you or I can wait.  Oh yeah, superficial looks can include not only
height, physique, features, and "studliness", but also style, wealth or
the appearance of it, and sometimes notoriety.

Now that I've sufficiently angered those women looking for an excuse to
be so, I should mention that men are quite obviously no better, and I
don't claim any better for myself.  I can't be sexually attracted to
someone I don't find physically attractive, and I can't move from
friendship to love without a sufficient physical attraction.  So it
goes.

> 	>3) If a woman refuses to sleep with you, after a relationship has
> 	>started, and there are feelings there, but she doesnt want you to
> 	>leave, what do you do? I tried to be a good guy, understanding and
> 	>such, and to hang on until she changed. All she did was change
> 	>partners. 
> 
> 	  Just because you are attracted to someone "shouldn't" (I put emphasis 
> 	  on this word because I realize that sometimes things are easier said 
> 	  than done.) mean that you can't have a good friendship with that 
> 	  person because they didn't have the same feelings as you.

Luckily, I have developed the ability to move myself into friendship-only 
mode when confronted with women whom I find attractive but taken.  But I
have never been able to do that with those who have been ambivalent or
ambiguous about their status.  I can easily understand the intense
frustration that comes from someone refusing to commit themselves one
way or the other.

> 	
> 	>There have been girls that I've been out with, perfectly nice, who just
>         >didn't do anything for me. 
> 
> 	  Do you feel that you could be good friends with these girls?  Or can
> 	  you only associate with women you want to go to bed with?  This is
> 	  not a facetious question.  I have known men who have admitted this
> 	  very thing.  I am curious to see if it is more common than I would
> 	  hope. POLL TIME!!

That's not exactly how it works...  Knowing my own agony when I am
rejected by someone I desperately desire, I feel overwhelming guilt at
putting someone else through the same when the situations are reversed.
And although they are sometimes the best of people whom I would love to
have as friends, when even the possibility arises that they may want
what I cannot give, I take the coward's way out and run like hell.
Only in a few instances with women of great openness, honesty, and
courage (much more than I) have I been able to have a friendship,
knowing that more would have been wanted.

> 	
> 	>Other girls seem to spark something within me and I just can't seem to 
> 	>figure out exactly what the right combination is.
>           
> 	  I would have to say that this is true of me as well.  I don't think
> 	  that anyone can make a list and check through it with each potential 
> 	  they meet.  Sometimes, a person can grow on you but, I would say that
> 	  on the average, it is either there or it isn't.
> 
>           LA Wilder

Yup, it is or it isn't.  The problem is when one is and the other isn't.

-- 
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Tom Chapin  					{ihnp4,allegra}!hrcca!tjc

		I love as one ought to love - desperately
						- Mlle de Lespinasse

	   Amor meus, pondus meum: illo feror, quocumque feror.
						- Augustine