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From: hilliard@wivax.UUCP (Lisa Hilliard)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: friends and intimacy
Message-ID: <20098@wivax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Oct-84 20:50:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: wivax.20098
Posted: Thu Oct 11 20:50:12 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 02:48:30 EDT
References: <584@pucc-i>
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 64

> 
> < eat this, you insect >
> 
> 	Why is it that people can't be intimate and still be friends??
> I have heard this from female friends of mine who I have had an interest
> in being 'more than friends' with.  I think *I* could still be friends with
> someone and be intimate.  Any comments?


The following is to be taken by in spirit, not necessarilly by letter.


______________________________________________________________________

Why can't friends by lovers?  Good question.  There are basic differences
we learn somewhere about behavior with friends and behavior with lovers.
With friends, we know how to laugh, and argue, and talk, and walk, and ignore,
and include.  We know how to enjoy that person, and be *independent* too.
With lovers, we know how to laugh, and argue, etc.  but in different tones
and attitudes than with friends.  We know how to be *dependent* on the other
person and make the lives intertwined.  

Enter a friend who has become a lover.  Do I act independent?  Do I try and
intertwine our lives?  What does the other want from this?  When we were 
friends, I really did not have to worry about what the other person wanted
and expected.  But as a lover, has this friends thoughts and expectations 
changed?  Good gosh! Have mine?  

New territory comes up.  Untested waters.  There are no role models from
our parents or relatives, or stories that tell us how to care for a friend
who is a lover, nor how to gage our expectations or theirs.

So the two friends, who have now become intimate, try to figure it out
themselves.  First they remain aloof.  No intertwining, keep those 
independent lives.  But that wears on one's sense and understanding of
love.  Sometimes it is hard getting up the next morning, with friend/lover
gone, to still feel fresh and alive and happy.  Sometimes, that traditional
dependent lover relationship that provided (afterwards and much later) 
hugs and smiles that say "hey you are alright and we are alright" are
really important.  Friends/lovers who stay independent miss out on 
this kind of perk.

So the two friends/lovers try becoming a little more dependent.  
They start to consider the other and the two, and plan their times a 
little more dependently.  Soon, it is just as if they were just lovers,
not friend/lovers.  This is probably startling since it is not what either
of them started out wanting.  If they still don't want it something has
to change.

Well, you say, why don't they stay independent and so what on the little
dependent perks.  Do we really need them?  Perhaps not, but I have found
ignoring those feelings that tell me I need them, makes more more unemotional,
more detached from life in general.  If something inside says I need the
security of a dependent relationship, but outside I say "no, no, silly self,
you can do it alone", I start to hear less and less of my inner self.

Why can't friends be lovers?   Because we don't know how to do that yet.
We were never shown.  And because the strongest characteristic of intimacy
is dependence and inter-twining of two lives.  A stronger dependence
than friends usually share.  If we choose to have intimate/friends, we
may have to choose to put aside the strong dependence involved with being
intimate.  And put aside parts of our inner selves that still feel somewhat
insecure in this new territory.