From: Carl.Rosenberg@p4.f22.n140.z1.fidonet.org (Carl Rosenberg)
Newsgroups: alt.recovery
Subject: coping with being "just a friend"
Date: 6 Apr 92 00:00:56 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:140/22.4 - Benden Weyr, Saskatoon Sask


This weekend I had "just a friend" visit me for the weekend.  I'm a man and my 
friend is a woman.   Now just 4 hours after she has left I'm an emotional 
basketcase - or so it seems.  It's not that I'm a basketcase it's just that I'm 
feeling feelings that I'm afraid to acknowledge.  

I broke up with my girlfriend 11 months ago and when that happened I decided to 
take a year off - wether I needed it or not! :-)   Well I needed it all right! 
and more too I bet!  

This weekend was wonderful and awful at the same time.  We went exploring, we 
talked a lot, we just sat around and enjoyed each other's company, we were NOT 
intimate sexually - we were, as I said before, "just friends."  What was not so 
great was that through our discussions I said more than I should of too her.  
For example, I shared some of my critisisms that I had of other people with her. 
Now in my opinion there are two reasons why I should have kept my mouth shut:

a) She is a friend, not a real soul-close friend, and we don't know each other 
enough to be confiding on that level, In other words, she hasn't gained my 
complete confidence  and 
b) I'm still messed up by the fact the I have these actually quite negative 
attitudes and I should be working on myself, not looking for fault in others.

thus, I'm feeling disapointment in myself as well.

The feelings I'm afraid to acknowledge is that of infatuation. I've gone through    
this before, when I loose sight of the humanity of a woman and idolizer her and 
all I want to do is marry her.  She's a wonderful person and I'm honored to be 
her friend and I hope she thinks likewise. But by the end of the weekend I was 
quickly loosing my senses - it seemed that everything she said was really neat 
and it matched my attitudes or the attitudes I try to maintain and this all 
boiled down to - wow! This REALLY attracts me!  This added with her physical 
presence - she's not shabby to look at - has reignited my romantic fancies.

What is confusing to me, is the fact that she drove 4 hours one way to be with 
me this weekend.  Now if I were going to visit someone that was 4 hours away I'd 
be pretty damn interested in them.  I've gone that far to visit friends yes, but 
I've known them for awile longer than I've known her and if they are male then 
the dynamics are very different - no sexual overtones whatsoever.  I've had a 
male friend come and visit me out here and that was great but there was no 
confusion over the status of our relationship, with this female friend I'm 
downright confused.  I'm really glad that my 1 year rule (and she knows about it 
too - so I can't break the rule) was there to keep me from doing anything too 
stupid, but I'm already afraid for myself at the end of the month when I'm 
"free". 

Thanks for listening, please post your experiences or comments but no advice 
giving please!

C.R.
 
 




--  
Carl Rosenberg - via FidoNet node 1:140/22
UUCP: ...!access.usask.ca!weyr!22.4!Carl.Rosenberg
Domain: Carl.Rosenberg@p4.f22.n140.z1.fidonet.org
Standard Disclaimers Apply...