From: julie@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Julie Wright)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Attraction -> Acquiantance or vice versa?
Date: 11 Dec 92 23:01:33 GMT
	<1992Dec11.064411.21883@mikejag.wimsey.bc.ca>
	<1992Dec11.171412.2795@cbnewsk.cb.att.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Cultural Elite

krw@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (keith.r.smith) writes:

>In article <1992Dec11.064411.21883@mikejag.wimsey.bc.ca> pally@mikejag.wimsey.bc.ca (Pally Hoffstein) writes:

>>I've had many good women friends whose company I've enjoyed as friends and as
>>nothing more than that. Some I've been attracted to, some I haven't. They're
>>just women I've liked spending time with, often a lot of time.

>>You've never had close women friends that you've not been attracted to but
>>just spent time with as friends? If so that's too bad. You might be missing
>>the opportunities for some good company. And if you spend time with nice and
>>fun intelligent women that you're not attracted to, just wait and you'll
>>probably find yourself becoming attracted to some of them.

Reverse the male/female stuff above and this would apply to me too.

>Either I am attracted to then straight-away, and therefore spend time with
>them, _or_ I meet them by some happenstance and continue to "cross paths"
>with them by coincidence, and somewhere in there I decide that they are
>either sexy as hell or that they piss me off.  

_All_ the ones who don't piss you off are not just mildly sexy, not even
just sexy, but "sexy as hell"?  So much so that it's torture to be around
them if they don't go out with you (see below)?  I think that's kind
of weird, myself.  And don't you ever seek them out because you get
along in more or less the same ways you might get along with your male
friends, however that is?  

>If we each decide that the
>other is "sexy as hell", no problem.  If it is a "unilateral attraction,
>then, for the person with the attraction, it is pure torture to spend loads
>of time with the one who does not have the attraction.

I don't think it's always that clearcut.  I've been in friendships where
each of us thought the other was "sexy as hell" but we would never have
slept together because it would hurt someone(s) (maybe us), or because
we worked together, or something.  Other times I've thought male friends
were sexy as hell and haven't known whether they felt the same way about
me.  Either way, I've known we weren't going to get involved and I've accepted
that and don't really mind.  I find that the "pure torture" times come
in for me only when there's some ambiguity -- when I don't really know
if I want to go out with him, and if I do I don't know if he'd go for
it, and if he wouldn't now, would he later?, etc., so that I never can
bring myself to deal with the situation very well.  Even these ambiguous
situations often allow for rewarding friendships sometimes, though.

In case you're going to say it's a male/female difference, I know damn well
some of my male friends have been attracted to me and have gotten a lot
out of our friendships; I usually was attracted to them too, but
often we never did anything about it because of other circumstances.
If they're neat enough, I'll deal with it so we can hang out together.  
(Sometimes I've suspected that unrelieved sexual tension really can help
as the glue for a friendship, actually.  What the hell, it may as well
be good for something.)

---Julie

-- 
%  I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully it      %
%  goes to pieces, whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance  %
%  aimed in a fancied direction I get through with no trouble.       %
%                      --- John Steinbeck (_Travels with Charley_)   %
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