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From: gagen@bgsuvax.UUCP (kathleen gagen)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Re: Love before or after attraction?
Message-ID: <256@bgsuvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Oct-86 20:16:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: bgsuvax.256
Posted: Thu Oct  9 20:16:49 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Oct-86 06:52:03 EDT
References: <363@oracle.fluke.UUCP> <207@hrcca.UUCP>
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Organization: Bowling Green State University,OH
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Tom Chapin writes

> 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.
> 
I used to think that this was  the case.  However, I have come to feel that, t
at least for me, it is not alway so.  
> 
> 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
> the appearance of it, and sometimes notoriety.
> 

  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.
> 
> > 	  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.
> 
> 
> 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.
> 

Why run like hell?  It seems to me that it is a terriffic complement to know
that another person...especially a person whom one  thinks highly of... would
like to have more of a relationship. 

I can't speak for anyone else, but in this limetime I have not known so many
people whom I truely charish that I can afford the luxury of throwing 
them away.  Why?...Simple because they refuse to fit into the neat little
boxes that I might choose to construct for them.  Is it not better to bring the
situation into the light of day and discuss it.

In my life I've been on both sides of the situation.  I've been rejected.
That's the price that one has to pay upon occassion for taking risks.  I'll
be the first to admit that it hurts like hell.  There have also been occassions
when I have been in the unfortunate position of having to tell a person whom
I value  that I was unable to give what was desired.  In some ways, the
latter situation is even more uncomfortable.  In both cases, the person 
in question was important to me. Therefore, I made  working things out
a priority. It wasn't easy.  But...then, nothing worthwile is.

A real friend is the most valuable thing in the world.  Lovers can drift into
and out of one's life.  But a friend is a friend forever.  A friend knows
everything about you and likes you anyway.  A REAL friend is a real find.

> 
> ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
> 		I love as one ought to love - desperately
> 						- Mlle de Lespinasse
> 
 What kind of love is this?  Is not part of the problem the English language?
 When we speak of love do we mean :
        
        friendship?
        infatuation?
        lust?

Or do we mean that gentle carring in which there is no difference between
the beloved and the self.  This indeed is rare.  

Kathi Gagen