From: taina@cs.Helsinki.FI (Juha Taina)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Exactly what I mean by "unattached"...
Date: 16 Aug 92 19:40:31 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki, Finland

>There seems to be *something* which distinguishes friendship and romance.
>If this were not the case, then every friend one had which was of the
>appropriate sex would be considered a romantic partner.  Since this is not
>the case in Real Life (tm), the conclusion must be that friendship and
>romance are different things (even if they overlap).

So far so good.

>Now, most of the women I've talked to (yes, yes, I know there may be some
>exceptions to this on the net.  I'm talking about women I've talked to
>in person) seem to think that it would be ideal to make friends with
>someone first, *then* start a romance after the friendship is firmly
>established.  Presumably, of course, to determine compatibility issues
>and all that.


Could it be that women in general tend to consider several aspects
before they want to get closer?  Allright, compatiblity is part of it
but there's more.  I think that a lot of women want to make sure that
they are comfortable with being in a relationship.  Men move faster
and perhaps forget their failures easier while women don't start a
relationship fast but once they are in it the possible failure hurts
them more.  I don't know.

>But I discovered that in Real Life (tm), it doesn't work like that.  Instead,
>what happens is that I make friends with them, the friendship is established,
>and then they say that they couldn't even conceive of a romance with me
>because I'm too much like a brother to them.  I also discovered, in talking
>to my male friends, that they had experienced *exactly* the same thing.

Sounds like a nice guy [tm] syndrome.  There has to be some attraction
over a platonic friendship, and the women you have met don't have it.
Still, this certainly doesn't mean that *every* woman would lack the
attraction.  And the attraction might come later too.

>Well, it took a few instances of this to cause me to realize that the
>approach I had been taking, which was directly derived from what these
>women *claimed* they preferred, was all wrong.  That is, starting off
>with a friendship is, if the friendship is allowed to develop sufficiently,
>the Wrong Answer (tm).  And this can mean only one thing: that the claims
>that were originally made were *bogus*!

Now our opinions differ. You can't judge everyone from the people that
you have met so far.  It's possible that you'll meet someone who will
be immediately attracted to you.  It's possible that you'll meet (or
have already met) someone who will be attracted to you once she knows
you better.  If a woman says that she couldn't date you because you
are like a brother to her, it doesn't mean that every woman would say
so or even consider you as a brother. We all have opinions and wishes
and everyone should respect them.  If she says that she wants to be
friends only then she means it too.

>That's why I say that if the friendship is the *only* thing that's going on,
>i.e. a romance isn't developing in parallel, then eventually the romance
>will be almost impossible to develop (due to the Sibling Effect (tm)  :-).

Disagreed again.  See my previous paragraphs.
  
>Nowadays, of course, if some woman claims that she prefers to develop
>romance from friendship, my bogosity meter goes off.  It may be true in
>her case, of course, but I have no way of knowing that unless I actually
>see it happen, and given my experience, I'll either reserve judgement or
>believe that the claim is probably bogus, depending on the age of the
>person I'm talking to (there seems to be some correlation between a person's
>age and how in touch with themselves they are).

In other words, you want to know her better first.

>>>For the purposes of starting a romance, friendship by itself is a deadly
>>>thing, or so it seems.
>>
>>As it's stated before, It works both ways. Personally I'd rather date
>>someone I know than a total stranger.

>Well, again, this is what is *claimed*.  This *doesn't* seem to be what
>happens in practice.

I'm a living proof that it happens in practice.

>I don't care what people claim.  I care about what they actually *do*,
>because *that's* what I ultimately have to deal with in Real Life (tm).

That's true.  The question is, do you know what people actually do?

Perhaps we should ask what others think.  Is it possible to date a
friend or not?  Reply me via email and I'll summarize later.

Juha
-- 
Juha Taina | taina@cs.helsinki.fi | Phone: +358-0-708-4247