Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!auvm!ISL1!CHRISTOPHER.YOUNG From: Christopher.Young@ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet Subject: Re: couples Message-ID: <9002122132.AA04141@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> Date: 12 Feb 90 20:29:53 GMT Sender: Gaynet Distribution List Reply-To: gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Lines: 44 Approved: NETNEWS@AUVM Gateway X-To: gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU > thanks for you input. true these guidelines should work for >allcouples in relationship. i am wanting a male/male couple > who has been together 5+ years to speak up and share with us. > > so far no responders !! are they not on this net ? do they > have nothing to share ? could they just say "ditto" to your > response ? > this silence reinforces my personal observation that > such couples are extremely rare or do not share with others. This net is hardly a scientific sampling. Nor can it be said with any certainity that it accurately reflects the gay community in general. Indeed, most people (or at least this is my impression) are undergrads. If in fact this hypothesis is true, then the likelyhood of couples who have been together for >= 5 years in considerably less than in the population at large (as would also be the case with heterosexual couples), since they have probably had less time to actually establish a relationship. Indeed, for most undergrads, they would have had to have started their relationship in high school if they are a senior (or freshman year if they are a super-senior) in order to have had a relationship of 5 years duration. It had been my personal experience to have known a number of couples who have been together from 5 to 15 years. These were mostly in Davis, California. Two couples were grad students in plant science related fields. The others, except one, were not affiliated with the university at all. None used computers except to run statistics or do word processing. Some of these couples interacted with the community more than others did. I think, if I understand what you mean when you say "..do not share with others", you are correct in the observation that gay couples do not often partake in the social activities of the lesgay community at large. This has been my observation as well. There are good reasons for this, too. Among them are that the gay male part of the community (much more so than the lesbian part) has tended to be quite oriented towards singles males; there is little or no support for gay couples. Frequently, there are people trying to horn in on other people's relationships. In other words, coupling has had a difficult time even in the gay male part of our community in gaining "legitimacy", not to mention in society at large. People also seem to have a tendency to tell other people how to run their relationships, and I think that gets annoying after a while. Finally, there is a natural tendency for couples,a lesgay or straight, to draw back some anyway just because there are things to do as a couple that don't include everybody else (like setting up a home). -- Chris.