Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site wivax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!wivax!hilliard 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.