Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site hao.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!woods From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg "Bucket" Woods) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: friends and intimacy Message-ID: <1202@hao.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 16:35:58 EDT Article-I.D.: hao.1202 Posted: Wed Oct 10 16:35:58 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Oct-84 05:21:11 EDT References: <584@pucc-i> <183@tellab2.UUCP> Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO Lines: 34 This recent discussion of platonic relationships with MOTOS's hits very close to home with me. I find that, for me at least (and several of my friends that I have brought the subject up with), platonic relationships with women are very difficult to maintain when my sexual needs are not being met elsewhere. This is because those women that I am very friendly and close with are *exactly* the ones I want to become sexual with. When the sexual feeling is not returned, the relationship becomes frustrating and a negative experience. I've been told that I'm somewhat abnormal in this regard, because for me sexual attraction has almost nothing to do with *physical* attractiveness; for me it is primarily emotional. Most people talk with vague and meaningless phrases like "chemistry" when they speak of sexual attraction; for me there's no big mystery. I always know why I am attracted to a particular woman; for the same reasons that attract me to her as a friend, the same reasons that make me "like" her also make me "lust" for her. This causes me lots and lots of problems, for it is precisely when I *don't* have a lover that I *need* my close friends the most. It is a vicious circle. It is almost impossible for me to "cry on her shoulder" without feeling sexually attracted. This is a "bad thing", I can see, because a certain class of relationships is totally out of my reach, unless I have a current lover. Right now, for example, after having apparently been dumped for the second time this year (but that's another story), I could really use a shoulder to cry on. Are my friends and I weird, or do some of you other guys feel this too? How about the women? I've always believed that platonic relationships are desired more often by women than by men, but clearly I am prejudiced. --Greg -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!stcvax | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!stcvax} !hao!woods "Will we leave this place an empty stone?"